6i6 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



about four cents a pound) per acre of ground to the depth of 

 one foot, was found to be present. 



It would clearly be folly to wash out such quantities of fertil- 

 izing material unnecessarily ; and this consideration emphasizes 

 the importance of the less radical means of reclamation already 

 referred to, viz., deep and thorough tillage to minimize evapora- 

 tion, and in the case of " hlack " alkali the use of gypsum. In 

 California the opening of numerous gypsum mines has already 

 followed the latter recommendation. 



When once the high productive value of alkali lands is gen- 

 erally realized, enormous areas will be added to the producing 

 lands, not only in the arid region of the United States but in the 

 Old World as well. The Russian investigators in central Asia are 

 rapidly coming to this conclusion, and notably Von Middendorff 

 reports that the inhabitants of Ferghana say that " the salt is the 

 life of their soil " provided there is not too much of it ; and that 

 they actually sometimes carry the alkali efflorescences to the poor 

 spots. In India, on the Ganges and Jumna, the typically rich 

 lands of that anciently civilized region have had alkali salts made 

 to rise to the surface in consequence of the establishment of high- 

 lying irrigation canals by the English. Similar reports of high 

 productiveness come from the alkali lands of the border and 

 oases of the Libyan and Sahara Deserts, and from the pampas of 

 Argentina. 



But it must not be forgotten that the reclamation of these 

 fertile lands requires the command of some pecuniary resources ; 

 and that the farmer or settler who depends on an annual crop for 

 his subsistence should not undertake their cultivation at first. 

 As in the case of mines, the wealth that lies within them is not 

 yielded to mere scratching or prospecting, but requires the use of 

 some capital and trained intelligence to become available. 



The currency of romantic but incorrect translations of Indian names is 

 illustrated by Gerard Fowke in his paper on the Archasology of the James 

 and Potomac Rivers. Shenandoah, which is popularly interpreted as 

 meaning "spai-kling daughter of the shining stars," is a corruption, accord- 

 ing to the author, of the Iroquoian word Tyonondoa, which means, liter- 

 ally, " there it has a large (high) mountain," or, '' in that place there is a 

 high range of mountains." On some old maps the name. "The Endless 

 Mountains," is given to some of the ranges of Pennsylvania and Virginia. 

 Mr. J. N. B. Hewitt is cited as pronouncing the definition "dark and 

 bloody grovind," of the name Kentucky, to be false, and as giving its true 

 derivation from an Iroquoian word conveying the idea " a place where the 

 grazing is good, ' almost identical in sound with Kentucky, "while there is 

 no Indian word with anything like the popular meaning that bears the 

 slightest resemblance to it." It will be observed that both the amended 

 definitions are correctly descriptive. 



