430 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



sumed by the vegetation during the dry sea- 

 Bon. A stiikiug illustration of this fact is 

 given in a forest on the western coast of 

 the Caspian Sea, where the vegetation is 

 very luxuriant, although it never rains ex- 

 cept in the fall and winter. M. Woeikoff has 

 also observed that forests depress the tem- 

 perature of the neighboring regions. Thus 

 the normal temperature ordinarily increases 

 as we go from the sea toward the interior 

 in Western Europe and Asia ; but the pres- 

 ence of a forest compensates for the rise 

 in temperature, so that there are places far 

 from the sea that are cooler than the shore 

 itself. This is the case in Bosnia, where 

 the summer is five or six degrees cooler than 

 in Herzegovina, on account of the woods. 



NOTES. 



AccoimiNG to " Wood and Iron," of the 

 four hundred and thirteen species of trees 

 found in the United Slates, the perfectly dry 

 wood of sixteen species will sink in water. 

 The heaviest of these is the black iron-wood 

 of Southern Florida, which is thirty per cent 

 heavier than v/ater. Others of the best- 

 known species are the lignum - vita;, man- 

 grove, and a small oak found at elevations 

 of from five to ten thousand feet in Western 

 Texas, Southern New Slexico, and Arizona. 

 All the species are natives of Florida or of 

 the dry interior Pacific region. 



Artesian wells have been in operation 

 in the Sahara from a very remote period, 

 and new ones have been opened by the 

 French in the Alcrcrian portion of the desert 

 with conr^idcrable success. At the same 

 time a large increase has taken place in the 

 number of palm and other fruit trees. The 

 limit of the capacity of the veins to be 

 found at the usual depth of one hundred 

 metres appears, however, to have been 

 reached at last, for the borings made since 

 1881 show a diminished yield of water. 

 The French wells, moreover, are harder to 

 clean when they are stopped up by sand 

 than the Arabian ones, on account of their 

 smaller bore ; and it is believed that new 

 ■wells will have to be made, of larger caliber. 



. M. BociON, of the Cantonal Industrial 

 School of Lausanne, Switzerland, reports 

 the discovery in Lake Leman of a bright- 

 green moss growing in the bottom of the 

 lake, on the calcareous rocks, two hundred 

 feet below the surface. No other moss has 

 been found at so great a depth under water ; 

 and how chlorophyl could have licen so 

 richly developed so far from the light is a 

 problem. 



Professor Pcrdie, having analyzed a 

 specimen of the nulk of the porpoise, gives 

 the following as its composition per hun- 

 dred parts: Water, 41-11; fat, 45-80; al- 

 buminoids, iri9; milk-sugar, 1-33 ; min- 

 eral salts, 0'57. The substance set down 

 as milk-sugar was too small in quantity for 

 accurate examination, and is regarded by 

 the analyst as very probably some albumi- 

 noid matter. The most remarkable point 

 about tliC composition of the milk is the 

 large percentage of fat which it contains, a 

 constituent of food of which the cetaceans 

 would naturally require a larger proportion 

 than ordinary mammals do. The milk was 

 yellow and thick, and had a fishy smell ; 

 and its specific gravity diflcrcd but little 

 from that of water. 



Mr. E. T. New'ton has described the re- 

 mains of a gigantic bird — the Gastornis 

 Klaascnni — found in the Lower Eocene of 

 Croydon, England, which indicates a species 

 as large as the Dinornis of New Zealand. 

 The most perfect tibiotarsus, when complete, 

 must have had a length of at least twenty 

 inches, and its trochlea is three and a half 

 inches wide, while in another specimen the 

 trochlea is four inches wide. The anserine 

 affinities of Gastornis, as regards the tibio- 

 tarsus, are confirmed by the detailed com- 

 parison of the Croydon bones with recent 

 forms. 



According to M. Dinnik, a Russian trav- 

 eler in the Caucasus, it is the custom among 

 the Ossetes (one of the peoples of the coun- 

 try) for the lucky sportsman or treasure- 

 finder to deposit some part of his spoil in 

 the sanctuary of Kckom, in the Zoa Valley, 

 and that temple h?ft become a kind of cu- 

 riosity-shop. The outside of the building 

 is decorated with horns, from the examina- 

 tion of which M. Dinnik has been able to 

 solve a question respecting the geographical 

 range of two species of goats. The funeral 

 mounds of Ossetia also furnish offerings to 

 Kckom, which are brought to it by persons 

 who dig in them for the gold ornaments they 

 may find deposited there. Armlets, rings, 

 knives, and lance-heads of the bronze period 

 arc among the curiosities of this strange 

 mountain museum ; but other uses than 

 that of consecration appear to be found for 

 articles of gold. 



Tests made with small squares of dif- 

 ferent kinds of wood, buried an inch in the 

 ground, have shown, according to the " Gar- 

 den," that birch and aspen decayed in three 

 years; willow and horse-chestnut in four 

 years; maple and red beech in five years; 

 elm, ash, hornbeam, and Lombardy poplar 

 in seven years ; and oak, Scotch fir, Wey- 

 mouth pine, and silver fir, to a depth of 

 half an inch, in seven years ; while larch, 

 juniper, and arbor-vita; were uninjured at 

 the expiration of the seven years. 



