POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



717 



been upheaved. The natives wash this 

 earth slowly away by hydraulic minuig. 

 The third system of mining is by sinking 

 pits in the lower or plain parts of the val- 

 ley, and washing the earth extracted by 

 h;ind. 



Effects of an Earthquake. — A paper was 

 read in the British Association by Dr. T. 

 Sterry Hunt and Mr. J. Douglas, describing 

 their observations of the effects of an earth- 

 quake which took place in Sonora, Mexico, 

 on May 3, 1887. The authors found the re- 

 sults of the undulatory movements of the 

 soil apparent in the San Pedro and Sulphur 

 Spring Valleys in great numbers of cracks 

 and dislocations. For distances of several 

 hundred feet, sometimes with a generally 

 north and south course, vertical down-throws 

 on one side of from one foot to two feet 

 were seen, the depressed portion rising 

 either gradually or by a vertical step to the 

 origiual level. Branching, and in some 

 cases intersecting, cracks were observed. 

 These depressions were evidently connected 

 with outbursts of sand and water, which, 

 along cracks — marked by depressions on 

 both sides — sometimes covered areas of 

 many hundred square feet with layers a 

 foot or more in depth, marked here and 

 there by craters, two feet in diameter, 

 through which water had risen during the 

 outburst of these volcanoes. 



Agassiz's Service to Evolution. — Pro- 

 fessor Le Conte's ascription to Professor 

 Agassiz of the credit of having laid the 

 basis for the doctrine of evolution is con- 

 firmed, from a different point of view, by 

 Professor Alfred Newton, in his opening 

 address before the Section of Biology of the 

 British Association. The speaker, referring 

 to Agassiz's doctrine of centers of creation, 

 said that " creation in his mind was no 

 figurative expression. He meant by it . . . 

 a direct act of God — in other words, his 

 belief was, that there had been going on 

 around us a series of mysterious perform- 

 ances, not one of which had ever been con- 

 sciously witnessed by a human eye, each of 

 which had for its object the independent 

 formation of a new living being, animal or 

 plant." This doctrine of a continuous series 

 of miraculous acts having gone on for an 



indefinite time was perfectly logical when 

 the premises were admitted ; and it became 

 obvious that the alternative was between 

 that doctrine and the theory of transmutation 

 of species. The having made this thought 

 clear is declared by Professor Newton to 

 have been a great service rendered to the 

 new theory by one who was its most deter- 

 mined opponent. 



A Floral Moth-Trap.— Mr. Robert E. C. 

 Stearns, in the " American Naturalist," de- 

 scribes the plant Araujia alhens as a " moth- 

 trap." The plant, formerly called Physi- 

 anthiii, is a native of Buenos Ayres, but has 

 been pretty widely distributed in the United 

 States, and may be found now at places as 

 far apart as Boston and San Francisco. The 

 insects are caught in the flower, which is 

 trumpet-shaped, flaring at the mouth, where 

 the petals divide, and then uniting and form- 

 ing a tube, which is swollen into a bulbous 

 form where the corolla joins the calyx. The 

 stamens are furnished with side wing-like 

 processes and exterior spurs, which press 

 against the gymnecium, and hide the ovaries 

 and pollen-masses. " The moth, in pursuit 

 of the nectar, first reaches that portion con- 

 tained in the pockets between the bases of 

 the spurs ; then, in search of more, having 

 already thrust the proboscis down the tube 

 of the flower, describing a curve between 

 the exterior of the stamineal crown or mass 

 and the inside of the bulb of the perigonium, 

 it has to push the proboscis upward in order 

 to reach that portion of the flower where 

 the anther-cells, pollen-masses, and glands 

 are in close juxtaposition." Having satis- 

 fied its hunger, or otherw-ise, upon attempt- 

 ing to withdraw the proboscis by a direct 

 pull — which it can not do, because the organ 

 is not provided with any muscular arrange- 

 ment by which the curved motion made in 

 entering can be reversed — the proboscis 

 " becomes wedged in between the edges of 

 what may be termed the anther-wings, or 

 rather the edges thereof, and is held tight, 

 very much in the same way that an old- 

 fashioned boot - jack grips a boot. The 

 more the moth pulls, the tighter or firmer 

 the grip, and escape is impossible, unless 

 the flower has reached such a degree of ma- 

 turity that its substance has become some- 

 what softened or wilted." 



