March 1,1867.] 



HAOWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



C7 



GEOLOGY. 



Eish Beds.— Eish Lave been found floating dead 

 in shoals beside submarine volcanoes— killed either 

 by the heated water or by mephitic gases. There 

 are, however, no marks of volcanic activity in con- 

 nection with the ichthyolite beds. They abound, 

 as has been said, in bine, and the thought has often 

 struck me that calcined lime cast out as ashes 

 from some distant crater, and carried by the winds, 

 might have been the cause of the widely-spread 

 destruction to which their organisms testify. I 

 have seen the fish of a small troutiug stream, over 

 which a bridge was in course of building, destroyed 

 in a single hour, for a full mile below the erection, 

 by the few troughfuls of lime that fell into the 

 water when the centring was removed. — Miller's 

 " Old Bed Sandstone?' 



Human Remains. — Human bones have been 

 found in the Lelim of the valley of the Rhine, at 

 Engisheim, near Colmar, in a marly deposit, in which 

 the bones of a large stag were also found, with a 

 molar tooth of the mammoth, and a metatarsal bone 

 of a bison. M. Eaudel records this in th e Comptes 

 Rendus, and concludes that man Lived in the valley 

 of the Rhine contemporaneous with the fossil stag, 

 bison, and mammoth, and that the appearance of 

 man in the country would have been previous to 

 certain movements of the earth, which took place 

 after the deposition of the " diluvium," and which 

 have given the ground its present physical con- 

 figuration. 



Submarine Action. — In the year 1783 a sub- 

 marine eruption took place six or eight miles from 

 Reykiavick, which gave birth to a new island a 

 mile in circumference, which, however, the fol- 

 lowing year again disappeared. A submarine erup- 

 tion also took place about the same time seventy 

 miles from the same cape, which is said to have 

 thrown up pumice sufficient to cover the sea for a 

 space of one hundred and fifty mdes around. — 

 Daubeny's "Volcanoes." 



Anthracite Coal. — A correspondent of the 

 Times writes that, — "Erom constant experience of 

 this coal in furnaces he believes it is capable of 

 being applied as a perfect substitute for smoky 

 bituminous coal iu houses." Now as I have had con- 

 stant experience, for seven years, of Anthracite coal 

 in houses, perhaps the readers of Science- Gossip 

 may like to know how to render this invaluable, 

 smokeless fuel available in their own residences. I 

 used anthracite in every room in the house during the 

 time I lived in South Wales, from the top bedrooms 

 down to the outer kitchens. We resided in the 

 vicinity of authracite, or, as they are there called, 

 stone-coal mines — the Gwendraeth Works — and had 

 we failed to use the hard coal, must have sent many 



miles for soft. All our grates were arranged for it, 

 with fire-brick sides (cheeks) and backs ; for there is 

 something in the ordinary iron sides and backs that 

 effectually prevents anthracite fuel from showing to 

 the best advantage. The grand essential is a 

 thorough draught through the fire ; and to ensure 

 this we had round holes drilled in the fire-brick back 

 communicating with a chamber, or flue, at the back 

 of the grate, so as to convey the current of air 

 through the fire and up the chimney. Anthracite 

 coal is invaluable for cooking purposes ; our English 

 servants were charmed with it,— we never had to 

 complain of smoked viands. Cooks were satisfied 

 with their own efforts in the frying and boiling line, 

 and, better still, we were satisfied with their skill. 

 I strongly advise all married ladies, whose lords and 

 masters are, in servants' phraseology, "very par- 

 ticular " on the subject of good dinners (a few men 

 are so perfectly angelic as not to be affected in 

 temper by a badly-dressed dinner) to immediately 

 institute anthracite coal fires in their kitchens. Our 

 housemaids never complained of "the horrid smoke," 

 nor the laundrymaid of those " nasty blacks." An 

 anthracite fire gives out great heat, is clear, smoke- 

 less, and healthy All common grates can be fitted 

 with brick backs and cheeks at a very moderate 

 expense. We altered a large kitchen-range so as to 

 burn anthracite effectually. — Helen F. Watney. 



A Stone Standard. — In Iceland, the marks of 

 Erost are on a vast scale, but they are mingled with 

 the work of Eire. These denuding and upheaving 

 forces are working natural engines— air, water, ice, 

 and steam, side by side, — and their marks are 

 mingled. Marks made by glaciers upon igneous 

 rock are the same as those which are made by land 

 ice, in Norway and Switzerland, on rocks of all 

 kinds ; but the chips are different. Here ice-ground 

 glens are partially filled with lava ; water-worn 

 boulders, pebbles, and sand, are smothered, under 

 sand which fell from the air ; great stones have been 

 cast through the air, and rest among glacial rubbish. 

 Snow is often blackened with ashes ; ashes are 

 whitewashed with snow; water flows under the 

 lava, and there freezes and forms subterraneous 

 glaciers. Glacier rivers carry fine mud, which 

 glaciers grind ; but it is mixed with volcanic dust, 

 sulphur, cinders, sticks, and all things which rain 

 can wash from such a land into the sea. The sea- 

 beach is strewed with lava and Arctic shells ; 

 American drift timber, mahogany, strange sea-weeds 

 of great size ; " horse-eyes " from the West Indies ; 

 dead puffins from the Arctic ocean ; fish-bones and 

 seals ; and sometimes the Arctic current brings an 

 ice-fleet — it may be freighted with stones and mud 

 picked up at Spitzbergen, Jan Mayen, or Greenland. 

 The surface of the land is a stone standard by which 

 to read geological hieroglyphics elsewhere. — "Frost 

 and Fire" 



