156 



THE AMERICAN MONTHLY 



[August, 



chalk, and doubtless such sand par- 

 ticles of this material which are found 

 are thus produced before the pebble 

 is softened into a rounded form. 



It would certainly be plausible, as 

 has been suggested, that a inolecular 

 change may take place in flint during 

 the lapse of ages, difference of tem- 

 perature, and the like. But the fact 

 that flint particles do appear, although 

 in small quantities, in ancient depos- 

 its, exactly the same as you may now 

 artificially produce them, deprives us 

 of the use of such an ai'gument. Its 

 great scarcity, as I have shown you, 

 almost seems illogical, but the stern- 

 ness of our facts makes us accept 

 them whether we like it or not, and 

 we must endeavor to explain this phe- 

 nomenon by the same logic of facts. 

 But the ubiquity of quartz sand is not 

 confined to our coast. In examining 

 some organisms from South Austra- 

 lia, containing sandy particles, some 

 also from Mauritius, Madagascar, and 

 Algoa Bay, the same facts are shown. 

 There are not only the common quartz 

 grains, but other materials, such as 

 are visible among the sandy deposits 

 I have described, and seen in about 

 the same proportion. This is inter- 

 esting, as declaring one universal 

 source, whether in the northern or 

 southern hemisphere, and helps in 

 the illustration, if not in the solution, 

 of the question before us. 



I must confess to ignorance of many 

 points of detail suggested in this in- 

 quiry, but as we are composed of 

 many active units, let us take a moral 

 from a grain of sand, one of the small- 

 est of atoms, yet in its aggregate play- 

 ing so great a part in this earth's 

 crust. Let, then, the aggregation of 

 our Society's units make a large ad- 

 dition to our scientific knowledge ; 

 the subject before you has yet many 

 lapses, and I trust these may be filled 

 up by your active researches. 



— Considerable interest has been aroused 

 of late by Prof. T. Bolton's studies of musi- 

 cal sands. They are found on every coast, 

 although until recently supposed to be of 

 rare occurrence. 



EDITORIAL. 



Publisher's Notices. — All communications, re- 

 mittances, exchanges, etc., should be addressed to the 

 Editor, P. O. Box 630, Washington, D. C. 



Remittances should be made by postal notes, money 

 orders, or by money sent in registered letters. Drafts 

 should be made payable in Washington, New York, 

 Boston, or Philadelphia. 



Subscription-price before April ist, $1 per year, in 

 advance. All subscriptions after this month begin 

 with the January number. After April ist the sub- 

 scription-price will be ^1.50. 



The regular receipt of the Journal will be an ac- 

 knowledgment of payment. 



American Association. — The 

 circulars of the Local Committee have 

 been issued, and contain much infor- 

 mation about the meeting. Although 

 there are no announcements for the 

 section of Histology and Microscopy 

 we can assure the reader that tht5re 

 are some valuable papers to be pre- 

 sented. Persons intending to be pres- 

 ent at the meeting should obtain the 

 circulars, which they may do by writ- 

 ing to the Local Secretaries at the 

 Academy of Natural Sciences, Phila- 

 delphia. Railroad fares from Phila- 

 delphia to Montreal and return are 

 reduced to $15.50 for members of the 

 Association, and generally members 

 will be able to attend the meeting and 

 return to their homes for the price of 

 a ticket one way. 



American Recognition of 

 American Scientific Work. — 

 Not long ago* we had occasion to 

 allude to an ailicle in the Scientific 

 American in which the unjust asser- 

 tion was made that no work was in 

 pi-ogress in this country upon the 

 micro-organisms of disease — that the 

 scientific value of such work was not 

 recognized here. If such assertions are 

 worthy of attention in the Scientific 

 American^ a paper which, while oc- 

 cupying a wide and useful field, is by 

 no means, either in factor pretension, 

 an exponent of the scientific work of 

 the country, it is impossible to pass 

 unnoticed an equally unjust, and far 

 more important, declaration of the 

 same kind in a paper which purports 



♦Current volume, p. 55. 



