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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



steel ingots. In the first experiment, 4 in- 

 gots of 8 inches square and 3 feet long were 

 used. In the centre of these four masses of 

 steel as laid together, two pound cartridges 

 of the powder were placed, and kept in their 

 place with a few handfuls of clay. In the 

 second experiment the four ingots were 

 each 11 inches square, and the charge used 

 2| pounds. The 8 ingots were all broken 

 in halves ; some of these massive pieces of 

 steel were sent flying high in the air, fall- 

 ing 30, 35, and, in one case, 45 yards avray. 

 At the close of the experiment, a torpedo 

 of 50 pounds of this powder, sunk 10 feet 

 in the river Swale, but not resting on the 

 bottom, was fired. An immense body of 

 water was projected high in the air, and 

 any vessel which might at the time have 

 been passing over it would have suffered 

 severely." 



A Thorongh State Suryey. Prof. N. S. 



Shaler publishes in the Atlantic Monthly an 

 article on a survey of Massachusetts, advo- 

 cating a more minute reconnoissance of the 

 topography, geology, zoology, botany, agri- 

 cultural resources, climate, etc., of that 

 Commonwealth, than has hitherto been at- 

 tempted with respect to any portion of the 

 territory of the United States. In this great 

 enterprise, the first thing to be done is, to 

 secure the best map. Massachusetts has 

 the good fortune to have her shore-belt 

 map completely made by the Coast Survey. 

 Cape Ann and Cape Cod, and the bordering 

 islands, constituting about a tenth of the 

 total area of the State, have all been done 

 on a scale of xuuTjtT) or about six inches to 

 the mile of distance. The entire State, on 

 the same scale, would be represented in a 

 record-map about 90 by 54 feet. " On this 

 plan," says Prof. Shaler, "the surveying 

 and improvement of private grounds could 

 always be accomplished, tax-levies made, 

 and, in short, our civilization could be or- 

 ganized upon it." In this way the topo- 

 graphical portion of the survey would prob- 

 ably cost not over $750,000, a sum which 

 Massachusetts could easily afford. 



In the geological survey, every strati- 

 graphical question, every question in chem- 

 ical geology, should be followed to its ut- 

 most point. Some of the problems which 

 would arise are economical, have money in 



them ; the others are economical too, in 

 that higher sense which finds all truth prof- 

 itable. The problems Of direct economical 

 interest are : distribution of water, its stor- 

 age and quahty; building-stones; deposits 

 of coal ; distribution of metals ; reclama- 

 tion of marshes ; retimbering of the exposed 

 parts of the coast, etc. As for purely sci- 

 entific problems, probably no other known 

 fossils have so much value for the science 

 of to-day as those wonderful footprints of 

 the Connecticut Valley. 



A large part of the necessary work for 

 the complete description of Massachusetts 

 animals and plants is already done, and only 

 needs to be brought together and classified. 

 The State already has nearly $1,000,000 

 invested in the Museum of Comparative 

 Zoology, and, in the work of cataloguing the 

 animals, this noble institution can make a 

 substantial return through the students it 

 has trained and the collections it has made. 

 With good maps and good catalogues of the 

 natural productions of a country, the teach- 

 ing of natural science becomes possible to a 

 degree that cannot be hoped for under other 

 circumstances. 



The Microscope as a DetectlTC. The mi- 

 croscope, as an agent in the detection of 

 crime, has been alternately commended and 

 condemned. It was recently employed in a 

 Connecticut court of justice to discover, in 

 the clothing of a man charged with murder, 

 minute filaments from the shawl of his al- 

 leged victim. Dr. J. G. Kichardson lately 

 read before the Philadelphia Academy of 

 Natural Sciences a paper on the " Value of 

 High Powers in the Diagnosis of Blood- 

 Stains," in which he shows that the red blood- 

 globules of various domestic animals, as the 

 ox, cat, pig, horse, sheep, goat, are all so 

 much smaller than the human red disk, that 

 we can positively distinguish stains produced 

 by human blood from those caused by the 

 blood of any of these animals. To furnish 

 positive demonstration of the facts of the 

 case, Dr. Richardson obtained six specimens 

 of blood-clot, from the veins of a man, an 

 ox, and a sheep, selected without his knowl- 

 edge, and so marked as to furnish no clew 

 as to which animal they were derived from. 

 By the microscopical characters alone he 

 was able to determine with perfect correct- 



