POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



281 



idea that you were eating nectarines, figs, 

 etc., and sometimes a delicious compound 

 with a dash of mushroom flavor in it. The 

 flavors of choice mangoes are infinite, and 

 their size varies from that of a small hen's 

 egg to that of a good-sized melon or ostrich- 

 egg. A choice mango can be scooped out 

 with a spoon, and it has the texture of a 

 stiff curd." 



Cultivation of Alpine Plants. An Al- 

 pine botanical garden for the cultivation of 

 mountain plants has been established in 

 Valais, under the auspices of the Associa- 

 tion for the Protection of Plants, and was 

 opened on the 21st of July, 1889. It in- 

 cludes about a hectare of land, and is sit- 

 uated at the height of 1,633 metres above 

 the sea, above the village of Bourg-Saint- 

 Pierre in the Val d'Entremont, on the Great 

 St. Bernard road, and some three or four 

 hours from the Hospice. The tract consists 

 of a hill about sixty metres high, and pre- 

 sents the variety of soil and slope, of wet, 

 dry, and stony tracts that promise to be best 

 adapted to the wants of the various species 

 that will be planted upon it. It is called 

 the Linnsea, and has been placed under the 

 special care of an international committee, 

 whose headquarters will be at Geneva. M. 

 Arthur de Claperede, of Geneva, has been 

 chosen president of this committee ; and 

 Dr. Bailey, of Bourg- Saint-Pierre, vice- 

 president. Among its twenty-five members 

 are Sir John Lubbock and Mr. G. J. Ro- 

 manes. Visitors not members of the pro- 

 tecting societies of the institution will be 

 charged fifty centimes for admission to the 

 grounds, and perpetual tickets will be is- 

 sued to those making gifts of ten francs or 

 more. 



Climatic Conditions of the Glacial Pe- 

 riod. According to Prof. Warren Upham's 

 paper on the climatic conditions of the Gla- 

 cial period, the formation of the great ice- 

 sheet should be promoted by long-continued 

 rather than an excessive cold, and an abun- 

 dant supply of moisture by storms, giving 

 plentiful precipitation of snow during more 

 of the year than now, so as to include in the 

 time of snow accumulation not only the pres- 

 ent winter but also the autumn and spring 

 months. The summers, too, were probably 



cooler in glacial times than now, for their 

 heat was not sufficient to melt away the ac- 

 cumulated snow, which gradually increased 

 in thickness from year to year, its lower part 

 being changed to ice. When large portions 

 of continents became thus ice-coated, the 

 storms sweeping over them would be so rap- 

 idly cooled that the greater part of their 

 snow-fall would take place upon the borders 

 of the ice-sheet, within probably from fifty 

 to two hundred miles from its margin ; but 

 the snow-fall during the advance of the ice 

 was probably in excess of the amount of 

 evaporation and melting over the whole ice- 

 covered area. In New England and New 

 York the average ascent of the ice was from 

 twenty-five to thirty feet per mile for the 

 first one hundred to two hundred miles from 

 its boundary. Toward its center the slope 

 diminished, as on the interior ice of Green- 

 land ; but the ice-sheet enveloping the north- 

 eastern part of North America probably at- 

 tained, as estimated by Prof. Dana, a maxi- 

 mum thickness of about two miles on the 

 Laurentian highlands between the river St. 

 Lawrence and Hudson Bay. 



Cocoa. Cocoa in its natural state con- 

 tains a large proportion of fat, so that it can 

 not be taken by persons suffering from weak 

 digestion. The presence of so mnch fat 

 prevents the easy solution of the naturally 

 soluble portions, which are more or less 

 locked up in the fat. This difficulty was en- 

 countered and overcome by the Indians and 

 Mexicans in the same way as our cocoa manu- 

 facturers first overcame it by adding to the 

 powdered cocoa sugar and starch as diluents. 

 Or a considerable part of the fat can be re- 

 moved by pressure. Chemical analysis has 

 shown that the estimation in which cocoa 

 was held by the inhabitants of the countries 

 in which it was first produced rested on sci- 

 entific as well as on practical grounds. Our 

 manufacturers are working now on the same 

 lines as did the natives of Central America 

 three hundred years ago, and the additions 

 they make to cocoa are only imitations of 

 what was done in ancient times to make its 

 use more acceptable. As compared with tea 

 and coffee, cocoa is deficient in those aro- 

 matic properties which have an exciting ef- 

 fect on the nerves of taste and smell. It 

 has about as much of alkaloids as coffee, but 



