POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



423 



Felicltas. A Eomance. By Felix Dahn. New 

 York: William S. Gottsberger. Pp. '208. 



Explosive Materials. By M. P. K. Bortholet. 

 New York : D. Van Nostrand. Pp. IsO. 00 cents. 



Wonders of Plant-Life under the Microscope. 

 By Sophie Bledsoe Ilerrick. New York: G. P. 

 Putnam's Sons. Pp. 248. $1.B0. 



A Hand-Book of Ilytrieno and Sanitary Science. 

 By George Wilson. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston, 

 Son & Co. Pp. 510. 12.75. 



Manual of Chemistry. Physical and Inorganic. 

 By Henry Watts, F. K. H. Philadelphia: P. 

 Blakiston, Son & Co. Pp. 595. $2.25. 



The Organs of Speech. By G. II. von Meyer. 

 New Y'ork : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 849. 



Queen Victoria. Her Girlhood and Woman- 

 hood. By Grace Greenwood. Now York : John 

 K. Anderson & Henry S. Allen. Pp. 401. 



The Human Body. By II. Newell Martin, 

 D. Sc. New York : Henry Holt & Co. Pp. 355. 

 $1.50. 



Te.xt-Book of Popular Astronomy. By William 

 G. Peck, Ph. B. New York : A. S. Barnes & Co. 

 Pp. 880. 



Zoology. By A. 8. Packard, Jr. New York: 

 Henry Holt & Co. Pp. 834. $1.40. 



Destructive Influence of the Tariff. By J. 

 Schoenhof. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 

 Pp. 112. 



World-Life, or Comparative Geolosry. By Al- 

 exander Winchell. LL. D. Chicago : 8. C. Griggs 

 &, Co. Pp. W2. $2.50. 



Dangers to Health. A Pictorial Guide to Do- 

 mestic Sanitary Defects By T. Pridgin Teale. 

 New York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 172. 



History of the Literature of the Scandinavian 

 North. By Frederlk Winkel Horn, Ph. D. Chi- 

 cago : 8. C. Griggs & Co. Pp. 507. $3.50. 



The Natural Genesis. " By Gerald Massey. New 

 York: Scribner & Welford. 2 vols. Pp. 552, 535. 



Report of the Commissioner of Fish and Fisher- 

 ies, 1S80. Washington : Government Printing-Offloe. 

 Pp. 1060, with Plates. 



A Practical Treatise on Materia Medica and 

 Therapeutics. By Roberts Barthoiow. New York : 

 D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 738. 



Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1881. 

 Pp. 840. 



Cruise of the Revenue Steamer Corwin In Alas- 

 ka and the Northwest Arctic Ocean in 1881. Notes 

 and Memoranda. Washington : Government Print- 

 ing-Office. Pp. 120, with Plates. 



POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



Origin of tbe Eastern End of Lal^e Erie. 



— Mr. Julius Pohlman, starting with the 

 hypothesis that the beds of the Great Lakes 

 were excavated by water in pre-glacial times, 

 has sought for the river which washed out 

 the eastern end of Lake Erie. The discov- 

 ery of the many large pre-glacial rivers, in 

 Pennsylvania and Ohio, running into the 

 lake-basin, explains well enough how the 

 erosion in general has taken place. " But the 

 most easterly of these ancient water-courses 

 yet discovered, the Alleghany, which ran 

 northerly past Dunkirk, does not account for 

 the forty miles of lake-valley between that 

 place and Buffalo, and another pre-glacial 



river emptying into the lake-basin near 

 Buffalo was necessary to complete the river 

 system which occupied and excavated the 

 valley of Lake Erie." The maps of the 

 lake survey show that there are no indica- 

 tions of rocks on the shore of the lake be- 

 tween the southern limit of the city of Buf- 

 falo and the Horseshoe Reef of the Niagara 

 River, and that the land is low and level for 

 some distance back. The northern and 

 eastern parts of the city and the bed of 

 Buffalo Creek are underlain by a reef of 

 corniferous limestone, which gradually as- 

 cends toward the north. Testings that have 

 been made during the course of excavations 

 for canals, of the depth of this rocklcss land, 

 show that no rock can be found at a less 

 depth than eighty feet below the surface. 

 This probable fact points to the bed, and 

 indicates the depth of the ancient river which 

 we are seeking for. That river could not 

 go north or east, on account of the out- 

 cropping corniferous limestone, but " it must 

 have taken a westerly course through the 

 soft shales of the Devonian epoch ; and if 

 we trace an imaginary line along the deep- 

 est portion of the eastern end of the lake 

 from this ancient valley, in a direction a 

 little southerly of west, we can connect our 

 pre-glacial river with the ancient outlet of 

 the river system of the Erie Valley opposite 

 Dunkirk, and have a fair explanation of the 

 origin of the eastern end of Lake Erie." 



The New Standards of Time.— On the 



'Zth of October a number of the railroads 

 of the New England States, and on the 

 18th of November nearly all the impor- 

 tant railroads of the Atlantic slope and 

 the Mississippi Valley, adopted a new sys- 

 tem of time-standards for the movement of 

 their trains. The object of the change 

 was to secure a more simple and harmoni- 

 ous way of calculating the time at the dif- 

 ferent stations on East and West lines. 

 Under the time-system previously prevailing, 

 the managers of each railroad endeavored 

 to conform to the local time of the most 

 important stations on its line. The result 

 of this method of accommodation was that 

 seventy-five different standards of time, 

 varying apparently at hap-hazard from each 

 other, were used in operating the railroads 

 of the United States ; and it was only with 



