864 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



west to the Ohio River near Iligginsport. 

 "Cincinnati was completely enveloped by 

 ice during the glacial period, and extensive 

 glacial deposits exist in the northern part of 

 Campbell and Boone Counties, Kentucky, 

 and near Aurora, in Dearborn County, Indi- 

 ana." 



The London " Academy " says that " a 

 duel took place the other day at Pesth be- 

 tween two noblemen, one a son of Count 

 Andrassy, which arose out of a quarrel about 

 the truth of Darwanism. The supporter of 

 Darwinism, we regret to hear, was seriously 

 wounded." From which we may conclude 

 that his opponent now believes in the doc- 

 trine of the " survival of the fittest." 



Dr. A. A. Julien, of Columbia College, in 

 a paper on the " Decay of Building-Stones," 

 read before the New York Academy of Sci- 

 ence, remarked that the principle that stones 

 are more lasting when laid " on bed " is dem- 

 onstrated in all the varieties used in build- 

 ing. Defining " life " as the period during 

 which the stone will present a decent ap- 

 pearance, he gave the following as the ap- 

 proximate duration of life of several kinds 

 of stone in New York : Coarse brown-stone, 

 best used out of the sun, from five to fifteen 

 years ; laminated fine brown-stone, twenty- 

 five to fifty years ; compact fine brown stone, 

 one hundred to two hundred years; Nova 

 Scotia stone, fifty to one hundred years ; 

 Ohio sand-stone, the best of the sand-stones, 

 one hundred years ; Caen stone, thirty-five 

 to forty years ; coarse dolomite marble, forty 

 years ; fine marble, sixty years ; pure calca- 

 reous marble, fifty to one hundred years ; 

 granite, seventy-five to two hundred years, 

 according to the variety. Some of the best 

 kinds of building-stone have not yet been 

 brought to the city. 



Mr. C. J. IT. Woodbury, of Boston, has 

 had sent to him by the Societe Industrielle 

 de Mulhouse of Alsace, Germany, its silver 

 prize medal, in recognition of his recent 

 work on the best means of protecting cot- 

 ton and woolen mills from fire. It is be- 

 lieved that this is the first time an American 

 has been the recipient of this award. 



Professor Joseph Le Conte sums up the 

 conclusions of a paper on the " Genesis of 

 Metalliferous Veins," which is based on the 

 examination of phenomena of metalliferous 

 deposit by solfataric action in Nevada and 

 California, by saying that " subterranean 

 waters of any kind, but especially alkaline, 

 at any temperature, but mostly hot, circu- 

 lating in any direction, but mainly up-com- 

 ing, and in any kind of water-way, but mainly 

 in open fissures, by deposit form metallifer- 

 ous veins. It is evident, therefore, that the 

 form, appearance, and mode of occurrence 

 of veins must be infinitely various, but the 

 mode of formation is substantially one." 



The study of the varieties of formation may 

 be important to the miner, but is of little 

 value to science proper, except as it illus- 

 trates the one principle. 



One of the finest crinoid beds in the 

 world is at Crawfordsville, Indiana. It is 

 more extensive and affords more perfect 

 specimens than the bed at Keokuk, Iowa. 

 Some of the specimens are twelve inches in 

 length, and several have been sold for eight 

 and ten dollars each. The fossils are im- 

 bedded in hard blue clay, and are so brittle 

 that the work of removing them is exceed- 

 ingly delicate and difficult. 



A supposed stone implement has been 

 found in Philadelphia, in a loose "water- 

 gravel " twenty-four feet below the surface. 

 It is an oblong rectangle in shape, sixteen 

 and a half inches long, nearly four inches 

 wide, and varies in thickness from half an 

 inch at the sides to one and a half inch in 

 the middle. Each extremity is ground to a 

 smooth cutting edge. The specimen is of 

 compact, yellowish-brown sandstone, and is 

 the first that has been discovered in the 

 Philadelphia gravel. If it should prove to 

 belong to the gravel, and to be artificial, it 

 will carry back the antiquity of man to gla- 

 cial times. 



Selective breeding of fish seems at hand. 

 Seth Green has crossed the striped bass 

 with shad, herring with shad, whitefish with 

 salmon, salmon with brook-trout, and brook- 

 trout with salmon-trout. The last cross is 

 the most successful, and gives fine fish and 

 good breeders. A cross between it and 

 brook-trout promises to make a large trout, 

 suitable for rivers and lakes. Mr. Green 

 purposes next season to produce a seven- 

 eighths brook-trout. He would try a cross 

 between brook-trout and grayling provided 

 both fish spawned at the same time of year, 

 and has hopes of yet securing a cross be- 

 tween the grayling and the California moun- 

 tain-trout, with which this condition is ful- 

 filled. 



Captain R. N. Schcfeldt, of the Medical 

 Corps, U. S. Army, has been making a scien- 

 tific exploration of the vicinity of New Or- 

 leans, and has forwarded to the Smithsonian 

 Institution a collection of some three thou- 

 sand specimens of vertebrates and inverte- 

 brates of the region, together with the con- 

 tents of an Indian shell-mound situated back 

 of Carrollton. Among thel vertebrates |are 

 some very uncommon forms of bats, and 

 other rare species. 



M. Ch. Montigny, of Brussels, has ob- 

 served that the intensity of the scintillation 

 of the stars is greatly increased during the 

 presence of an aurora borealis, and that the 

 increase is more marked in winter than in 

 summer. 



