THE REMEDIES OF NATURE. 187 



often be found in the neighborhood of Hastings, derived from the 

 wealden formation. 



The curious so-called mineral beekite is really coral or shelly mat- 

 ter which has been replaced by silica. Researches into the behavior 

 of the colloid form of silica, already spoken of, have shown how in 

 many instances large deposits of silica, such as the flinty bands of the 

 cretaceous formation, may have originated. Mr. Church's experiments, 

 made some years since, proved that the minutest j^article of carbonate 

 of lime was sufficient to transform the pure aqueous solution of silica 

 into the solid state in the course of a few minutes ; and he was able, 

 by the infiltration of silica in solution, to replace almost entirely the 

 carbonate of lime in recent coral by silica, producing by this means 

 what may be looked upon as a kind of artificial beekite. Thus in the 

 slower, perhaps, but mighty chemistry of nature, marvelous reactions 

 may have taken place, giving rise to some of the multitudinous forms 

 in which silica presents itself to the mineralogical student. Science- 

 Gossij). 



-*- 



THE REMEDIES OF NATURE. 



By FELIX L. OSWALD, M. D. 

 CONSUMPTION (Concluded). 



THE MOUNTAIN-CUBE. 



CARBONIC acid, the lung-poisoning residuum of respiration and 

 combustion, is heavier than the atmospheric air, and accumulates 

 in low places in wells, in cellars, in deep, narrow valleys, etc. and 

 often mingles with the malarious exhalations of low, swampy plains. 

 On very high mountains, on the other hand, the air becomes too rare- 

 fied to be breathed with impunity. It accelerates the respiratory pro- 

 cess, as the amount of air inhaled at one inspiration does not contain 

 oxygen enough to supply the wants of the organism at the ordinary 

 rate of breathing, and is therefore especially distressing to diseased 

 (wasted) lungs, whose functions are already abnormally quickened, 

 and can not be further stimulated without overstraining their mech- 

 anism. 



In the temperate zone, the purest and at the same time most respir- 

 able air is found at an elevation of about four thousand feet above 

 the level of the sea, an altitude corresponding to the midway ter- 

 races of the European Alps and the average summit-regions of our 

 Southern Alleghanies. The broad table-lands of the Cumberland 

 Range are several hundred feet above the dust-* and-mosquito level. 



* While the treeless plateaus of the Pacific slope are in a chronic state of sand hazi- 

 ness. In Southern Colorado, too, every high wind shrouds the mountains in whirls of a 

 kind of sand-dust that can be felt under the eyelids and between the teeth. 



