GEOLOGY. 307 



NEGATIVE ARTESIAN AVELLS. 5 <a 



The London Society of Arts have recently published a paper "by' M. Bruck- 

 mann, on " Negative Artesian Wells," that is, wells which take instead of 

 giving out, water. Such wells serve as permanent drains ; they are sunk in 

 loose strata, or where communications exist with fathomless fissures or with 

 deep-lying streams. M. Bruckmann, who is a native of TTurternberg, states 

 that they may be established "in all the so-called normal or sediment forma- 

 tions; diluvium; tertiary deposits; chalk, Jurassic rocks," and others. And 

 he brings forward examples of the benefits that have followed the sinking of 

 negative wells in towns or in swampy country districts. The drainage be- 

 comes at once perfect and constant ; fluid matters of ah 1 kinds find their way 

 to the mouth, and flow away, while solid matters may be stopped, and used 

 in fertilization. 



OX THE RELATIVE AGE OF DIFFERENT PORTIONS OF THE 



MOON'S SURFACE. 



At the Albany meeting of the American Association, Professor Alexander 

 presented a paper on the above topic, in which he stated that a map of the 

 Eastern hemisphere, taken with the Bay of Bengal in the centre, would bear 

 a striking resemblance to the face of the moon presented to us. The dark 

 portions of the moon he considers to be continental elevations, as shown by 

 measuring the average height of mountains above the dark and the light por- 

 tions of the moon. He recently had seen the bearing of newly-observed 

 phenomena on the question, the character of the ridges in the neighborhood 

 of Pico. These ridges are shown by their tints to be of the same geological 

 character as the tops of the mountains. They show themselves to be recent 

 disturbances or upheavals by the manner in which they cross other forma- 

 tions, as though ejected through cracks in a previous crust. The superior 

 thickness or elevation of crust in the dark portions, is shown by the fact that 

 some of these white lines, running through everything in the bright portions, 

 cease at the entrance into the darker regions. A close scrutiny of the white 

 portions shows a great subsequent inundation of the white rock flowing over 

 the ocean beds (if that term be allowed) and raising their level. He thought 

 that these facts threw some light on the inhabitants of the moon. Might not 

 this flow into the ocean bed have absorbed, by some chemical action (as water 

 of crystallization or otherwise), the ocean and atmosphere ? If so, the moon 

 might have been formerly inhabited and been rendered desolate by this 

 change. 



ON THE POSSIBLE ORIGIN OF VEINS OF GOLD IN QUARTZ 



AND OTHER ROCKS. 



Mr. Ibbotson, in a communication to the London Geological Society, stated, 

 that having mixed a solution of gold in nitro-muriatic acid with five times its 

 weight of water, and placed it in -a Berlin evaporating dish on a thick sheet 

 of copper over a gas lamp, the author observed a crack in the basin, which 



