212 

ment of Constitucion. It is called Curanipe, and it appears that 
already the population is 1,186, and the tonnage in and out 
7,867 in 1870. 
ON May 11 two distinct shocks of earthquake were felt at 
Peshawur, in India. 
On May 22 an earthquake was felt at Landour, Meerut, 
Agra, and Nynee Tal. At the latter place it was severe. 
AN earthquake was felt at Hayti on May 30. 
ON June 16a severe storm assailed Constantinople. During 
its he'ght three waterspouts swept across different parts of the 
Bosphorus in great volume and with unusual fury. By one of 
them a caique was destroyed. The lightning struck the light- 
ning-conductor on the great Gulata Tower in Pera, and also the 
wire at the Observatory connecting it with the arsenal at To- 
phaneh. On the other side of the Bosphorus, at Scutari, a house 
was struck. 
A REPORT has been published in the Hong Kong press of 
March 25 by Captain Frost, of the Noord Brabant. He says he 
sighted Tinakoro, or Volcano Island, one of the Santa Cruz 
group, in lat. 10, 23 S., 155 long. E., and lay becalmed there 
five days. The island is a cone of perfect symmetry, resting on 
a base of three miles in circumference, and, except about the 
base, destitute of vegetation. The volcano, estimated to be about 
2,500 feet high, was in constant activity, presenting the appear- 
unce of a great flame vent. Captain Frost denies the description 
of Captain Wilson, of the Dzf, that there are several low islands 
there, at least on its south and west quarters, about seventeen 
miles off. 
A REpoRT has been sent in by the Governor of the Province 
of Leon in Ecuador as to the condition of the volcanic region of 
Co‘opaxi in his province. He states that the principal moun- 
tains which stand forth in the great circle formed by the two 
branches of the Andes are Cotopaxi, Quillindana, Puchalagua, 
and the Calpon, Of these Cotopaxi alone is known asa volcano, 
which a ter many years of inaction became active in June 1851 
These eruptions continued and became graduaily weaker until 
1867, when they ceased. In 1868 subterranean noises were 
again heird, and a s’ender column of smoke appeared. In May 
1868 there were some earthquakes, which ruined Palate and 
Pelileo. In July 1869 noises were again heard and an 
awful flood took place, bat without earthquakes and subterranean 
noises. Abundant fountains of water burst forth, hundreds of 
immense rocks were rent and thrown down, and the rivers were 
flooded. The Governor, who was at the time in the Cordillera, 
considers that the landslides were not owing to the action of 
water, but rather to a pressure upward from below, as if from 
accumulated gases seeking an exit. The most curious effect 
reported by him is a varation in the climate. Many plants, 
such as the sura, flowered, which had not done so before, 
After this premature ripening the surales all closed up again. and 
have not revived. Affer this event it was noticed the sugar 
cane could be cut in twenty-four months instead of thirty. At 
present Cotopaxi is inactive, but its condition is looked upon 
with dread. 
From the Australasian of April 22, we learn that Mr. Russell, 
the Government astronomer at Sydney, has visited Deniliquin 
and picked up there something which astonished him, in 
the shape of the greater portion of a meteoric stone which fell 
some years ayo at Barratta, thirty-nve miles below Deniliquin, 
The st ne (Mr. Ru-sell secured about one-half of it, weighing 
about 150.b.) was originally about 3oolb. is weight, but has 
been broken, and parts of it given away as curio ities. Mr 
Russell made provision for despatching the stone to the Sydney 
Museum, 
NATURE 


SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE FROM 
AMERICA * 
At a recent meeting of the New York Lyceum of Natural 
History, Professor D, S. Martin described the remarkable 
deposit of magnetic iron at Cornwall, Pennsylvania, and exhi- 
bited the group of minerals found in connection with the iron. 
The ore is a soft, often pulverulent magnetite, associated with 
copper, and often pyrites. It is found in three hills which owe 
their relief to the erosion of their surroundings, and are composed 
mainly of iron ore embraced between walls of trap, the whole 
mass lying at the junction of the Triassic red sandstone and older 
metamorphic series. The yield of the Cornwall mines is 160,000 
tons per annum. Prof, Martin exhibited beautiful specimens of 
allophane, brochantite, and other minerals collected at Cornwall. 
—Prof. Newberry, at the same meeting, exhibited a series of 
lignites from the Far West, with ultimate analyses of each. He 
said these modern coals were the only mineral fuels found west 
of Omaha. The Los Brances (Sonora) coal is Triassic anthracite, 
Most of the New Mexico and Arizona coals are Cretaceous, the 
beds sometimes thirty feet in thickness. The Placer Mountain 
coal is a Cretaceous anthracite. The coal of Colorado is both 
Cretaceous and Tertiary ; the coal of Mount Diabolo, California, 
is Cretaceous ; and that of Vancouver Island, Coose Bay coal, is 
Tertiary. Alaska furnishes some of the best Western coal—a 
Tertiary lignite. A Cretaceous anthracite found in Queen Char- 
lotte’s Island is nearly as good as that of Pennsylvania. All 
these anthracites are caused by volcanic action baking lignites, 
The calorific pover of the Western coals is generally greatly im- 
paired by the large percentage (ten to twenty per cent. each) of 
oxygen and water they contain. The average Western lignite 
has about half the heating power of our best coals. The gas 
and coke made of some of them, however, are excellent furnace 
fuels, though they are generally worthless.—Prof. Davidson, of 
the United States Coast Survey, has lately devised an apparatus 
for recording the temperature at different depths by means of an 
electro thermal pile. _ He proposes to register the depth by 
breaking the circuit of an electri> current passing through two in- 
sulated wires in the sounding line at about every one hundred 
fathoms by means of the wheel-work of the Massey or similar 
apparatus. In the changes of temperature an electro-thermal 
pile eighteen inches long, insulated, surrounded by a non-con- 
ductor except at one end, is used in combination with a Thomp- 
son’s reflecting galvanometer, not liable to derangement on ship- 
board. At every one hundred fathoms, when the chronograph 
registers the depth, the observer notices the readings of the gal- 
vanometer, which readings are reduced to Fahrenheit degrees. 
—Onz= of the most original and important contributions to the 
zoology of the day is that constituting the third number of the 
Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge, 
treating upon the mammals and winter birds of East Florida. 
The author, Mr. J. A. Allen, an assistant of Prof. Agassiz, is 
well known for the thoroughness of his research into the verte- 
brara of America, and the critical attention paid by him to the 
proper limitation of species, both in their relationshins to each 
other, and in their geographical distribution. In the present 
work he givesa summary of the views to which he has bees 
led within a few years past by his studies of the immense collec- 
tion in the Cambridge Museum, and makes numerous important 
generalisations. Among these he corroborates the conclusion 
previously announced by others, of the diminution in size of the 
American birds in proportion as their birthplace is more 
southern, and also that there is a similar ditference existing be- 
tween the animals of the higher and lower altitudes. He also 
finds that with the more southern locality of summer abode 
there are corresponding differences in colour and proportion, as 
well as in habits, notes, and song, the vivacity of the bird de- 
creasing as its size increases. The principal difference in colour 
with the more southern localities consists in the darker tints and 
the reduced extent of any white markings, with other features 
that our space will not permit us to give at the present time. 
The entire work is one eminently worthy of careful study, 
and destined to exercis? a very important influence 
upon the methods of zoological res-arch. — Lite advices 
from Prof. Hayden’s expedition announced that he was to 
leave Ogden, Utah, on June 9 for Virginia City and Fort 
Ellis, in Montana, a distance of about 430 miles, with the special 
object of proceeding from the last-menuoned place to the explo- 
ration of the Yellow Stone Lake and its immediate vicinity. It 
* Contributed by the Scientific Editer of /Zarfer’s Weekly, 
is 
[Fuly 13, 1871 


prio, 
