704 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



cember, a paragraph of which we may 

 here quote : 



" This evidence " (viz., for a recent 

 submergence, as supposed by the Duke 

 of Argyll and others) " consisted of shell- 

 beds inclosed in true glacial deposits 

 eleven hundred feet above the sea at 

 Macclesfield near Manchester, and four- 

 teen hundred feet above the sea at Moel 

 Tryfaen, on the northern flanks of Snow- 

 don in Wales. Prof. Lewis and those 

 who have followed out the clews which 

 he started, have proved that these shell- 

 beds were not direct deposits during a 

 submergence of the country, but rather 

 beds washed out of true glacial deposits 

 which had been shoved along by the ice 

 in its passage over the bottom of the 

 Irish Sea. The shells were pushed up 

 with the mud from the sea bottom, as 

 pebbles are known to have been in so 

 many instances. The melting of the ice 

 furnished the water necessary for par- 

 tially working over the original deposit 

 and sorting out and stratifying the in- 

 closed gravel and shells." 



A proof that this is the true explana- 

 tion is that " the shells are not such as 

 would haunt the same place under wa- 

 ter. In these beds rock-haunting and 

 mud-loving species and shallow-water 

 and deep-water species are indiscrimi- 

 nately mingled together." 



We see here once more the value of 

 close and thorough observation. No 

 point in scientific theory should be con- 

 sidered settled till all the facts are in. 

 If the Duke of Argyll wants to prove 

 that the whole of England got a dip in 

 the days of the patriarch Noah, say 

 about five thousand years ago, he will 

 have to look about for other arguments. 

 As the case now stands, the shells to 

 which he pointed so triumphantly tell 

 an altogether different story. 



STOVES WITHOUT FLUES. 



Theee has recently appeared a fresh 



illustration of " what knowledge is of 



most worth " in the dangers that come 



from the pitiful ignorance of the sim- 



plest facts of science still prevailing 

 among presumably well-informed per- 

 sons. Certain "patent fuels" have 

 been put on sale, to be used in stoves 

 without chimney connection, and are 

 advertised as being entirely harmless. 

 The natural result has followed. Gulli- 

 ble merchants, ministers, and even doc- 

 tors have been buying them and nearly 

 smothering themselves or their friends 

 with the gases which must result from 

 the combustion of any form of carbon. 

 The makers of these fuels state that 

 ventilation is required with their appa- 

 ratus, but their customers reason, Why 

 let in the cold air if the fuel is harmless, 

 as stated? or they imagine that one 

 opening from a room into a hallway 

 secures " ventilation." Probably most 

 of the victims of the patent fuels have 

 read about the process of combustion, 

 but they have not learned its nature 

 from experiments that would make this 

 knowledge real to them. Their educa- 

 tion has been of the antiquated but not 

 yet abandoned kind which substitutes 

 the study of books for the study of 

 things. As an explorer who tries to 

 cross a deep river is drowned if he can 

 not swim, so any one who lives in the 

 present age, when natural forces are 

 being put to service as never before, is 

 badly off if he does not understand how 

 to use these forces without letting them 

 overwhelm him. Science is doing many 

 wonderful things in these times, but its 

 achievements always consist in employ- 

 ing the laws of Nature, never in circum- 

 venting them. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



The Lost Atlantis, and other Ethnographic 

 Studies. By Sir Daniel Wilson. New 

 York : Macmillan & Co. Pp. 409. Price, 



$4. 



This is a posthumous work, completed in 

 accordance with the author's desire by his 

 daughter. It is described in his note-book 

 as " a few carefully studied monographs, 

 linked together by a slender thread of ethno- 

 graphic relationship." The thread, as nearly 



