August 1, 1900.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



189 



Garonne itself had begun to flow, its coui-se being deter- 

 mined by the eastern and northern margins of the great 

 detrital fan from the Pyrenees. 



The rivei^s on the west of the watershed, in cutting 

 their way down against the rising floor, have cxj>ose-l 

 nothing older than the marine aud lacustrine Miocene 

 deposits, which they are slowly washing away and dis- 

 tributing to form an even plain. The shorter streams 

 on the east, however, notably the Audo, have carved 

 out considerable valleys, and have even cleared their way 

 down to the Cretaceous rocks before they enter the 

 Medit-erranean. 



The Pyrenees, then, as a whole, are somewhat older 

 than the Alps, and have undergone gi-eater denudation 

 and decay ; but their highest elevation was reached in 

 Middle Oligoccne times, and marine Eocene strata have 

 been raised 500 metres on their flanks, ^^^len we ride, 

 as Froissart did of old, from the plain at Pamiers into 

 Foix, the bold heights that soon close in around us are 

 formed of Cretaceous and Jurassic limestones, squeezed 

 against the knot-like older masses in the chain. The 

 bare crag above Foix itself shows us how these strata 

 have been bent and set on end ; and here again, as in 

 the Alps, the work was done, and the mountains were 

 reared, within the limits of the Tertiai-y era. 



In the cold epoch at the opening of Pleistocene times, 

 the Pyrenees were still sufiicicntly high to feed a local 

 glacier system. The tongues of ice streamed out into 

 the plain, like those from the Alps into Bavaria. The 

 limestone foothills are often found to be scoured and 

 striated, and roches moutonntes may be seen, for an 

 example, among the avenues of plane trees below Ax- 

 les-thermes. 



The bamer formed by the Pyrenees has naturally 

 been sufiicient to affect the human epoch. Just as the 

 land of the bastides was long " Gallo-Roman " in its 

 spirit, looking with suspicion on the Frankish barbarians 

 who held it in their power from the north, so the 

 recesses of the Pyrenees have never become wholly 

 French, and their inhabitants in places speak Catalan, 

 and come down, almost as foreigners, to the markets of 

 Ax or Carcassonne. The passes, being little hindered 

 by snow or avalanches, provide free access into Spain. 

 The women, equallj^ with the men, ride horses, mules, 

 or donkeys, seated sideways upon sacks, after the manner 

 of the mountain-folk; and the farmers come over, 

 serious and straight-mouthed, driving highland cows, 

 and thick-necked bulls, and herds of shaggy goats. The 

 carts are drawn by three or four mules in line, the 

 high collars decorated with scarlet tassels, and green 

 cloths drooping on the animals' backs like veils. Every 

 track is enlivened with the mule-bells and the cracking 

 of whips in the keen air. The atmosphere of Spain 

 itself clings to the mountains, despite the canals and 

 the railways and the northern commerce that have 

 invaded the old Gascon plain. 



As a contrast to the geological youth of the Pyrenees, 

 there rises north of the Fresquel and the Audo the old 

 mass of the Montague Noire. | This is one of the relics 

 of an earlier France ; it was elevated by successive 

 Palaeozoic movements, and formed one of the 

 " Hercynian " ridges, even above the Permian sea. For 

 a comparatively short period it became submerged in 

 Mesozoic times ; but the Upper Jurassic epoch saw it 

 established again as a long-backed mountain, looking 



t See especially " Guide eeologique en France," 7me Con/frig ijeol. 

 internat. (1900), " Massif de la Montagne-Xoire," by M. .1. Berf»pron. 

 Also De Lapparent, op. eit., p. 1791, &c. 



clear into the Spanish area, across water as yet unbroken 

 by the Pyrenees. 



The first folds of the Pyrenees found this obstacle 

 waiting for them. The lacustrine and estuarine Eocene 

 strata, and the Cretaceous limestones below them, were 

 bent up on its southern flank, and now form the curious 

 and bleak plateau, almost a " causse," that we meet 

 as we rise north from Carcassonne. The unchecked 

 wind from the Atlantic, or from the young and giant 

 peaks to southward, sweeps the long slope, and beats on 

 the forests of the crest. The labourers protect them- 

 selves, in this open landscape, by building little boxes 

 of stone out in the fields. Wild thyme spreads freely, 

 in default of any richer vegetation, and serves to remind 

 one of the heather on the central plateau. As wc ascend, 

 the ravines cut by the streamlets expose ancient 

 Palaiozoic strata, Devonian, Silurian, Cambrian, or even 

 the central gneissic core. Above us are gloomy wood- 

 lands, among which grey hamlets nestle, poor and 

 isolated, Villardonnel, Cuxac-Cabardes, Labastide- 

 Esparbairenque, names that suggest romance and 

 brigandage in themselves. The summit reaches only 

 1000 metres above the sea, but the cold of the Gram- 

 pians may be felt here on the latitude of Florence. 

 The descent from Les Martys to Mazamet is a wild 

 mountain episode, on a road swinging this way and that 

 along the side of a fine V-shaped gorge. At one point 

 a ruined fortress, rising from the torrent, only increases 

 the sense of savagery. As we drop towards the open 

 country in the north, we see as a background the blue 

 highlands of Auvcrgne, and, far below, the red roofs of 

 industrial Mazamet, a miniature Innsbruck, set on the 

 alluvium of the There. 



The Montague Noire forms an unexpected island in 

 the yellow land of the bastides. It is one of those 

 surprises with which France so frequently awaits the 

 traveller. The railway from Calais to Bale conveys a 

 very false impression of the country ; even the moor- 

 laniis of Brittany, and the rolling fields of Normandy, 

 are a mere foretaste of the greater France to southward. 



By John H. Cooke, f.l.s., f.g.s. 



In his .studies of .slow motions Professor C. S. Slichter, by means 

 of kinetoscope pictures, has so magnified the motions that III? 

 growth of seedlintr peas and Ijeans during three weelis is shown in 

 a few seconds. The plants were pilot ographed on the kinetoscope 

 film by artificial light at intervals of a few minutes to a few hours 

 during the three weeks. On projecting the pictures upon the screen 

 ,at the usual rate, the motion of growth was magnified al)Out 500,000 

 times, and the difi'erent rates of develoj^ment of the various j^arts 

 were brought out very clearly. Among the striking results was the 

 curious behaviour of a pea struggling to enter impenetrable soil, 

 the root curving and writhing much like an angle worm, while the 

 pea was rolled about very grotesquely. 



Mr. C. Reichert, of Vienna, makes a new form of apparatus which 

 may be used either for photomicrography, drawing, or projection. 

 It consists of a stand, fitted with a stage capable of moving up and 

 down, to which may be adapted either a photographic camera or a 

 projection apparatus. It is intendt'd principally for low power 

 work, five to thirty diameters, and can be used either with 

 petroleum, spirit, or gas. 



A suitable ray fi'm for photograjihing bacteria and other objects 

 which have been stained with fuclisine, methyl blue, or gentian 

 violet is prepared by dissolving 160 grammes of pure nitrate of 

 copper and 14 grammes pure chromic acid in 250 c.c. of water. 

 This solution permits liglit rays of wave length of from 570 to 550 

 to pa.ss, and causes the objects stained with the above mentioned 

 solutions to appear black on a green ground. 



Kxperiments by K. Klein indicate that, contrary to common 

 belief, such germs as those of cholera, typus. and diphtheria do not 

 survive more than three or four weeks after burial in the ground. 



Messrs. R. & J. Beck, of Coruhill, London, have recently put 

 upon the market several new pieces of apparatus the most important 



