142 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the Bay of Biscay have become of great 

 commercial value. The railway journey of 

 four or five hours from Bordeaux to Bayonne 

 is now made through a long, monotonous 

 pine -forest. The cultivation of the pine 

 improves the soil, which is gradually en- 

 riched and altered in quality by the dead 

 leaves and other vegetable debris which fall 

 upon it. In some places clearings have been 

 made in the forests and vineyards planted. 



The Colorado Oil-Field.— According to 

 Prof. Newberry's description in the Ameri- 

 can Association, the oil-field recently discov- 

 ered in Colorado is situated in the valley of 

 the Arkansas, above Pueblo, about the town 

 of Florence. The geological formation is 

 middle cretaceous, the Laramie coal series 

 (upper cretaceous) forming the table-land on 

 either side of the valley, the oil-wells being 

 bored in the Colorado shales (middle creta- 

 ceous). These shales are highly carbona- 

 ceous, and have a thickness of about three 

 thousand feet. About twenty wells have been 

 bored, mostly to the depth of from eleven to 

 sixteen hundred feet ; some fourteen are 

 now pumping, and yield from eight hundred 

 to a thousand barrels per day. The oil is of 

 excellent quality, has a green color, and an 

 agreeable odor. It yields on distillation forty 

 per cent of excellent burning-fluid, and nearly 

 sixty per cent of superior lubricating oil, 

 which contains much more paraffine than the 

 oil of Pennsylvania. The average yield of 

 the wells is nearly sixty barrels. This is 

 larger than the average yield of the Penn- 

 sylvania wells, but there are no great "gush- 

 ers " or fountain-wells. The oil-field of the 

 Arkansas Valley is extensive, and the yield 

 of oil may apparently be increased indefi- 

 nitely. At present there is no sale for the 

 lubricating oil, but, when an outlet is opened 

 to that by way of the Gulf of Mexico, the oil 

 industiy may be expected to become very 

 important and remunerative. The source of 

 the oil is undoubtedly the carbonaceous mat- 

 ter of the Colorado black shale, from which 

 it is being spontaneously distilled. 



Deaths by Wild Beasts in India.— Con- 

 ditions of peril from wild beasts and snakes 

 exist in India of which it is hard to form an 

 adequate conception in a country like ours. 

 The death-list from these causes has, during 

 the last four years, averaged more than 



2'2,500. Of 22,81'7 deaths in one of these 

 years, 20,142 were caused by shakes, leaving 

 2,675 to be ascribed to wild beasts. Last 

 year's returns also mention 60,000 head of 

 cattle as killed by these agencies, of which 

 snakes were, however, responsible for only 

 2,000, while 20,000 each were ascribed to 

 leopards and tigers. The apathy of the na- 

 tives in the face of this destruction would 

 be astonishing to a Westerner, as would 

 also their remissness in clearing out places 

 where these nuisances abound. 



NOTES. 



The article on " Bird Courts of Justice " 

 in the last number of the "Monthly" should 

 have been credited to " Chambers's Journal," 

 from which it was, with a few adaptations 

 and abbreviations, compiled. 



Committees were appointed by the Ameri- 

 can Association at its Cleveland meeting as 

 fellows : Committee on Chemistrv Teaching 

 — W. H. Seaman, W. L. Dudley, H. W. Wi- 

 ley, W. 0. Atwater, and W. A. Moyes; Com- 

 mittee on Water Analysis— 0. C. Caldwell, J. 

 W. Langley, J. A. Jlyers, W. P. Mason, R. 

 B. Warder, and W. H. Seaman ; 'Committee 

 to confer concerning the Organization of a 

 National Chemical Societ}' — A. B. Prescott, 

 Alfred Springer, and Edward Hart. Dr. A. 

 B. Prescott was substituted for Dr. Scudder 

 on the Committee on indexing Chemical Lit- 

 erature. 



In a paper read by Dr. Franz Boas be- 

 fore the American Association, on " The 

 Development of the Civilization of the North 

 American Indian," the legends of the various 

 tribes are discussed, and it is shown that, 

 notwithstanding their general similarity, the 

 mythology of each tribe is founded on a sep- 

 arate basis. Thus it is shown that the com- 

 mon culture of the tribes of the northwest 

 coast of America is not uniform, and the in- 

 fluence of one of them is more particularly 

 traced. Tliis culture should be analyzed 

 more carefully before any comparisons with 

 Asiatic and Polynesian tribes can be suc- 

 cessfully made. 



Prof. B. E. Fernow, having shown in the 

 American Association that the prevailing 

 definitions of a tree — as distinguished from 

 a shrub — are various and inexact, proposed 

 this : " Trees are woody plants, the seed of 

 which has the inherent capacity (potential 

 energy) of producing naturally within their 

 field of distribution one main, erect axis (sin- 

 gle stem or trunk), not divided at or near 

 the ground (bearing a crown), the primary 

 axis continuing to grow for a number of 

 years more vigorously than the lateral axis, 

 and the lower branches dying ofi: in time." 



