238 ANNUAL KECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



99 per cent. It is expected that thirty tons per day will be 

 furnished at this place. Works for the manufacture of steel 

 from this sand have been established at Quebec, and at Ma- 

 tashquan others are being put up. The ore is said to excel 

 that of New Zealand in richness, and it is probable that before 

 long it will occupy a permanent place in the iron industry. 



INTERESTING PHENOMENA OBSERVED IN STONE QUARRIES. 



Professor W. II. Niles, of the Boston Institute of Technol- 

 ogy, communicates the results of further observations of the 

 peculiar phenomena observed at the stone quarries at Mon- 

 son, Massachusetts. Similar phenomena have been recorded 

 once before by Professor Johnston, of Middletown, Connec- 

 ticut, in relation to the sandstone quarries at Portland, in 

 that state. Both these gentlemen concur in the same con- 

 clusion, namely, that the strata of sandstone at Portland and 

 the strata of gneiss at Monson are not at the present time 

 perfectly at ease in their ancient beds, but that, in some way, 

 they have received a disposition to change their position 

 slightly; that, in fact, they exist there in a state of com- 

 pression, the force with which they tend to expand being so 

 great that it has been known to break apart beds of the 

 thickness of three, four, and five feet, for a distance Of 100 

 feet or more ; while in another case one end of a long pris- 

 moid of gneiss, being solidly attached to the undisturbed 

 rock, the other end, by its expansion, pushed upward about 

 10,000 tons of rock. The expansions at Monson take place 

 only in a northerly and southerly direction. The cracks and 

 rents are generally formed slowly, but sometimes suddenly, 

 attended by a loud report similar to that of a slight shock 

 of earthquake, and sometimes by the throwing of stones of 

 considerable size to the distance of several feet. Proc. Am. 

 Assoc, I., "1873, 156. 



CHANGES OF LEVEL ON THE COAST OF MAINE. 



For many years there have been reports of changes in the 

 depth of water on the rocks and shoals on the coast of Maine. 

 From a report on this subject to the Superintendent of the 

 Coast Survey, by Professor Shaler, the following facts have 

 been gathered : 



The natural indications of changes of level are the remains 



