POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



425 



Philadelphia, and fifteen miles north of the 

 Maryland border. It lies in the midst of 

 mica schists, presumably Archaean, in what 

 was called the middle gneissic belt by H. D. 

 Rogers, and the Georgetown series by Persi- 

 for Frazer. This formation is quite narrow 

 in the vicinity of the mine, and pinches out 

 to the westward, from the coming in of the 

 limestone on the north and south sides. The 

 dark, basic rock with which the ore is asso- 

 ciated forms a lenticular mass of rock, which 

 consists most largely of green secondary 

 hornblende, and often shows almost nothing 

 else than this mineral. It is called horn- 

 blende at the mine, and is best described by 

 the word amphibolite as a rock name. The 

 pyrrhotite lens on Anthony's Nose, near 

 Peekskill, on the Hudson, is quite different 

 in its geological relations from the Gap mine. 

 It is situated on the northern side of the 

 mountain, about seven hundred feet above 

 tide water, and three miles from Highlands 

 Station. The general geology consists of the 

 usual gneisses of these old formations. Sev- 

 eral well-known iron mines lie about twenty 

 miles northeast. The ore bed was opened 

 shortly after the war, when it was known as 

 the Phillips Mine, and was operated for ten 

 or fifteen years, but for sulphur fumes, and 

 not for its metallic contents, which proved 

 too low for profit. Other minor nickel-bear- 

 ing beds have been noticed along the Hud- 

 son. Openings for nickel in gneiss have 

 also been made at Litchfield, Conn. ; at Dra- 

 cut, near Lowell, Mass. ; and perhaps at other 

 points. The geological relations seem to be 

 practically the same as those along the 

 Hudson. These ores and the formations in 

 which they occur have been fully described 

 in a paper of the Geological Department of 

 Columbia College, by J. F. Kemp, in the 

 light of Prof. Vogt's views of the igneous 

 origin of the ores. 



The Former Antillean Continent. The 



theory of a former kind of continental exten- 

 sion the Antillean continent which united 

 the West Indies to the mainland, excluding 

 the Atlantic waters and admitting the Pa- 

 cific waters into the Mexican Gulf and the 

 Caribbean Sea, has been examined in the 

 light of the geographical and geological evi- 

 dences by J. W. Spencer, who has attempted 

 to restore the topography of the submerged 



continent and to set forth the geomorphic 

 evidence that the drowned valleys of the At- 

 lantic coasts are the valleys of former lands 

 now depressed beneath the sea. These val- 

 leys or fiords are very numerous, and many 

 of them are traceable to depths of more than 

 two miles along the Atlantic, Gulf, and Ca- 

 ribbean coasts. The measurements of them 

 give data for calculating the late elevation 

 of the region. From the application of the 

 continental movements it becomes apparent 

 that the mainland stood as high as the fiords 

 are deep, less some correction for unequal 

 subsidence of the continental region. Ac- 

 cordingly, it is concluded that the Antillean 

 bridge stood at from one and a half to two 

 and a half miles above the present altitudes 

 of the plains that now form the islands, with 

 their mountains relatively somewhat lower 

 than at present. The formations out of 

 which the valleys are excavated belong 

 mostly to the more recent geological periods, 

 and are generally but little disturbed. From 

 the determination of their age and that of 

 the materials filling the buried valleys, it 

 has been found that there were two epochs 

 of great elevation, namely, in the Pleiocence 

 and in the Pleistocene periods. Between 

 these there was a subsidence of such depth as 

 to drown the continental coastal plains, and 

 reduce the West Indian region to very small 

 islands, with (probably) a shallow connection 

 between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. 



The Gothenbnrg System. What is called 

 the Gothenburg system of regulating the sale 

 of intoxicating liquors is undergoing fierce 

 criticism in England, where its adoption is 

 favored by the Public-House Reform Asso- 

 ciation, founded by the Bishop of Chester. 

 Under this system the traffic is made a con- 

 cern of the community, and is carried on in 

 its behalf by a company to which it is commit- 

 ted under conditions. The principles of the 

 theory of popular control of the liquor traffic 

 are summarized by the Rev. F. S. McC. Ben- 

 nett, Honorary Secretary of the Public-House 

 Reform Association, as being that licenses, 

 though they have been granted for years to 

 private persons and have been renewed with 

 such regularity as to give them a marketable 

 value, are essentially local public property, 

 and the community, while bound to recog- 

 nize the equitable claims of those whom it 



