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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



winter of 1746 water was frozen solid in the 

 bouses at Charleston, South Carolina. In 

 1748 and 1768 the Mississippi River at New 

 Orleans was frozen from thirty to forty feet 

 from the shores. In 1823 skating was pos- 

 sible on all the standing water in and around 

 Mobile. In 1827-'28 the ground in Ala- 

 bama, Georgia, and South Carolina, w r as 

 frozen hard from December till March. A 

 flood in the lower Mississippi and a " fear- 

 ful hurricane " on the Gulf coast were re- 

 corded in 1723 ; another destructive hurri- 

 cane in 1732 ; and overflows of the lower 

 Mississippi from January till June, 1735 ; 

 after which came a long drought, and a 

 lower river than had ever been known. In 

 a hurricane at Dauphin Island, in Septem- 

 ber, 1740, a four-pounder cannon was moved 

 by the wind to eighteen feet from where it 

 had been lying. Other hurricanes of ex- 

 treme fury were recorded in October, 1778 ; 

 August, 1779; August, 1780; and August, 

 1781. In the last year the Mississippi at 

 New Orleans, the Attakapas, and the Ope- 

 lousas, were higher than ever before known. 

 The Mississippi at St. Louis was equally 

 high in the flood of 1785 and in July, 1884, 

 and it reached its highest recorded flood in 

 1844. The flood of the Ohio River in 1832 

 was not exceeded till 1883. The year 1840 

 was one of almost continued drought in 

 Alabama and Mississippi, and prayer-meet- 

 ings were held in view of the apprehended 

 famine. These are only a few of the in- 

 stances of remarkable phenomena, compar- 

 able to those that now attract attention, 

 of which mention is made in Captain Gard- 

 ner's record. 



Coal-Waste as a Manure. Mr. J. A. 



Price, of Scranton, Pennsylvania, recom- 

 mends the use of culm, or coal-waste, in ag- 

 riculture, by reducing it to dust and apply- 

 ing it to land, to darken the color of the 

 soil, produce porosity, and stimulate plant- 

 life. His opinion that benefits will be de- 

 rived from this application is confirmed by 

 the experiments he has made. A dark color 

 of the soil is usually associated with fertil- 

 ity, and with reason, for it promotes the ab- 

 sorption of heat and thus makes the soil 

 warmer and prolongs the season of freedom 

 from frost at both ends. Mr. Price's ob- 

 servations of the effect of colors on soils 



side by side, and otherwise precisely alike, 

 showed that a vigorous existence was main- 

 tained on a soil darkened by waste-coal, 

 greatly in excess of that of the adjoining 

 strip which was left in its original condition. 

 So in the quality of porosity, in a soil treated 

 as the author recommends a blue clay or 

 hard pan taken from an excavation and 

 fertilized with organic manures it was found 

 that greater porosity as well as improved 

 color was given, and the two sections, 

 treated and untreated, exhibited all the pe. 

 culiar features of two different soils. The 

 corn upon the culm charged section ex- 

 hibited a vigor of growth of tap and stay 

 roots and of stalk and ear that surprisingly 

 surpassed that of the other section. This 

 result has been maintained through several 

 plantings ; and similar effects were observed 

 with Lima beans. Since coal contains near- 

 ly all of the substances requisite for the 

 healthy growth of plants, it is reasonable 

 to suppose that its application will have the 

 effect, as it is gradually decomposed by 

 chemical action, of a positive manure. This 

 supposition has also been confirmed by the 

 experiments. The fertilizing results of this 

 kind begin to reveal themselves in the sec- 

 ond year. 



The Irrawaddy River. One of the largest 

 rivers in the world is the Irrawaddy, and it is 

 surrounded with a great mystery as to where 

 is its source. The sea-front of its delta 

 extends over about one hundred and fifty 

 miles, with nine or ten mouths distributed 

 over the space. The average annual dis- 

 charge is about 521,794,000,000 of cubic 

 yards, very nearly four fifths of that of the 

 Mississippi River. But, while the Missis- 

 sippi discharges pretty evenly all the year 

 round, the Irrawaddy sends down three 

 fourths of its total in the three months, July, 

 August, and September, or in other words its 

 monthly flood average is more than twice 

 as great as that of the Mississippi. The 

 extreme flood discharge of the Irrawaddy for 

 one day in 1817 was at the rate of nearly 

 2,000,000 cubic feet per second, while the 

 lowest known discharge occurred in the 

 same year, and may be given in round num- 

 bers as 50,000 cubic feet per second, or one 

 fortieth of the flood discharge. The high- 

 est flood discharge in one day is fifty per cent 



