268 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The facts are just these : my invitation 

 to Prof. Wright and Dr. Sprccher to visit 

 the island with me was wholly a matter of 

 courtesy. While there I consulted them as 

 to the best method of protecting the groove 

 from the incursions of the Vandal curiosity- 

 hunters, and also as to the best form of 

 conveying the title, to be held in perpetuity 

 for the benefit of science ; and all of the sur- 

 veying that was done by those gentlemen 

 they did with their e)'es, as they stood ad- 

 miring that beautiful and wonderful work of 

 Nature's laws. 



I take pleasure in saying that I have 

 completed the work of uncovering fifty feet 

 of the groove, leaving fifty feet still covered 

 to the depth of about twelve feet with clay, 

 gravel, and fragments of the lime rock, just 

 as it was left by Nature's laws when their 

 work was finished, and the tools with which 

 that work was done — granite bowlders — lie 

 scattered over the island, and on the main- 

 land, as far west as the Indiana line, there 

 to rest, imperishable and unchanged, until 

 Nature shall again take them up to do its 

 work. 



Were yon to see that groove at this time 

 I feel sure that you w ould pronounce it to be 

 the most beautiful and wonderful evidence 

 of the glacial movement that has ever been 

 brought to the notice of civilized man. 



On the 237th page of Prof. Wright's Ice 

 Age there is an engraving which gives an 

 iniperfeet view of the easterly end of the 

 great groove, as it appeared before it was 

 uncovered. And on the 238th page of the 

 same book there is an engraving of another 

 grooved rock, which is a little north of the 

 great groove, from which I had taken off 

 about a hundred feet before the photograph 

 was taken, and sent to various scientific in- 

 stitutions. This, too, you will see is a most 



perfect and beautiful specimen of Nature's 

 work. 



I beg that you will pardon me for troub- 

 ling you with this letter, for I feel that 

 it is due to my friends and also to myself 

 that the errors which I have noted should 

 be corrected. 



And, now that I have nothing further fo 

 say on the subject which prompted this let- 

 ter, I will add a few words regarding The 

 Popular Science Monthly. I have been a 

 subscriber from the time of the issue of the 

 fii'st number, and I now have thirty volumes 

 bound ; and I take pleasure in saying that I 

 think that there are no other thirty volumes 

 to be found which contain such a vast and va- 

 ried amount of useful information, or which 

 are so well calculated to educate men in mat- 

 ters which advance our civilization, as those. 



And more — they arc a most noble monu- 

 ment to "Edward L. Youmans," more beau- 

 tiful and enduring than marble or granite. 

 I am, sir, very respectfully yours, 



M. C. YOUNGLOVE. 



Cleveland, September 16, 1891. 



[The paragraph noticed by Mr. Young- 

 love was compiled from a slip which was 

 sent to the Monthly from a Cleveland paper. 

 The language of the slip was followed, with- 

 out supposing that the word "surveyed" 

 was meant to be used in a technical sense, 

 but rather perhaps in its original sense of 

 looked-over, or perhaps as meaning that Drs. 

 Wright and Sprccher had the ground sur- 

 veyed. The change of our correspondent's 

 name to Youngblood was one that we much 

 regret ; but it was also one that might natu- 

 rally occur in transcription or type-setting 

 and be overlooked by a stranger to the per- 

 son concerned ; for to a stranger no sugges- 

 tion of error would be likely to occur.] 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



TEE STRONG MAN. 



FORTY years ago or less the apos- 

 tle of the hour was Carlyle, the 

 fashionable gospel was the gospel of 

 force, and the hope of the world was 

 supposed to lie in tlie advent of certain 

 heroes, strong, resolute men, who were 

 to heal our social and other diseases by 

 the prescriptions of a benevolent des- 

 potism. The gospel of force and all its 

 accompanying ideas have somewhat 

 fallen into discredit to-day. These latter 

 times have proved very unfavorable to 

 strong men, or at least to tliose who 

 have tried to pose in that character. 



Louis Napoleon was a strong man : he 

 greatly dared on a certain 2d of De- 

 cember just forty years ago, and for a 

 time he seemed to be a living justifi- 

 cation of Carlylism ; but the sage of 

 Chelsea lived to see the Man of Destiny 

 cast down from his high pre-eminence 

 and every vestige of his rule obliterated 

 by an indignant people. Bismarck was 

 a strong man, full of an almost reckless 

 courage and utterly impatient of criti- 

 cism and opposition; yet how sudden 

 and complete was his fall ! Thiers 

 wished to play the part of the strong 

 man in France, and so did Marshal Mc- 



