64 



♦ knowledge: ♦ 



[Feb. 2, 1883. 



waggon, the jolting of tho vehicle would empty the sack, 

 and yet it has no form of dust in it, and is as clean 

 as any sea-beach sand. The mountain is so solid 

 as to give it a musical sound when trod upon, 

 and oftentimes a bird lighting on it, or a large 

 lizard running across tlu- bottom, will start a large 

 quantity of the sand to sliding, which makes a noise re- 

 sembling tho vibration of telegraph wires with a hard wind 

 blowing, but so much louder that it is often heard at a 

 distance of six or seven miles, and it is deafening to a 

 person standing within a short distance of the sliding .sand. 

 A peculiar feature of the dune is that it is not stationary, 

 but rolls slowly eastward, the winfl gathering it up on the 

 west end, and carrying it along the ridge until it is again 

 deposited at the eastern end. Mr. Monroe, the well-known 

 surveyor, having heard of the rambling habits of this 

 mammoth sand-heap, quite a number of years ago took a 

 careful bearing of it while sectioning Government lands in 

 that vicinity. Several years later he visited the place, and 

 found that the dune had moved something over a mile. 



In a letter to a friend in Boston, an officer of the United 

 States steamer A lanka gives an account of a meteor which 

 was seen from the ship on the evening of Dec. 12, 1SS2, a 

 few minutes after §unset, in latitude 38' 21', longitude 134 7'. 

 !A:11 at once a loud, rushing noise was heard, like that of a 

 large rocket descending from the heavens with immense 

 •force and velocity. It proved to be a meteor, and when 

 within ten degrees of the horizon, it exploded with much 

 noise and flame, the fragments streaming down into the 

 ocean like great sparks and sprays of tire. The most won- 

 derful part of the phenomenon then followed, for at the point 

 in the heavens where the meteor burst there appeared a 

 figure shaped like an immense distafl", all aglow with a 

 bluish light of intense brilliancy. It kept that form for per- 

 haps two minutes, when it began to lengthen upward, and 

 growing wavy and zigzag in outline, diminished in breadth 

 until it became a iine, faint spiral line, and its upper end 

 dissolving into gathering clouds. It remained for about ten 

 minutes, when it began to fade, and finally disappeared. 



The captain of the barque Gemsbok reported that on 

 October 9, durirtg a south-west gale and a thick snow 

 squall, a ball of fire passed across the ship, injuring three 

 seamen and breaking both gunwales, and ripping the planks 

 from the stern of the starboard boat, and exploded atiout 

 twenty yards from the ship with a loud report, sparks 

 flying from it like rockets. There was no lightning or 

 thunder at the time. 



R.^iLW-iY extension has been attended with remarkaVile 

 town growth in America, but few towns have been founded 

 in a night. A curious history, however, involving such 

 rapidity, attaches to the town of JlcGregor, in Texas, 

 which is situate ].")0 miles west of Tyler, and twenty miles 

 west of Waco. The site was selected as the crossing of the 

 Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe, and the Texas and St. 

 Louis Railroads, one day in September, 1881. The report 

 spread, and by the next morning the place was staked out 

 in town lots, with all the details of streets, squares, &c., 

 which are generally the work of time on the part of 

 surveyors. At the opening sale the lots were disposed 

 of at the rate of one and a half per minute. In the 

 aggregate 4-12 lots, covering 300 acres, were sold, and the 

 next two towns were started, one within two miles, and 

 the other three miles distant. Shanties appeared on the 

 prairies,, moving . with all speed on rollers towards 

 McGregor, and by the second day twelve houses were 



under construction, while the owners camped rc'.:nd in 

 tents. At the close of two months the town numbered 

 ITO^houses, with a population of 500 souls. A weekly 

 paper called the 1 /aindeakr appeared in the course of 

 another month, and thirteen more new houses were built 

 The prospects of McGregor are said to be most encourag- 

 ing. Last summer tho railways carried away 15,000 liales 

 from this thriving young town, and the railway authorities 

 have begun to build a local freight and passenger depot 

 with transfer facilities. 



How has it been that the monotremes have come to 

 exist in a rennte part of the world, not only quite with- 

 out any existing ally (for we count the Kew Guinea species 

 as an echidna), but without a trace having been found of 

 any fossil relative 1 Are they to be regarded as the last 

 survivors of a once very numerous and generally diflFused 

 kind of animal life, or as specimens of a small and com- 

 paratively modern local offshoot — a sport 1 Their pecu- 

 liarities diflfer from the structure of all ordinary beasts in 

 such a way as to approximate towards that found among 

 difierent birds and reptiles ; but to which of these 

 do they approach the nearer ? In a very interesting 

 paper, read on Tuesday, the 16th, at the Zoo- 

 logical Society, Professor Lankester pointed out, as the 

 result of a number of careful dissections, that the structure 

 of the heart, and especially that of the valve of the right 

 side of the duck-billed platypus, is (as Professor Owen 

 sajjaciously divined) bird-like, rather than (as Professors 

 Huxley and Gegenbaur suspected) formed like that of 

 crocodiles. The anatomical details on which this judgment 

 rests are too technical for reproduction here : but, while the 

 structure of the heart of the platypus is very bird-like, that 

 of the echidna is less so, so that if in the latter a few per- 

 forations in a piece of membrane were to appear so as to 

 reduce the fibrous membrane into fibrous cords, it would 

 thereby clearly approximate to the form of the heart found 

 in all other beasts. Thus, the platypus, by its innermost 

 structure, only makes more and more plain that bird like 

 nature which its duck's bill caused its first observers to 

 suspect. 



This, from the Chemist and Druyfjist, may be useful iii 

 the shops and elsewhere : — " It is said that tar may be 

 instantaneously removed from the hands by rubbing them 

 with the outside of fresh orange or lemon peel, and wiping 

 dry immediately. It is astonishing what a small piece will 

 clean. The volatile oils in the skins dissolve the tar, so 

 that it can lie wiped oti'." 



The ballet at the Princess's Theatre, Manchester, in 

 which there are twenty-six ladies, has now been for the 

 past month lit up with the small Swan lamp. Each lady 

 carries a lamp in a small flower placed on her head, and at 

 her side a small battery, the average weight of which is 

 lilb. 



The Chester correspondent of the Leeds ilercur;/ says : 

 — " An important discovery has been made at Elm Colliery, 

 Buckle}', Flintshire. As some men were engaged at one of 

 the levels worked by Messrs. AVatkinson they struck upon 

 spring mineral oil. They endeavoured to utilise the liquid, 

 and they discovered that it gave a brilliant light, and at 

 the same time produced less smoke than average oils. 

 Another spring was discovered on the same level on a sub- 

 sequent day. The supply from the wells is not, so far, 

 copious, but it is suflicient to inspire the hope that a ne 

 industry will spring up in North Wales, 



