43 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



done in this direction than is done ; but still, 

 sometimes a cloud will descend so quickly, 

 or it will have such a tremendous store of 

 energy to get rid of, that no points are suffi- 

 ciently rapid for the work, and crash it all 

 comes at once." Where a flash occurs, a con- 

 siderable area is relieved of strain, and the 

 rush of electricity along the cloud and along 

 the ground toward the line of flash sets up 

 a state of things very encouraging to another 

 or secondary flash or flashes, practically si- 

 multaneous with the first. 



Weather Plants. Garden and Forest 

 quotes from a writer in the Ulustrirte Gar- 

 tenzcitung of Vienna, who, while he disputes 

 the excessive claims that have been made 

 for certain " weather plants," points out 

 that a modest degree of power in forecast- 

 irg atmospheric changes is possessed by a 

 multitude of common plants. The pleas- 

 ant fair-weather odor of Galium vernum 

 (Our Lady's bed-straw) becomes strong and 

 pungent at the approach of rain. The leaves 

 of Carlina vulgaris close before rain. Ca- 

 lendula pluvialis (marigold) predicts rain 

 when its flowers remain closed after seven in 

 the morning. Ozalis acetosclla (wood-sorrel) 

 closes its leaves at the approach of rain or 

 cold. Lapsana communis keeps its flowers 

 open at evening if it is to rain the following 

 day, but closes them if fair weather is com- 

 ing. The leaves of Draha verna (whitlow- 

 grass) droop before rain. Alsine media pre- 

 dicts a clear day if its flowers open about 

 nine o'clock, and a second one to follow if 

 they remain open as late as four in the after- 

 noon. 



A Novel Mound-builders' Structure. 



Prof. F. W. Putnam described, at the meet- 

 ing of the American Association, a curious 

 earthwork at Foster's Station, in the Little 

 Miami Valley. The mound is in the angle 

 of a creek and the river. It is a flat-topped 

 circular hill, about half a mile round at the 

 rim, and has been formed by the river and 

 creek washing away drift material on either 

 side. Around the brow of this hill is, at 

 some parts, a ridge, at others no elevation 

 above the surface. The ridge is made up 

 of well-burned clay, and includes masses of 

 burned limestone, clinkers, charred logs, 

 and heaps of ashes, from a bushel to forty 



bushels in bulk. It is more than half a mile 

 long, from twenty to fifty feet wide, and 

 from eight to ten feet deep. To have 

 burned all this clay must have required a 

 heat like that of a Bessemer furnace. The 

 rim of burned stuff is backed by an escarp- 

 ment of well-laid stone wall to keep the 

 burned material in place, which probably 

 once extended clear down to the water ; but 

 the creek has worn its way down and to a 

 considerable distance from the wall. No 

 bones and only a few pieces of pottery were 

 found. The fires could not have been those 

 of charcoal-pits, and the place was not a 

 limekiln. An immense mass of fuel must 

 have been collected to burn this quantity 

 of clay and stone. When asked what he 

 thought was the character of the work, Prof. 

 Putnam said that he had not carried the ex- 

 cavations far enough to formulate a state- 

 ment. 



NOTES. 



The Hon. David A. Wells has been award- 

 ed a gold medal by the jury of the group 

 of Social and Political Economics of the 

 French Exhibition of 1889. This recognition 

 of the great services he has rendered in 

 that branch is all the more significant be- 

 cause it comes to him, a plain-spoken free- 

 trader, from a leading protectionist nation. 



One of the subjects touched upon by Dr. 

 Fernow, in his Forestry Report for 1889, is 

 osier culture. Of the many kinds of willows, 

 but few are osier willows fit for basket-work. 

 Some coarse baskets are made from our na- 

 tive willows. For better work, one of the 

 European kinds the red osier is grown in 

 this country, but the finest baskets are al- 

 most wholly imported. A large number of 

 the hands employed in the salt-works around 

 Syracuse in summer occupy their winters 

 with basket-making. In 1887 Dr. Fernow 

 obtained from an Austrian grower cuttings 

 from some seventy varieties of osiers, which 

 were distributed to the agricultural experi- 

 ment stations. Some information has thus 

 been gained in regard to the growth of these 

 plants in our climate, but further trials are 

 still needed. 



The first rain-gauge, according to Mr. 

 G. J. Symons, was designed by Sir Christo- 

 pher Wren in 1663. Sir Christopher also de- 

 signed the first recording gauge, but the in- 

 strument was not constructed till 1670. The 

 earliest known records of rainfall were made 

 at Paris, in 1668; Townley, Lancashire, in 

 1677; Zurich, in 1708; and Londonderry, in 

 1711. 



