244 THE AMERICAN MONTHLY [July 



no real cure for asthma, uuless the lungs are unloaded of 

 their gravel and stay so. The microscope alone can tell 

 the riddance. 



Coughs are relieved by removing gravel from the 

 lungs, when not enough to cause asthma. The point is 

 that some coughs are caused by the irritation of the 

 lung gravel and nature's trying to get rid of it. I have 

 seen such cases cured by removing the gravel on the 

 same principle as surgeons treat foreign bodies. Coughs 

 seem more common in England than here. I think the 

 climate is less to blame than the gravel. Distilled water 

 makes the best cough drops in such cases by dissolving 

 the gravel. 



If anyone will take the pains to look at the beautiful 

 cuts of sputum, drawn thirty years ago, in "Alimentation 

 and Disease," J. H. Vail & Co., New York, they will see 

 that Dr. Salisbury is the pioneer as to these lung 

 gravels. 



New York, May 4, 1896. 



Meteoric Paper. 



By ARTHUR M. EDWARDS, M. D., 

 NEWARK, N. J. 



Whilst investigating the trap rocks on the Wahchu- 

 ing or Orange Mountain, N. J., I lately came across the 

 dry bed of a stream that had flowed down the rocks in 

 a break in them and left by its drying a mass of whitish 

 paper-like material on the stones. It was not the first 

 time I had met with the substance. About thirty years 

 back I had first seen it on the shores of New England 

 and subsequently covering the meadows back of Hoboken, 

 N. J. But this was fresh water and I determined to 

 gather it and when at home view it by means of the mi- 

 croscope. For I hold it to be the duty of the observer of 

 nature to turn his microscope to account on all occasions. 



