FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



391 



ist among geologists whether it repre- 

 sents any organic structure. He was 

 the first President of the Koyal Society 

 of Canada, wliich was organized in 

 1882; was one of the sectional presi- 

 dents of the British Association at its 

 Montreal meeting (1884), and was pres- 

 ident of that body at its Birmingham 

 meeting, 1886. Among his published 

 works are the Description of the Devo- 

 nian and Carboniferous Flora of East- 

 ern North America, constituting two 

 volumes of the Reports of the Geologi- 

 cal Survey of Canada; Air-Breathers of 

 the Coal Formation; Acadian Geology; 

 The Story of the Earth and Man; Ori- 

 gin of Animal Life; Fossil Men; the 

 Canadian Ice Age; the Meeting Place 

 of Geology and History; the Geologi- 

 cal History of Plants (in the Interna- 

 tional Scientific Series) ; Relics of Prime- 

 val Life (Lowell Lectures) ; The Chain 

 of Life in Geological Times; Modern 

 Science in Bible Lands; the Dawn of 

 Life; Modern Ideas of Evolution; a 

 book of travels in Egypt and Syria; 

 and many contributions to scientific pe- 

 riodicals. He received numerous de- 

 grees and honors from learned bodies 

 and institutions, among them the Lyell 

 medal of the Geological Society of Lon- 

 don, in 1882. A sketch of Principal 

 Dawson, as he was then called, was pub- 

 lished, with a portrait, in the Popular 

 Science Monthly for December, 1875 

 (vol. -vdii, p. 132). 



Glacial Lakes in New York. — A 



glacial lake is defined by H. P. Fair- 

 child, in his paper on Glacial Waters in 

 the Finger Lake Region of New York 

 (Geological Society of America, Roch- 

 ester, N. Y.), as a body of static water 

 existing by \artue of a barrier of ice. 

 Such impounded waters may exist where 

 a glacier blocks a stream, or where the 

 general land surface inclines toward the 

 glacier foot. The lakes described in Mr. 

 Fairehild's paper belongs to the second 

 class, and were formed in the southern 

 part of the Ontario basin, where the 

 land slopes northward from a plateau 

 of two thousand feet elevation down to 

 Lake Ontario, two hundred and forty- 

 six feet. The high plateau was deeply 

 gashed by the preglacial stream erosion, 

 and in these trenches along the north- 

 em border of the plateau lie the present 

 " Finger Lakes." The topography was 



peculiarly favorable to the production 

 against the bold ice front of a series of 

 distinct valley lakes, in many respects 

 unequaled elsewhere. Between twenty 

 and thirty of these lakes are described 

 in Professor Fairehild's paper, which oc- 

 cupied sites now partly represented by 

 nineteen streams and lakes, beginning 

 with Tonawanda Creek on the west and 

 extending to Butternut Creek (James- 

 burg and Apulia) on the east. The 

 local lakes were not of long duration, 

 and their surface level was unstable, 

 changing with the down-cutting of the 

 outlets and with the greatly increased 

 volume of the summer melting of the 

 ice sheet. Consequently, true beaches 

 are usually wanting. The conspicuous 

 evidences are the deltas of land streams, 

 \rith their teiTaces, embankments, bars 

 and spits, and the outlet channels. The 

 records of these extinct waters are the 

 very latest phenomena connected with 

 the ice invasion, and are the connecting 

 link between the glacial condition and 

 the present hydrography. They are of 

 lively interest, perhaps, to only a few 

 persons, but the details are necessary to 

 the more general study of the Pleisto- 

 cene. No economic or practical result 

 from the knowledge is foreseen, " but as 

 pure science the study of these waterless 

 lakes, waveless shores, and streamless 

 channels has a fascination and ro- 



The Environment in Education. 



— " Two considerations of equal and fun- 

 damental importance," says Mr. Wilbur 

 S. Jackman, " are included in teaching — 

 the choice of the subject-matter and its 

 presentation, and the reaction of the 

 pupil as the result of the presentation. 

 Xo presentation ever reaches conscious- 

 ness without a reaction, however feeble, 

 from which results an immediate and in- 

 evitable corresponding mental construc- 

 tion. Certain instincts called primitive, 

 it may be generally agreed, exist in chil- 

 dren, and, by taking intelligent advan- 

 tage of these, definite educative presen- 

 tation may be begun at a much earlier 

 age than was once supposed. Under the 

 theory that the child repeats the racial 

 history in its growth, a practice has 

 arisen of meeting the early instincts of 

 childhood with presentations from the 

 adult lives of primitive peoples. Pres- 

 entations are made to stimulate the idea 



