FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



859 



usually a belt of lowland, few or many miles 

 wide, called the Coas!al Plain. Inland from 

 the Coastal Plain is an intermediate height, 

 between the Coastal Plain to the east and 

 the mountains to the west, known in the 

 South as the Piedmont Plateau. The moun- 

 tainous part of the slope constitutes the 

 third province, known as the Appalachian 

 Zone. The Atlantic slope may be divided 

 into two sections — a northern and a southern 

 — in which the Coastal Plain is narrow and 

 wide respectively. These two sections meet 

 in New Jersey, where the division runs from 

 the Raritan River, just below New Bruns- 

 wick, to Trenton. South of this liDe the 

 Coastal Plain expands, and all considerable 

 elevations recede correspondingly from the 

 shore. These three subprovinces are espe- 

 cially well shown in the southern section of 

 the Atlantic slope. They are less well de- 

 veloped in the northern section, and even 

 where the topography is comparable the un- 

 derlying rock structure is different. In New 

 Jersey a fourth belt, the Triassic formation, 

 is interposed between the Coastal Plain and 

 the Highlands corresponding to the Pied- 

 mont Plateau. North of New Jersey the 

 Coastal Plain has little development, though 

 Long Island and some small areas farther 

 east and northeast are to be looked upon as 

 parts of it. 



American Fresh-water Pearls. — The facts 

 cited by Mr. George F. Kunz in his paper, 

 published in the Report of the United States 

 Fish Commission, on the Fresh-water Pearls 

 and Pearl Fisheries of the United States, give 

 considerable importance to this feature of 

 our natural history. The mound explora- 

 tions attest that fresh-water pearls were 

 gathered and used by the prehistoric peoples 

 of the country " to an extent that is aston- 

 ishing On the hearths of some of these 

 mounds in Ohio the pearls have been found, 

 not by hundreds, but by thousands and even 

 by bushels — now, of course, damaged and 

 half decomposed by centuries of burial and 

 by the heat of superficial fires." The narra- 

 tives of the early Spanish explorers make 

 several mentions of pearls in the possession 

 of the Indians. For a considerable period 

 after the first explorations, however, Ameri- 

 can pearls attracted but little attention, and 

 " for some two centuries the Unios [or ' fresh- 



water mussels '] lived and multiplied in the 

 rivers and streams, unmolested by either the 

 native tribes that had used them for food, 

 or by the pioneers of the new race that had 

 not yet learned of their hidden treasures." 

 Within recent years the gathering of Unio 

 pearls has attained such importance as to 

 start economical problems warranting and 

 even demanding careful and detailed inquiry. 

 The first really important discovery of Unio 

 pearls was made near Paterson, N. J., in 1857, 

 in the form of the " queen pearl " of fine 

 luster, weighing ninety- three grains, which 

 was sold to Eugenie, wife of Napoleon III, 

 for twenty-five hundred dollars, and is now 

 worth four times that amount. As a result 

 the Unios at Notch Brook, where it was 

 found, were gathered by the million and de- 

 stroyed. Within a year fully fifteen thou- 

 sand dollars' worth of pearls were sent to 

 the New York market. Then the shipments 

 gradually fell off. Some of the best Amer- 

 ican pearls that were next found were at 

 Waynesville, Ohio, where Mr. Israel H. Har- 

 ris formed an exceedingly fine collection. It 

 contained more than two thousand speci- 

 mens, weighing more than as many grains. 

 Among them were one button-shaped on the 

 back and weighing thirty-eight grains, sev- 

 eral almost transparent pink ones, and one 

 shoeing where the pearl had grown almost 

 entirely through the Unio. In 1889 a num- 

 ber of magnificently colored pearls were 

 found at different places in the creeks and 

 rivers of Wisconsin, of which more than ten 

 thousand dollars' worth were sent to New 

 York within three months. These discover- 

 ies led to immense activity in pearl hunting 

 through all the streams of the region, and in 

 three or four seasons the shells were nearly 

 exhausted. The pearl fisheries of this State 

 have produced at least two hundred and fifty 

 thousand dollars' worth of pearls since 1889. 

 Another outbreak of the " pearl mania " 

 occurred in Arkansas in 1897, and extended 

 into the Indian Territory, Missouri, Georgia, 

 and other States. 



Distribution of Cereals in the Inited 



States. — To inquiries made preparatory to 

 drawing up a report on the Distribution of 

 Cereals in North America (Department of 

 Agriculture, Biological Survey), Mr. C. S. 

 Plumb receh cd one thousand and thirty- three 



