POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



57i 



sulphur-springs, and the most famous of 

 them all are those at Luchon, the hottest 

 of which has a temperature of 154°, and 

 requires cooling before it can be used. The 

 seventh and last group consists of the earthy 

 and calcareous waters, which are marked by 

 a preponderance of the earthy salts of lime 

 and magnesia. In baths, their action is 

 much like that of the simple thermal wa- 

 ters. At Contrexeville, they are adminis- 

 tered internally for dyspepsia, and in calcu- 

 lous and vesical complaints ; but the precise 

 mode of their action is not well understood. 

 Probably much of their efficacy is due to 

 the large quantity of an active solvent, such 

 as hot water, which the patient is induced to 

 consume ; and this, Dr. Yco hints more than 

 once, may be a chief element in the virtue 

 of all the springs. 



Land -Waves. — Professor W. Mattieu 

 Williams maintains that the tidal waves, 

 rushes of the sea, and other phenomena 

 of the kind observable in connection with 

 earthquakes, are not affections of the sea, 

 but of the land. It is the land that under- 

 goes the upheaval and depression that are 

 remarked, but which, as observed by land- 

 dwellers and made known to them by 

 changes in the relative level of land and 

 sea, are attributed to the latter. The great 

 Krakatoa wave " swept half-way round the 

 earth without being felt by any vessel out 

 at sea. It was felt badly enough on land, 

 and on land only. The great wave that 

 made such havoc at the earthquake of Lis- 

 bon was evidently a land-wave. It was the 

 rising and falling of the land, not of the 

 sea, that buried the solid marble quay of 

 Lisbon. As Lyell says, 'The quay sank 

 down with all the people on it, and not one 

 of the dead bodies ever floated to the sur- 

 face.' In its place the water is now one 

 hundred fathoms deep." An account is 

 given in "Nature" of June 3, 1886, of 

 a phenomenon witnessed at Stonehaven, 

 where, at intervals, just before and after 

 high tide, without any apparent cause, the 

 water along the coast rose and fell from ten 

 to eighteen inches at a time, the subsidence 

 leaving as much as from fifteen to eighteen 

 feet of the beach dry. The disturbance 

 continued for three hours, during which 

 " there was no wind, and the sea was quite 



smooth, but the water advanced and retired 

 with a speed equal to the run of a large 

 river during a soate." It was surmised 

 that the phenomenon was due to some 

 eruption or subsidence in the sea-bottom ; 

 but, to Professor Williams, " it appears far 

 more probable that an undulation of the 

 coast itself was the cause, the rising of the 

 land causing the recession of the sea, and 

 vice versa. A sea-wave, however caused, 

 on advancing over a shallow, sloping bottom 

 with a fall of from ten to eighteen inches 

 in from fifteen to eighteen feet, would break 

 and form a ' roller,' and distinctly show it- 

 self as a ' ground-swell.' " Many other mys- 

 terious rushings of the sea on the coast may 

 be similarly explained. They demand more 

 careful study than they have received. 



The Rocky Mountains.— Describing the 



British Columbian Rocky Mountains, before 

 the British Association, George M. Dawson 

 remarked that the term " Rocky Mountains " 

 is frequently applied in a loose way to the 

 whole mountainous belt which borders the 

 west side of the North American Continent. 

 The mountainous belt is, however, prefera- 

 bly called the Cordillera region, and includes 

 a great number of mountain systems or 

 ranges, which on the fortieth parallel have 

 a breadth of not less than seven hundred 

 miles. Nearly coincident with the forty- 

 ninth parallel, however, a change in the 

 general character of the Cordillera region 

 occurs. It becomes comparatively strict 

 and narrow, and runs to the fifty-sixth par- 

 allel, or beyond, with an average width of 

 about four hundred miles only. This por- 

 tion of the western mountain- region? com- 

 prises the greater part of the province of 

 British Columbia. It consists of four main 

 ranges, or systems of mountains, each in- 

 cluding a number of component ranges. 

 These mountains are, from east to west, the 

 Rocky Mountains proper, mountains which 

 may be classed together as the gold ranges, 

 the system of the Coast Ranges of British 

 Columbia (sometimes improperly named the 

 Cascade Range), and a mountain system, the 

 unsubmerged portions of which constitute 

 Vancouver and the Queen Charlotte Islands. 

 The system of the Rocky Mountains proper, 

 between the forty-ninth and fifty-third par- 

 allels, has an average width of about sixty 



