POPULAR MISCELLANY, 



7^7 



hundred to three hundred feet above the 



present level of the stream. A deserted riv- I 

 er-channel, now followed by the Chesapeake 

 and Ohio Railroad, and more than two hun- 

 dred feet higher than the present river, ex- 

 tends from fifteen miles below Charleston 

 to Huntington, at the mouth of the Guy- 

 andotte, through which the Kanawha once 

 flowed to the Ohio. A similar deserted 

 channel, of a similar height, extends from 

 near the mouth of the Big Sandy to Green- 

 upsburg, Kentucky. Mr. G. H, Squier re- 

 ports evidences of a terrace on the Licking 

 River, near Owingsville, Bath County, Ken- 

 tucky ; and the fact had so impressed him 

 that, before knowing of Professor Wright's 

 discoveries, he had come to the conclusion 

 that some such barrier as is supposed must 

 have existed. 



Value of Brain - Weighings. — Recent 

 statements about the weight of Turge- 

 nief's brain, which was extraordinarily 

 heavy, have provoked questions as to the 

 value of such data. Mr. Nikiforoff has 

 published an article on the subject. The 

 suggestion is raised that the significance of 

 the weight of the brain is not absolute, j 

 but should depend upon the proportion 

 the brain bears to the dimensions of the 

 whole body, and to the weight of the in- 

 dividual. Byron died at the age of thirty- 

 six, and the great geometrician Gauss at 

 seventy-eight years of age. The brains of 

 the two should, therefore not be compared. 

 It is equally important to know what was 

 the cause of death, for protracted disease 

 and old age exhaust the brain. To define 

 the real degree of development of the brain, 

 it is, therefore, necessary to have a knowl- 

 edge of the condition of the whole body, and, 

 as this is usually lacking, the mere record of 

 weights possesses little significance. 



The Boring Power of Mollnslts.— Pro- 

 fessor F. H. Storer suggests, in a note to 

 Professor Dana, that the shell and rock- 

 boring mollusks owe their excavating pow- 

 er in large part to chemical actions which 

 they induce. Having observed how readily 

 saline compounds are decomposed by way 

 of osmose when put in contact with moist- 

 ened membranes, and particularly with liv- 

 ing membranes, like those in the rootlets of 



plants, and how plant-roots actually decom- 

 pose mineral substances, he conceives it 

 probable that mollusks also do their bor- 

 ing by means of chlorhydric acid formed 

 through the decomposition of sea-salt by 

 certain of their tissues. The boring has 

 usually been regarded as a kind of drilling 

 performed by the tooth-like processes at- 

 tached to the proboscis of the moUusk. 

 Professor Storer does not deny that the 

 teeth may aid in the process of removing 

 the softened shell, but believes that an acid 

 solvent acting upon the shell is primarily 

 operative ; and he proposes the question as 

 a fit subject of experimentation. 



Sir Bartle Frere,— Sir Henry Bartle Ed- 

 ward Frere, Bart., a distinguished officer in 

 the English colonial service, and a promoter 

 of geographical exploration, died at his 

 home in Wimbledon, England, on the 29t*a 

 of May. He was bom in 1815, and spent 

 his earUer years in the Indian civil service, 

 where he became Governor of Bombay, and 

 member of the Council of India. In 1872 

 he was deputed on a special mission, con- 

 nected with the suppression of the slave- 

 trade, to Zanzibar, where he was able to 

 render efficient aid to African exploration. 

 His interest in this work began in 1865, 

 when he helped to raise means to start 

 Livingstone on his last expedition, and gave 

 him an official letter to the Sultan of Zan- 

 zibar. At Zanzibar, in 18'72, he superin- 

 tended the departure of Cameron's expe- 

 dition for the relief of Livingstone. He 

 was an active member of the Royal Geo- 

 graphical Society from 1867, and furnished 

 many papers to it, and was President of the 

 Geographical Section of the British Associ- 

 ation in 1869. In 1877 he was appointed 

 Governor of the Cape of Good Hope, and 

 High Commissioner for South Africa. He 

 was prominent in the transactions that led 

 to the war with the Zooloos. He was, says 

 Sir Richard Temple, " a born geographer." 



Tlie Flenss Breathing Apparatus and 

 Safety-Lamp. — The Fleuss apparatus for 

 breathing under water and in irrespirable 

 gases, which was described in Vol. XVI, 

 page 717 (March, 1880), of "The Popular 

 Science Monthly," has acquired a consider- 

 able use and has proved efficient in prac- 



