168 EULOGY ON THE LATE GENERAL JOSEPH G. TOTTEN. 



nitzia trifula,) aud Pasithca nigra. Tliis last-named species lie described from 

 young shells, and afterwards finding the adult shell, which is very different, 

 called it Ccriihium reticulatum. It has for many years been called Cerytldum 

 Sayi, but a late author has again credited it to him, under the name of Biltivjn 

 nigrum. 



A species of Si/ccinca (S. Tot(cniana) was dedicated to General Totten by 

 Mr. Isaac Lea, of Philadel[)hia. 



Conchologists are also indebted to General Totten for the discovery of means 

 for the preservation of the epidermis or periostraca of shells, which is in many 

 species so liable to crack, and this recipe has been received with mucli appro- 

 bation by many collectors who have found it to supply a want much felt. The 

 valuable collection of rare shells which he made at this period of his life he 

 presented to the Smithsonian Institution, without the usual condition that it 

 should be preserved separately, but to be used most advantageously for the 

 advancement of science, to complete the general collection of the museum, or for 

 distribution as duplicates to other establishments. 



In the "Annals of the Lyceum of Natural History of New York" for 1824 

 (vol. i, pp. 109-114) he published " Notes on some new Supports for Minerals, 

 subject to the Action of the Common Blow-pipe." These researches on the use 

 and power of the blow-pipe appear to have been incited by an article of James 

 Smithson, the subsequent founder of the Smithsonian Institution, and the 

 memoir of Totten commences with a reference to and rehearsal of the experi- 

 ments of that gentleman, as detailed in a letter to the editor of the Annals of 

 Philosophy. Smithson, it was remarked, had communicated several ingenious 

 modifications of Saussure's process with supports of splinters of sapphire, which 

 process, he observes, "has been scarcely at all employed; owing partly to the 

 excessive dilEculty, in general, of making the particles adhere, and in conse- 

 quence of the almost unpossessed degree of patience required, and of the time 

 consumed by nearly interminable failures." Detailing the processes of Mr. 

 Smithson, three in number, and the success of that gentleman, he adopted a 

 modification of Smithson's third process, having recourse, as a support, to a 

 portion of the mineral itself, which he designed to expose to the action of the 

 flame. "Instead, however, of taking upon the point of platinum wire a very 

 minute portion of the paste made of the powdered mineral," according to Mr. 

 Smithson's method, he "formed a- paste by mixing the powder with very thick 

 gum-water, and, rubbing a little of it under the finger, formed a very acute cone, 

 sometimes nearly an inch in length, and generally about a twentieth of an 

 inch in diameter at the base." To the apex of such cones the most minute 

 particles wquld adhere under the strongest blast of the blow-pipe, and being 

 insulated by the destruction of continuity of the particles of the cone, the flame 

 could be directed upon it with undiminished fervor. Experiments were made 

 on a number of minerals, confirming those of Mr. Smithson, and greatly extend- 

 nig the power of the blow-pipe, and he was thus led to add to the three classes 

 divided in relation to this instrument a foiu'th, namely, " such as are fusible, jjcr 

 sc, in microscopical particles." 



The attention of the inhabitants near the shores of the great lakes of the 

 north had often been arrested by the sudden disappearance in the spring of the 

 ice on the surface. The lakes would be covered with a continuous sheet of 

 solid ice in the evening, and in the next morning all would have vanished. 

 "Wild speculations had been entertained as to the explanation of this phenomenon 

 previous to the investigation of the subject by General Totten, who presented 

 an article on the subject to the American Association for the Advancement of 

 Science at the Springfield meeting in 1859. 



From this it appears that his attention had been directed to it forty years be- 

 fore, at Plattsburg, New York. Ice is composed of a congeries of prismatic crys- 

 tals, whose axes are at right angles to the surface of the mass. " Examina- 



