7H 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



New Chemical Elements. We are in- 

 debted to Professor H. Carrington Bolton 



for the following interesting table of new 

 elements announced since 1877: 



Forest Devastation in Japan. We are 



permitted to publish the following extract 

 from a private letter from Dr. Heinrich 

 Mayr, who is now in Japan, in the course of 

 a journey round the world : " The disap- 

 pointment in regard to forests in Japan 

 which I experienced was keen. The Japan- 

 ese have sent out many students to Europe 

 to study forestry, and have, therefore, the 

 reputation of possessing forests ; but noth- 

 ing of that: the mountains are bare, and 

 the forests burned down, just as they are 

 in the eastern part of the Rocky Mountains. 



Americans might take a fearful warning in 

 regard to the future prospect of their great 

 West ; only the landscape will be still more 

 desolate there, because the land is so di- 

 vided into small holdings that no forest will 

 be raised. Volcanic eruptions in Japan 

 have buried, a hundred or more years ago, 

 whole forests of " Sooghec," as the Japan- 

 ese call their species of Sequoia. They are 

 again dug up, and people wonder at their 

 6ize, and the fine grain of the wood that has 

 become gray, for which enormous sums 

 are paid for cabinet-work ; but they are not 



