428 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



winds and the rain shape these deposits into 

 abrupt, elevated, square-cut masses. This 

 property of forming a kind of vertical cliffs, 

 with the porous texture and the absence of 

 stratification, are characteristic of the loess, 

 as is also the presence of terrestrial or la- 

 custrine remains instead of sea-fossils. Be- 

 ing exceedingly fine in constitution and well 

 charged with certain salts, the loess is gen- 

 erally, when well irrigated, exceedingly fer- 

 tile. In all the tillable regions of central 

 Asia, including China, it plays the same part 

 as the " black earth " of Russia. The mount- 

 ains which form on the south the western 

 border of Zungaria are rich in minerals. 

 Gold is an important product of the region 

 of Khotan, where there are twenty-two 

 mines, some of them employing three or 

 four thousand workmen. This region has 

 long enjoyed the honor of being the only 

 known place where nephrite or jade was 

 found. The beds of that rare substance are 

 in the district of Karakach ; but the quarry- 

 ing for it has greatly fallen off since the 

 disturbances that occurred during the brief 

 reign of Yacoub Beg in Kashgar. 



A Yonng Trader of the Solomon Islands. 



It is amusing, says Mr. Woodford, in his 

 Naturalist among the Head-hunters, to see 

 a mere child paddle alongside in a crazy 

 trough of a canoe, only just capable of sup- 

 porting its weight. " The water splashes 

 into the canoe at every stroke of the pad- 

 dle, and at intervals the small child kicks it 

 overboard with his foot a novel kind of 

 baler. Three or four moldy-looking yams, 

 ostentatiously displayed, are rolling about 

 in the water at the bottom of the canoe. 

 The unsuspecting stranger takes pity on the 

 tender years and apparent anxiety of the 

 small native to trade, and gives him probably 

 four times the price for his rusty yams. 

 The child eagerly seizes the coveted stick 

 of tobacco, and immediately stows it for 

 safety through a hole in his ear, where at 

 least it will be in no danger of getting wet. 

 He next whisks aside a dirty-looking piece 

 of matting that has apparently got accident- 

 ally jammed in one end of the canoe, and 

 displays some more yams, of a slightly bet- 

 ter quality than the last. For the sake of 

 consistency you can not well offer him less 

 than you did before, and another stick of 



tobacco changes hands and is transferred 

 to the other ear. You think now that he 

 must have finished, as there is no place in 

 the canoe to hide anything else, but with a 

 dexterous jerk that nearly upsets the canoe 

 he produces a single yam that he has been 

 sitting upon. How it managed to escape 

 notice before is a puzzle. For this he de- 

 mands a pipe, but is not satisfied with the 

 first or second that is shown him. No ; he 

 must have a piala tinoni, or have his yam 

 back. The piala tinoni is a pipe with a 

 man's face upon the bowl. But again the 

 young trader is particular; it must also 

 have a knob at the bottom, or he will have 

 none of it." 



Popnlation of Cheese. M. Adametz, of 

 Somthal, Switzerland, has been making a 

 census of the microscopic animalcules in 

 cheese. In the fresh cheese of Emmenthal 

 he finds from 90,000 to 140,000 microbes to 

 a gramme, the number increasing with time 

 a cheese 71 days old had 800,000 to the 

 gramme. The population of mild cheese 

 (fromage mou) was still more dense. At 

 25 days of age it was 1,200,000; at 45 

 days, 200,000,000 microbes per gramme. 

 These figures apply to the middle of the 

 cheese, while the population is much more 

 dense toward the outside, where it rises to 

 from 3,600,000 to 5,600,000. At this rate, 

 the number of living beings in 360 grammes 

 of cheese is as great as the number of men 

 on the globe. 



Green Seeds and Early Frnit. Corre- 

 spondents of Garden and Forest remark upon 

 the evidence afforded by recent experiments 

 that seeds from immature fruit will give a 

 product requiring less than the usual time 

 to ripen, and that the earliness thus gained 

 can be increased by continuing the selection. 

 This has been observed, according to Dr. E. 

 Lewis Sturtevant, at the New York Experi- 

 ment Station, in the case of varieties of corn, 

 turnip, and cabbage. At Purdue University, 

 Indiana, a gain of from fifteen to twenty 

 days has been obtained by early selection- 

 Prof. Arthur, of Purdue University, has ob- 

 served further that the plant as well as the 

 fruit thus cidtivated tends to early ripeness, 

 and hence the period of fruitfulness, or the 

 time between the first and the last ripe fruit, 



