POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



57 



width. Among the articles found were sev- 

 eral tortoise-shells of beaten copper. One of 

 these was about one sixty-fourth of an inch 

 thick, two and one-eighth inches long, and 

 thirteen-sixteenths of an inch in height ; 

 this was the largest one of three in the au- 

 thor's possession. Their shape is remark- 

 ably true, the workmanship evincing deli- 

 cate skill. Each tortoise-shell appears to 

 have been originally covered with several 

 wrappings, first a woven cloth of vegetable 

 fibre, then a softer, finer fabric of rabbit's 

 hair apparently, next a membranaceous 

 coating, finally a layer of non-striated mus- 

 cular fibre possibly intestine or bladder. 

 Besides these singular objects are two spe- 

 cimens of the lower jaw of the deer, the part 

 which contains the teeth being incased in 

 a thin covering of copper, and the whole 

 wrapped in the same manner as the tortoise- 

 shells. Other relics found in the same 

 mound specimens of handicraft, sea-shells 

 from the Gulf of Mexico, etc. give evidence 

 of the high grade of technical skill and the 

 far-reaching intercourse of the prehistoric 

 people who, in the long forgotten past, in- 

 habited the Great American Bottom. 



Age of the Ohio " Forest-Beds." The 



" forest-bed " of the Ohio geological for- 

 mation is a "layer of carbonaceous mat- 

 ter, with logs and stumps, and sometimes 

 upright trees." It everywhere rests upon 

 true glacial drift, and in it are found remains 

 of mammoth, mastodon, and their contem- 

 poraries. The deposit overlying this " for- 

 est-bed " in Ohio is, by Dr. Newberry, de- 

 scribed as lacustrine drift, but Mr. W. J. Mc- 

 Gee, in the American Journal of Science, 

 shows that in Northeastern Iowa this same 

 " forest-bed " is overlaid by true glacial drift, 

 and therefore that it must be of intergla- 

 cial age. In the region just named the up- 

 permost deposit, overlying the " forest-bed," 

 is beyond the shadow of a doubt glacial 

 drift very slightly or not at all modified, 

 and exhibiting no distinct stratification. The 

 only difference between the upper and lower 

 parts is that the lower part contains a larger 

 proportion of gravel and worn bowlders 

 from the immediate vicinity. The upper 

 part contains no bowlders, indeed, except 

 those of granite, syenite, quartzite, and oth- 

 er metamorphic rocks from far to the north- 



ward. These, however, are quite abundant. 

 In some fields it has been necessary to re- 

 move dozens of bowlders of one hundred 

 pounds' weight and upward from eaeh acre 

 before the land could be ploughed. Some 

 also are quite large, reaching scores of tons 

 in weight. Glacier-marked bowlders are 

 rare, however. Perhaps one in a thousand 

 shows plainly grooves and deep scorings ; 

 but many others are less distinctly marked. 

 Still not more than one-tenth exhibit any 

 other marks of glacial action than a rounded 

 form. 



Medico - Psychological Rubbish. Dr. 



Maudsley's Journal of Medical Science 

 quotes the following passage from the Brit- 

 ish Medical Journal as an example of the 

 rubbish that passes current in medico-psy- 

 chological matters : " One of the most curi- 

 ous facts connected with madness is the 

 utter absence of tears amid the insane. 

 Whatever the form of madness, tears are 

 conspicuous by their absence, as much in 

 the depression of melancholia or the excite- 

 ment of mania as in the utter apathy of 

 dementia. If a patient in a lunatic asylum 

 be discovered in tears, it will be found that 

 it is either a patient commencing to recover, 

 or an emotional outbreak in an epileptic who 

 is scarcely truly insane ; while actually in- 

 sane patients appear to have lost the power 

 of weeping; it is only returning reason which 

 can once more unloose the fountains of their 

 tears. Even when a lunatic is telling one 

 in fervid language how she has been de- 

 prived of her children, or the outrages that 

 have been perpretrated on herself, her eye 

 is never even moist. The ready gush of 

 tears which accompanies the plaint of the 

 sane woman contrasts with the dry-eyed 

 appeal of the lunatic. It would indeed 

 seem that tears give relief to feelings which, 

 when pent up, lead to madness. It is one 

 of the privileges of reason to be able to 

 weep. Amid all the misery of the insane, 

 they can find no relief in tears." 



The Devil and the Oak-Trees. A legend 

 current among the peasants of Unterinnthal 

 (Tyrol) accounts as follows for the sinuous 

 outline of oak-leaves (we translate the legend 

 from Die Natur) : The wicked old fiend one 

 day would tempt the good God, and so asked 



