November 22, 1900] 



NA TURE 



87 



Lastly, in December, after the flowers are over, a 

 quantity of leaf-buds are produced from the base of the 

 stem. These are used as cuttings. 



Dis-budding is a common enough procedure in roses 

 and other flowers grown for exhibition ; but the peculiarity 

 in the Chrysanthemum is the difference in the position, 

 time of formation, and nature of the buds. The practice 

 varies in accordance with these differences. Different 

 varieties demand different treatment. In some instances 

 the bud must be " taken " at this time, in other cases at 

 a different period. In some varieties the best blooms 

 are produced by the " crown " buds ; in others it is the 

 terminal buds that produce the finest flowers. All this 

 is determined by experiment, but in any case this varia- 

 tion in the position, form and time of development of the 

 buds is sufficiently important to attract the attention of 

 the physiologist. 



Another practice now much followed is that of retard- 

 ing the growing and flowering period of plants by mear|_s 

 of cold. By this means flowers, say of lily of the valley, 

 can be had at any season that may be desired. 



The chief point of physiological interest appears to 

 reside in the fact that plants can be subjected without 

 injury to much lower degrees of cold than was formerly 

 supposed. 



SOME REMARKABLE EARTHQUAKE 

 EFFECTS. 



MR. R. D. OLDHAM'S elaborate report on the great 

 earthquake of June 12, 1897, published in the 

 Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India (vol. xxix.), 

 has been referred to on several occasions in these 

 columns ; and an abstract has been given of its most 

 important contents (vol. Ixii. p. 305, July 26, 1900). 

 There are many striking illustrations of earthquake 

 effects in 'the report, and three of the plates are here 

 reproduced. 



That pillars and other similar objects may be left 

 standing, but with one part twisted round upon another, 

 has long been known as a fantastic effect of severe 

 earthquakes, and even in some cases of earthquakes 

 which can scarcely be called severe. There is, however, 

 no instance where cases of this kind were so numerous, 

 and so various in the nature of the object rotated, as the 

 Indian earthquake. The most imposing and striking 

 of the many instances of twisting found by Mr. Oldham 

 is that of the monument to George Inglis, erected in 

 1850 at Chhatak. This conspicuous landmark takes the 

 iorm of an obelisk, and, rising from a base 12 feet 

 square, must have been over 60 feet high before the 

 earthquake. It is built of broad, flat bricks, or tiles, 

 laid in mortar and plastered over, and is represented in 

 its present state in Fig. i. About 6 feet of the monu- 

 ment was broken off and fell to the south, and 9 feet 

 to the east. Of the remainder, the top 20 feet was 

 separated at a height of about 23 feet from the ground, 

 and twisted in the opposite direction to that of the hands 

 of a watch lying face upwards on the ground. 



The view in Fig. 2 shows some tombs in the 

 cemetery at Cherrapunji. All the tombs are of the oblong 

 form with sloping tops, and are built of rubble stone 

 masonry. Few are broken up, but nearly all have sunk 

 down into the loose sand beneath them, and are leaning 

 over at various angles to the north. The cemetery is 

 situated on the top of one of the small knolls of sand- 

 stone which are scattered over the Cberra plateau. This 

 sandstone originally rested upon the limestone of the 

 plateau, which has been dissolved away from beneath it, 

 and is accordingly much broken. The earthquake seems 

 to have shaken the surface down into a perfect quick- 

 sand, into which the tombs sank. 



A direct measure of the amplitude of the earth-wave, 



NO. 162 1, VOL. 63] 



or of the greatest movement of the wave particle back- 

 ward and forward, was obtained at Cherrapunji. Mr. 

 Oldham concludes, from observations of the length of a 

 depression scooped out by the movement of the ground 

 against some tombs which remained stationary, that the 

 extreme range of motion cannot have been less than ten^ 



Fig I. 



-Monument at Chhatak, with part twisted by earthquake. The- 

 part of the monument left standing is about 46 feet high. 



inches, may have been as much as eighteen inches, and 

 was probably about fourteen inches. The amplitude or 

 range of the wave particle on either side of its original 

 position would be half these amounts. 



The 'banks of the Brahmaputra are fissured at inter- 

 vals on each side along a length of 260 miles, and fissures 



Fig. 2. — Tombs in cemetery, Cherrapunji. 



extend along the banks of all the minor branches of the 

 river and its tributaries within the disturbed area. As a 

 rule, the fissures run parallel to the bank of the river, and 

 where this is not the case, some peculiarity in the contour 

 of the ground — a drop, for instance, from a higher to a 

 lower level — can usually be found to account for the 



