838 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



city, that by a series of observations made every three hours, during the 

 month of August, he had ascertained that there was a slight lunar tide 

 in Lake Michigan. A similar statement was made to the Smithsonian 

 Institution, in connection with the report of his meteorological ob- 

 servations for the month. In a report made to the British Association 

 in 1863, he stated that the amount of this tide was about an inch and 

 an eighth, and that subsequently a self -registering tide-gauge, similar 

 to that used by Prof essor A. D. Bache on the Coast Survey, was put in 

 operation at the port, the indications of which, deducing the curves 

 from 5,450 half-hourly ordinates, between July, 1859, and November, 

 1860, gave results almost exactly corresponding with those of his 

 original observation. 



Mr. Lapham was engaged, almost from the beginning of his resi- 

 dence in Wisconsin, in the study of the aboriginal earth-works of the 

 State. He was the first to notice that many of the mounds were 

 really gigantic figures of men, beasts, birds, and reptiles ; and as early 

 as 1836 he gave accounts in the newspapers of a turtle-shaped mound 

 at Waukesha and of several other effigies of animals. Perceiving the 

 danger of these structures being obliterated, he, availing himself of 

 assistance offered by the American Antiquarian Society, made a sys- 

 tematic survey of many of them, the results of which were published 

 in 1855, under the title of "Antiquities of Wisconsin," in a fine, richly 

 illustrated volume by the Smithsonian Institution. Twenty years 

 later, near the end of his life, he prepared a series of bas-relief mod- 

 els of some of the more characteristic mounds, for the Centennial 

 Exhibition of 1876. 



In 1868 fragments of a meteorite, afterward known as the " Doer- 

 flinger meteorite," were found on a farm about thirty miles northwest 

 of Milwaukee. A specimen of the stone was obtained for the Wiscon- 

 sin Natural History Society, of which that body, in consideration of 

 the services he had performed for it, gave a piece to Dr. Lapham. 

 Examining his piece, which had been polished and etched by Dr. J. 

 Lawrence Smith, of Louisville, Kentucky, he discovered in it the 

 familiar crystalline markings known as the Widmannstattian figures, 

 and within these another set of lines, to which Dr. Smith, on their 

 being brought to his notice, gave the name of the Laphamite Mark- 

 ings. A representation of this stone, showing both sets of marks, is 

 given in the new " American Cyclopaedia," article " Aerolites." In 

 connection with these observations, Dr. Lapham prepared a com- 

 plete list of North American meteorites, with a map showing the 

 exact place where every one fell, which, however, has not been pub- 

 lished. 



Dr. Lapham was one of the first men in the United States, if not the 

 first, to move effectively in favor of general systematic weather obser- 

 vations for the purpose of forecasting and preparing for coming storms. 

 Espy had shown that such a thing was possible ; Professor Henry had 



