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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



made chiefly of alum and sugar, which, on 

 being broken, gave an instantaneous light. 

 Another " promethean " was composed of 

 equal parts of chlorate of potash and sugar 

 mixed with a solution of gum, while the sul- 

 phuric acid was contained in a glass bead im- 

 bedded in the paste and rolled up in gummed 

 paper. Chemical contact and flame were 

 produced by crushing with a pair of pliers. 

 The " Dobereiner," named after the German 

 inventor, was an apparatus of some complex- 

 ity for bringing hydrogen to impinge upon 

 spongy platinum. It was extensively used 

 in Germany and other countries, and is still 

 found in laboratories and can be purchased 

 from instrument-makers. The invention of 

 friction matches is variously assigned to an 

 Englishman and to a German, and to the 

 years 1829, 1830, and 1832. The first United 

 States patent for a friction match was issued 

 in 1832 for a chlorate match. 



Silicified Wood in Arkansas. — The occur- 

 rence of silicified wood in the sands and 

 gravels of the Tertiary of the lower Missis- 

 sippi Yalley has long been known, but the 

 mentions and studies of it have for the most 

 part been only incidental. No attempt has 

 hitherto been made, according to Mr. R. 

 Ellsworth Call, to recognize the species and 

 fix their value for classification. The fossil 

 woods occur throughout the area covered 

 by Tertiary sands and gravels in Arkansas. 

 When in large masses, they are apparently 

 rarely far removed from beds of Tertiary 

 lignite ; if in small masses or in small frag- 

 ments, they occur in the gravels of nearly all 

 the region and in the beds of the streams 

 and brooks of the area covered by the Ter- 

 tiary. Occasionally, whole trunks of trees 

 are found, often partially buried in the sands 

 or deeply imbedded in the gravels which 

 cover the flood plains of the creeks and ra- 

 vines. The microscopic studies of Prof. F. 

 H. Knowlton have shown that the woods be- 

 long to both dicotyledonous and coniferous 

 types, the former constituting the first known 

 dicotyledonous wood found in this country 

 in rocks older than Pleistocene, and the first 

 dicotyledonous forms determined by internal 

 structure. The forms described by Prof. 

 Knowlton are new, and therefore of no use 

 for purposes of classification, but otherwise 

 valuable results have been reached by the 



studies. The specimens found indicate com- 

 paratively few species, but these few must 

 have existed in great numbers. Mr. Call's at- 

 tention has been directed to tracing the con- 

 nection between these silicified woods and 

 the lignite beds ; and he concludes that they 

 are silicified lignite, the silicification of which 

 occurred either while they were still in the 

 clays, or, most often, after they were removed 

 and buried in the sands and gravels. 



NOTES. 



Mr. T. C. Stearns records, in the Popu- 

 lar Science News, as a result of his observa- 

 tions of many snakes of every usual size, that 

 he finds them lying in the spring on hill 

 slopes in their torpid state. He never saw 

 them lying straight, but they were all in the 

 form of the letter S. He has also noticed 

 that the first movement they make when 

 aroused is toward the tail, and that indiffer- 

 ently whether he is standing at the head or 

 the tail. 



A mask in the National Museum which 

 was found in a grave in southeastern Alaska, 

 is described in a special paper by Lieutenant 

 T. Dix Bolles, U. S. N. It is skillfully carved 

 from cedar wood and painted in the usual 

 grotesque manner with native colors, and is 

 marked by the unique peculiarity of hav- 

 ing for its eyes two large bronze Chinese 

 temple coins. The grave in which it was 

 found is more than two hundred years old. 

 Lieutenant Bolles regards it as proof that a 

 Chinese junk was, at some time in the past, 

 driven upon the Alaskan coast. 



The British Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science has been invited to meet in 

 Toronto in 1895 or 1896. Its first visit to 

 Canada took place in 1884, when it assem- 

 bled in Montreal. Since that year the scien- 

 tific interests of the city have made rapid 

 strides, the impulse thereto being in large 

 measure due to the interest evoked by the 

 Association's work. In its new technical de- 

 partments, established through the bequest 

 of the late Mr. Thomas Workman, and by 

 the princely gifts of Mr. William C. McDonald, 

 McGill University is as thoroughly equipped 

 as any university in America. Mr. Peter Red- 

 path, who gave the beautiful building for its 

 Natural History Museum, has given a hand- 

 some building, fast approaching completion, 

 for its library. The muster-roll of McGill is 

 now 650. 



At a meeting held in October the trus- 

 tees of Columbian University, Washington, 

 D. C, elected three chemists to as many 

 chairs in the faculty : Dr. E. A. de Schweinitz, 

 lately of the United States Agricultural De- 

 partment, Washington, was elected Professor 



