POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



425 



POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



Higher Professional Aims. " The High- 

 er Professional Life" was the subject of 

 Dr. J. M. Da Costa's recent valedictory ad- 

 dress to the graduating class of Jefferson 

 Medical College, Philadelphia. The higher 

 aim of the physician should be to add to 

 knowledge and increase the resources of 

 his profession. It may be sought in vari- 

 ous ways: by making original inquiries in 

 the way that Darwin and Pasteur have so 

 brightly illuminated ; by cultivating liter- 

 ary tastes, and thereby becoming quicker 

 in perception and more skillful in dissem- 

 inating truths once learned ; by mixing in 

 the great movements that are to benefit 

 mankind, and becoming influential in them ; 

 and by becoming active for the advance- 

 ment of sanitative and preventive medicine. 

 " There are thus many ways in which the 

 aspirations of a higher professional life may 

 be realized in useful or in great work. Some 

 of these can be followed only when success 

 has brought comparative leisure ; but all 

 can be kept in mind ; one or all can be 

 aimed at throughout our careers, and ac- 

 cording to our individual strength." 



The Glacial Moraine in Pennsylvania. 



TVe have already mentioned the fact that 

 Professor H. Carvill Lewis has traced the 

 great glacial terminal moraine along its 

 whole course through Pennsylvania. An 

 account of his investigations is given in a 

 paper recently read by him before the 

 Franklin Institute of Philadelphia. The 

 moraine enters the State in Northampton 

 County, at latitude 40 49', and may be fol- 

 lowed in a northwesterly direction till it 

 enters New York from Potter County, at a 

 height of 2,580 feet. It afterward turns 

 at right angles to its former course, and, 

 trending to the southwest, re-enters Penn- 

 sylvania at Pine Grove township, Warren 

 County, whence it may be traced till it 

 crosses the State line into Ohio at Darling- 

 ton township, Beaver County, latitude 40 

 50'. It thus leaves Pennsylvania at almost 

 precisely the latitude at which it entered 

 it ; and, if a straight line were drawn across 

 the State between these two points, the 

 line of the moraine would form with it a 

 right-angled triangle, whose apex would be 



a hundred miles distant from its base. The 

 moraine crosses the Delaware at an ele- 

 vation of 250 feet, the Allegheny River at 

 an elevation of 1,425 feet, and the Beaver 

 at an elevation of 800 feet above the sea, 

 or 225 feet above Lake Erie. Upon the 

 highlands it rises a thousand feet or more 

 higher. The distinction between the glaci- 

 ated portion of the State and the region 

 south of glacial action is very marked, and 

 the moraine itself is so sharply defined that 

 at one point, Buck Mountain in Luzerne 

 County, Professor Lewis was able to stand 

 with one foot upon the glaciated and the 

 other upon the non-glaciated region. The 

 moraine is very finely developed west of 

 Bangor, in Northumberland County, where 

 it forms a series of " hummocky " hills 

 one or two hundred feet high. Its course 

 in Monroe County, as it winds from the top 

 of the Kittatinny Mountain down to Cherry 

 Valley, and then up again on to the Pocono, 

 is a complete vindication of the glacial 

 hypothesis. It is in no sense a water-level, 

 nor could it have been formed by floating 

 ice or by any other cause than that of a 

 great glacier. It is wonderfully shown upon 

 the summit of Pocono Mountain, over 2,000 

 feet above the sea, where a great ridge of 

 moraine hills, twelve miles long, one mile 

 wide, and 100 feet or more high, composed 

 of unstratified till, and bearing numerous 

 bowlders of Adirondack gneisses and gran- 

 ites, rises out of the plateau. The " kames " 

 of Cherry Valley, with their accompany- 

 ing "kettle-holes," and the terraces near 

 Stroudsburg are also interesting features. 

 Immense as was the power of the slowly 

 moving glacier, says Professor Lewis, "it 

 had but slight effect upon the topography 

 of the country. It is a mistake to suppose 

 that glaciers can level down mountains or 

 scoop out canons. The glacier had merely 

 ' sand-papered ' the surface of the rocks." 



Joseph Dnncan Putnam. Joseph Dun- 

 can Putnam, late President of the Daven- 

 port (Iowa) Academy of Natural Sciences) 

 who died December 10, 1881, had accom- 

 plished a remarkable amount of scientific 

 work during his short life of twenty-seven 

 years. lie was born in Jacksonville, Illi- 

 nois, in 1855 ; began making a collection 

 of insects when eleven years old, and at- 



