90 



NA rURE 



[May 30, 1872 



veracity are beyond queslion, while sitting on the ground near 

 the Eclipse Mines, saw sheets of flame on the rocky sides of the 

 Inyo Mountains, but half a miledistant. These flames, observed 

 in several places, waved to and fro, apparently clear of the 

 ground, like vast torches. They continued for only a few 

 minutes. In this office, one day last week, while one of the 

 proprietors was running a large number of sheets of flat- cap 

 paper through a job press, these sheets, after leaving the press, 

 were affected by the movements of the operator's hand, as a 

 strong mignet would affect iron filings. When his hand was 

 near them, the whole pile, or at least a hundred of them from the 

 top, seemed to float in the air, like tissue paper in a slight 

 breeze The top sheet would rise at each end up to the hand 

 when held four inches above it, and thus by attraction be movci 

 entirely away from the others. At times during the night sparks 

 of fire were repeatedly emitted from a woollen shawl on being 

 touched by the hand. At the Kcar;arge Mill, located at an 

 altitude of nearly 80,000 feet above the sea, the following occur- 

 rence was noted by Harry Clawson and P. J. Joslyn : — The 

 former, while sitting with his knees within three inches of a cast- 

 iron stove, felt a peculiar numbing sensation, and, supposing his 

 limbs were ' asleep, ' essayed to rub them with his hand. As 

 Boon as his hand touched his knee he felt a shock, and im- 

 mediately after, and for a couple of seconds, a stream of fire ran 

 between both knees and the stove. We will here state, on the 

 authority of a man who had an opportunity of knowing, that 

 the item going the rounds to the effect that no movement of the 

 earth was obsetvable 300 feet underground in the mines is not 

 correct. At Cerro Gardo, and also at the Eclipse Mine, the 

 rocking motion was distinctly observed, especially in the timber- 

 ing. Small particles of rock were detached, and in both places 

 the miners went to the surface in alarm ; but at Cerro Gardo 

 they soon resumed work as before. " 



Telegrams just received from New York speak of a terrible 

 disaster to the seal fishing fleet on the coasts of Labrador and 

 Newfoundland. Four steamers and nearly forty sailing vessels 

 are reported to have been ^^'recked among icebergs and the ice 

 fields by a hutricane. The whole of the crews, which averaged 

 ninety men, perished. Later accounts, howe\er, state that the 

 reports of the disaster to the fishing fleet were exaggerated. Only 

 twelve vessels were lost. 



A TERRIFIC hurricane visited Madras on May 2. It is de- 

 scribed as being the most violent that has occurred there for 

 many year.^, the devastation occasioned among the shipping being 

 of a terrible character. Nine English vessels are spoken of as 

 having become total wrecks, and the destruction of life is said to 

 have been very great. 



Natal papers describe the great brilliance of the Aurora 

 Australis witnessed both in that colony and in Cape Colony and 

 the Free States on Feb. 4. The A'ir/al Colonist of March 5 

 speaks of the southern aurora being not unfrequently visible 

 there in broad daylight. 



A REMARKABLE story from Newfoundland is detailed in a 

 letter to the AVrc York Times of April 15, to the effect that a 

 Danish brig just arrived, which had left Disco on March i, 

 brought information that the Polaris, under Captain Hall, had 

 been there for two days undergoing repairs and procuring a fresh 

 supply of provisions. The account goes on to say that on the 

 evening of February S the Polaris encountered extremely hea\ y 

 weather, and while lying to, owing to the shallowness of the 

 water, ran among ice snags, which caused a leak in the vessel, 

 and made it necessary to proceed to Disco for repairs. Myste- 

 rious intimations were given of wonderful discoveries which had 

 already been made by the Polaris, indicating the existence of a 

 genial atmosphere and open seas in the extreme north. Plants 



indigenous to southern climes were detected in the ice, while a 

 floating stick of wood proved to be northern birch. Throughout 

 the whole of the month of February very little ice was seen, and 

 the skies were literally alive with meteors of the most gorgeous 

 description. ( )n Christmas-day the ship was hemmed in by a 

 heavy field of ice, but the weather was as pleasant as an Italian 

 spring day. .Such was the reluctance of Captain Hall to have 

 the further discoveries which he is expecting to make shared by 

 rival expeditions, that, according to the writer, he did not send 

 word of his return to the .Secretary of the Navy. The entire 

 story bears little evidence of credibiUly, and will at least require 

 further confirmation before it can be accepted. 



Captain Thomas Lonc, so Avell knov.n as the discoverer, 

 in 1S67, of Wrangell's Land, situated about seventy to one 

 hundred miles north of Cape Yakan, in Siberia, has written 

 a letter in reference to the plan of exploration by Mr. Octave 

 Pavy, to which we have already referred. While indorsing 

 tlie idea presented by Mr. Pavy, he takes occasion to claim 

 it as his own, having, as he states, urg.;d this route as long 

 ago as 1867, the time of his first discovery. He does not 

 think that Mr. Pavy will be aljle to pass through the channels 

 between Spitzbergen and Greenland, or between Nova Zemljla 

 and Spitzbergen, as those passages have always been found 

 blocked with ice, and it would be impossible to winter in the 

 ice in such a raft as he has constructed. He thinks it pos- 

 sible that the North Pole may be reached from Wrangell's 

 Land, but that it would be necessary for him to return for 

 winter quarters ; but to endeavour to return into the Atlantic 

 with such a craft would be the height of folly. He believes 

 that a vessel, properly fitted for the purpose, could make the 

 passage from Behring Strait to the Atlantic in one year from 

 the time of passing Behring Strait. 



Prof. O. C. Marsh describes in the. 7 «i7-/i-ir«yo«/-«rt/<j/".S'i7£'//(V 

 for May four new species of fossil birds, three of them belonging 

 to the genus Graciilavns, prob.ibly closely allied to the cormo- 

 rants of the present day, and occurring in the cretaceous deposits 

 of New Jersey and of Kansas. The fourth is a species of Palao- 

 tringa, from the cretaceous greensands of New Jersey. The 

 same paper contains a more elaborate description of the very re- 

 markable new fossil bird named by him in IJanuary last 

 HiSpcrornis rcgalis. This has numerous peculiarities, although 

 it seems to resemble most closely the common loon of the 

 United States. It was, however, much larger, as its complete 

 skeleton would measure nearly six feet from the tip of the bill to 

 the end of the toes. It occurs as a fossil in the gray shale of the 

 upper cretaceous formations near Smoky Hill Fork, in Western 

 Kansas. 



We learn from Rockhampton, Queensland, that on January 

 31 a fisherman named W. C. Easton discovered an alligator's 

 nest on Eighteen-mile Island, eighteen miles above Rockhamp- 

 ton in the Fitzroy River. The mother was in the nest when 

 Easton made the discovery, but she ran olT, " bellowing like a 

 cow after her calf," as Easton fired a shot from his double- 

 barrelled gun into the river. .She was about nine fec-t long. 

 As Easton went up to the nest, a large carpet snake was about 

 to enter it, but the snake, too, fled before his approach. On 

 examining the nest, Easton discovered sixty-seven eggs, wliic'i 

 he took away. The eggs were rather larger than a goose's egg, 

 measuring 61 inches in circumference one way, by Si inches the 

 other ; 3 j inches in length, and nearly white, and in shape 

 almost a true ellipse, but rather too long for their breadth. Mr. 

 Easton placed four of the eggs under a hen, and twelve in 

 straw, in the hope of rearing and domesticating some young 

 alligators. The Fitzroy is the most southern river in which the 

 alligator is found on the East Coast of Australia, and is just 

 within the tropics. 



