8,2 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



still sought for by intelligent inquirers all 

 over the world ; and the present chief of 

 the department has found the answering of 

 letters from outside the limits of the State, 

 as well as within them, touching the results 

 of the surveys, no unimportant part of his 

 official duties. Mr. Thompson's " Compen- 

 dium " includes sketches of the several 

 geological formations, in their order, which 

 are exposed in the State, from the Hudson 

 River Group to the Coal-measures ; an ac- 

 count of the building-stones, of which the 

 oolitic- limestone of the Sub-carboniferous 

 is considered the best in the world ; and 

 descriptions of the clays, chalk-beds, gla- 

 cial deposits, and terminal moraine which 

 " passes into Illinois from Warren and Ben- 

 ton Counties, and into Ohio from Randolph 

 and Wayne Counties," and may be seen in 

 section in railroad-cuttings just south of 

 Lafayette. Attention is called in a special 

 study by S. S. Sorby to the Wabash Arch, a 

 line of disturbance whose general direction 

 is indicated by its name, which, it is believed, 

 may have some connection with the occur- 

 rence of natural gas. A paper on the " Ori- 

 gin of the Indiana Flora," considered with 

 reference to localities as well as in general, 

 is contributed by Professor Coulter and Har- 

 vey Thompson ; Mr. Thompson describes 

 the Post-Pliocene mammals and the devel- 

 opments of natural gas ; and Mr. Sorby 

 gives a study of the prehistoric race of the 

 State. The report of the year's special work 

 includes the surveys of thirteen counties or 

 parts of counties in the central and north- 

 ern central parts of Indiana. 



Home Sanitation. By the Sanitary Science 

 Club of the Association of Collegiate 

 Alumna?. Boston : Ticknor & Co. Pp. 

 80. 



The club which avows the responsibility 

 for this book was organized in November, 

 1883, for the study of home sanitation. It 

 found, after two years of devotion to this 

 purpose, that the expenditure of time and 

 effort had been " amply repaid by positive 

 and satisfactory results"; and that it had 

 a store of information, derived from the 

 experiences and observations of its mem- 

 bers, worthy to be given to the public. This 

 information is embodied, in the form of pre- 

 liminary statement and questions, in short 

 chapters on the "Situation of the House 



and Care of the Cellar," "Drainage and 

 Plumbing," " Ventilation," " Heating," 

 " Lighting," " Furnishing," " Clothing," 

 "Food and Drink," and "Sanitary Work 

 for Women." The important part of the 

 text is in the questions, which suggest more 

 than they express or than is conveyed in the 

 statement above them, and " are so framed 

 that an affirmative answer implies a satis- 

 factory arrangement, and also suggest a 

 remedy if the answer is negative." They 

 have been practically tested by the mem- 

 bers of the club in their own homes and by 

 other housekeepers, and have been adopted 

 as the basis of a course in sanitary science 

 offered by the Society to Encourage Studies 

 at Home. 



Geological Survey of New Jersey. An- 

 nual Report of the State Geologist for 

 the Year 1886. By George H. Cook, 

 State Geologist. Trenton : The John L. 

 Murphy Publishing Company. Pp. 254. 



The report, which simply records the 

 work done during the year, is arranged un- 

 der the four heads of " Geographic Sur- 

 veys," " Geological Surveys," " Economic 

 Geology," and " Miscellaneous Items." The 

 work of the geodetic and topographic sur- 

 veys, though it has all been under the direc- 

 tion of the State Geologist, has been done 

 at the expense chiefly of the United States 

 Coast and Geodetic and Geological Surveys. 

 The work has been going on for twelve 

 years, and will require two years more for 

 completion. Under it the latitude and lon- 

 gitude have been precisely determined for 

 four hundred and fifty-two points, which 

 stand at an average distance of about 

 twenty-five miles apart. The topographic 

 survey has been rapidly advanced, and has 

 been carried over a larger area than iu any 

 previous year, and now covers eighteen hun- 

 dred and ninety-seven square miles. The 

 results are to be recorded in engraved maps 

 on a scale of one inch to a mile, of which 

 there will be seventeen, twenty-seven by 

 thirty -four inches in size. The contour- 

 lines are drawn on these maps so as to 

 show every change of twenty feet in eleva- 

 tion in the hilly portions of the State, and 

 of ten feet in the more level portions. An- 

 other important work in this department 

 has been the fixing of bench-marks for the 

 accurate determination of elevations, which, 



