86o 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



scribed by Prejevalski, some of the Siberian 

 steppes in spring appear like immense flower 

 beds of various colors, with wood-clad hills 

 of dark pines or dwarf birches rising from 

 among them. Our prairies present this floral 

 exuberance through most of the summer, but 

 on the thinner soil of the steppes it usually 

 dies out under the intense heat, while in 

 winter the region is subject to the other ex- 

 treme of excessive cold. Rain is more abun- 

 dant in the steppes than in the northern tun- 

 dras. It falls chiefly in summer, in violent 

 showers, which do little permanent good to 

 vegetation. In the north, the water, pre- 

 vented by the perpetual ice in the subsoil 

 from percolating through it, forms the 

 marshes characteristic of the tundras. An- 

 other feature common to steppes and tundras 

 is that of raging snow-storms or buranes 

 (blizzards ?), or high winds with or without 

 snow. These winds, charged with sand, dust, 

 and snow, sweep away or destroy everything 

 they meet, and deposit in curious formations 

 alternate strata of sand and snow. The ani- 

 mal life of the tundras includes animals that 

 live in them constantly, and those that visit 

 them from other regions. Of the former 

 class are the lemming, the arctic fox, and 

 the snow hare in the tundras, while the char- 

 acteristic animals of the steppes are the arc- 

 tomys, the jerboa, and the spermophilus. It 

 was the discovery of numerous remains of 

 these animals in central Europe that suggest- 

 ed to Nehring that all the prairie formations 

 may have had a similar origin. The objec- 

 tions which have been brought against this 

 theory, which are not without weight, are in- 

 geniously answered by Prof. Nehring in his 

 book. 



A River's Work. — Regarding the vary- 

 ing phases of a river's work in its passage 

 from the form of a mountain torrent to that 

 of a broad estuary, Mr. Albert F. Brigham re- 

 marks that transportation begins at the head 

 waters, and continues, always important, to 

 the ocean. Corrasion (wearing away) is ac- 

 tive in the torrential stage, and passes prac- 

 tically down to zero in the lower course of 

 the stream. Deposition begins at the end of 

 the torrential section, and prevails strong- 

 ly to the ocean. In the middle or terrace 

 section the forces approximate an equilibri- 

 um. The river lays up its waste in its banks, 



only to load it up again after months or years, 

 and carry it a stage farther toward its desti- 

 nation. Somewhere in descending our stream 

 we pass the critical point between land de- 

 struction and land building. Above this 

 point materials are gathered up ; below they 

 are strewn down." 



Surviving Superstitions. — The more so- 

 ber and matter-of-fact the people, says an 

 essayist in the London Spectator, the more 

 curious are the superstitions that survive 

 among them, in spite of their common sense. 

 It is not only the ignorant sailor before the 

 mast who regards Friday with superstitious 

 dread. His captain and several other well- 

 educated men share in the feeling. The su- 

 perstition concerning thirteen at the table is 

 perhaps more widespread than any other. A 

 hostess who deliberately made up a party of 

 thirteen would be a bold woman indeed, for 

 two or three of her company would object to 

 dining at her table. Many people will posi- 

 tively assert that they have actually known 

 cases in which one of a party of thirteen at 

 dinner has died in the course of the year — 

 and with perfect truth, probably ; for, taking 

 the average age of the assembled guests to 

 be thirty-five or over, the mathematical 

 chances of death occurring among them with- 

 in a year are rather more than one in thir- 

 teen. The chance of a death would be even 

 greater if there were twenty, and would 

 amount to almost a certainty in the case of 

 a hundred — an excellent reason for abstain- 

 ing from public dinners ! The same writer 

 gives as the origin of the superstition against 

 passing under a ladder the circumstance that 

 in the old days the man to be hanged had to 

 pass under the ladder which stood against 

 the gallows for the convenience of the exe- 

 cutioner ; " and he passed under that ladder 

 with the fair certainty of being immediately 

 hanged." The superstition concerning the 

 spilling of salt dates from the most distant 

 antiquity. " Salt, the incorruptible and the 

 preserver from corruption, the holy substance 

 that was used in sacrifice, could not be rude- 

 ly spilt or wasted without incurring the anger 

 of all good spirits and giving an opportunity 

 to the evil ones. Now, the evil spirit lurks, 

 as a rule, somewhere behind a man upon the 

 left side, so that it is desirable, if one wishes 

 to avoid the consequence of carelessness, to 



