370 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



keep the mouth of the glass horizontal, let him allow his hand, arm, 

 and body to go through the various movements as those observed in 

 sawing, planing, pumping, throwing a quoit, c., which they will be 

 impelled, without fatigue, almost irresistibly to perform ; and he will 

 find that this has the effect of preventing the giddiness and nausea that 

 the rolling and tossing of the vessel have a tendency to produce in in- 

 experienced voyagers. 



"If the person is suffering from sickness at the commencement of 

 his experiment, as soon as he grasps the glass of liquid in his hand, 

 and suffers his arm to take its course and go through the movements 

 alluded to, he feels as if he were performing them of his own free will ; 

 and the nausea abates immediately, and very soon ceases entirely, and 

 does not return so long as he suffers his arm and body to assume the 

 postures into which they seem to be drawn. Should he, however, resist 

 the free course of the hand, he instantly feels a thrill of pain, of a pecu- 

 liarly stunning kind, shoot through his head, and experiences a sense 

 of dizziness and returning nausea. From this last circumstance the 

 author of the paper infers it as probable that the stomach is primarily 

 affected through the cerebral mass, rather than through the disturb- 

 ance of the thoracic and abdominal viscera ; and he is of opinion that 

 the method of preventing sea-sickness just described, (which he has 

 found by experience to be effectual,) depends on the curious fact that 

 the involuntary motion communicated to the body by the rolling and 

 tossing of the vessel are, by the means he adopts, apparently converted 

 into voluntary motion." 



PINE BARRENS OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 



AT the Boston Natural History Society, November, the following 

 paper was read by Dr. Burnett, on " The Pine Barrens of upper South 

 Carolina : ' ' 



The sand hill region of the upland portion of this State is situated 

 about 121 miles westward of the sea coast, and intermediate between 

 the low country of South Carolina on one side, and that of Georgia on 

 the other. Its maximum elevation is about 700 feet above the sea. 

 It is covered with pines, which extend like one vast sea of evergreen 

 on every side. This district is quite thinly populated, and, at distances 

 of 16 or 20 miles, will be seen little villages, nested as it were in 

 the bosom of this extensive wilderness. The general features of the 

 country have little variety. The soil is of a light, porous, sandy nature, 

 poorly adapted for strength or luxuriance of vegetation, but at the same 

 time rendering the climate dry, mild and equable. With the excep- 

 tion of the small creeks, which on the sloping sides enter the rivers, 

 there is no water, and wells are dug from 60 to 80 feet. I should men- 

 tion, however, that there are here a number of circular depressions 

 scattered over the surface, and these form a peculiar feature of this 

 region. Mr. Tuomey, in his Geology of the State, has given ^thein 

 notice. They consist of concavities of a quarter to one mile in diame- 

 ter, filled during the greater part of the year with water from two to 

 three feet deep ; and, as they are probably fed by intermittent springs, 



