NOTES. 



719 



could not notice any change as having oc- 

 curred in the interval. The depth of water 

 at a few feet from the edge was from fifteen 

 to twenty-seven feet ; at the center it was 

 forty-two feet : as the surface of the water 

 was seventeen feet below the surface of the 

 ground, the total depth of the cavity was 

 sixty feet. The water is a strong brine, 

 yielding one bushel of salt for forty-three 

 gallons of the water. 



Professor Mudge's explanation of the 

 phenomenon is as follows: "The Dakota 

 sandstone crops out in Clark County, twen- 

 ty miles distant, and dips at a small angle 

 toward this spot, and undoubtedly underlies 

 the whole of Meade County. This sand, 

 stone is quite soft in some of its strata, and 

 covered by harder beds. The softer por- 

 tions are liable to be washed out by sub- 

 terranean waters, and thus form caverns 

 which are roofed by the hard layers. The 

 cavern in this case became enlarged until 

 the roof was unable to sustain the over- 

 lying prairie soil and shale, sixty feet in 

 thickness, and the result is what we now 

 behold. As what was the grass -grown 

 prairie is now the bottom of the cavity, the 

 height of the cavern must have been at 

 least sixty feet, and its floor at least twice 

 that distance (120 feet) below the traveled 

 road. If it is still spread out in smaller 

 chambers, other depressions like the pres- 

 ent may occur." 



Asphaltum and Amber in New Jersey. 



In the neighborhood of Vincenttown, New 

 Jersey, asphaltum and amber have been 

 found, the former in the ash-marl, a layer 

 above the green-sand proper ; and the lat- 

 ter in the marl of the Cretaceous formation. 

 Mr. E. Goldsmith, of the Academy of Natu- 

 ral Sciences of Philadelphia, describes the 

 asphaltum as very brittle, black, with a resin- 

 ous luster. Its fracture is uneven, inclined 

 to conchoidal ; the streak and powder 

 brown. It melts easily in the flame, like 

 wax, and burns with a yellow, smoky flame, 

 leaving, after burning, a voluminous coal 

 and but little ashes. The amber (or yellow 

 mineral resin) was found at no great distance 

 from the asphaltum. It occurs frequently 

 in the marl of the Cretaceous formation, but 

 not regularly : sometimes hundreds of tons 

 of the marl may be looked over without 



finding a single piece of the amber ; at other 

 times enough has been found to fill a barrel 

 within a day. According to Mr. Goldsmith, 

 this mineral differs in several particulars 

 from the typical amber found at the bottom 

 or on the coast of the Baltic Sea. The 

 former is lighter than water, the latter 

 heavier. The Baltic amber fuses into a 

 thick, sluggish fluid ; the Vincenttown am- 

 ber into a very fluid mobile liquid. It takes 

 fire easily, and burns with a yellowish, 

 strongly smoking flame, leaving but little 

 coal, which rapidly burns away, and leaves 

 a small quantity of dark-colored ashes. 



NOTES. 



Sir William Fothergill-Cooke, Wheat- 

 stone's associate in the work of introducing 

 in England the electric telegraph, died June 

 25th, in the seventy-third year of his age. 



There lately died in England the Rev. 

 Canon Beadon, of Stoneham, who distinctly 

 remembered some of the events of the Lord 

 George Gordon riots in 1780. He was born 

 in 1777, and succeeded his father in the 

 "living" of Stoneham in 1812. He was 

 fond of shooting and fishing ; the former 

 amusement he kept up till ninety-four, the 

 latter till eighty-eight. At ninety-seven he 

 had his first severe illness an attack of 

 bronchitis, and he was never after quite the 

 same. 



In Berlin there is a chemical laboratory, 

 established by a society of housewives, for 

 the examination of articles of food. It is 

 directed by a competent chemist, who gives 

 to the members of the society a course of 

 lectures on practical chemistry. There is 

 also a cookery-school under the patronage 

 of the society. Domestic servants who 

 have remained a certain number of years in 

 one household (of a member of the society) 

 are rewarded with prizes. The society also 

 procures situations for domestic servants. 



Among many new and interesting facts 

 developed by Dr. Arthur Haviland in a re- 

 cent discourse on the distribution of disease, 

 was this, that the mortality of women from 

 cancer is highest in those districts which 

 skirt the banks of rivers subject to periodic 

 floods. Having ascertained this fact, Dr. 

 Haviland studied the physical and geologi- 

 cal characters of the districts where cancer 

 does not thrive, and found that all these 

 districts are characterized by being high 

 and dry, with non-retentive soils. The ob- 

 vious conclusion for all this is, that patients 

 who show tendency to cancer, or persons in 



