490 



NA TURE 



September 13, 1906 



Oiie of the author's most successful plans in the 

 forests of North America was to mount his apparatus 

 in tlie bow of a boat manned by a selected crew, and 

 then to set forth in search of his quarry. Describing 

 (he photographing- of a deer the presence of which 

 lias been made known by the light reflected by his 

 oyes, the author writes that " The flashlight-apparatus 

 has been raised well above any obstructions in the 

 front of the boat, the powder lies in the pan ready 

 to ignite at the pull of a trigger ; everything is in 

 readiness for immediate action. Closer comes the 

 boat, and still the blue translucent eves watch it. . . . 



its own portrait, and here again we may quote the 

 author's own phraseology : — 



" A string is passed across a runway or other point 

 where the deer are likely to pass, which, when 

 touched, sets off the trigger and ignites the mag- 

 nesium powder. The same method can be used for 

 iaylight pictures, except that here a slender black 

 thread is laid across the path, one end of which is 

 attached to the shutter of the camera. The shutter 

 revolves as soon as there is any pressure upon the 

 thread, and a picture of any passing object is taken 

 instantaneously. Not the 'least interesting part of 

 this species of photography is that 

 the operator does not know until 

 he develops his plates what manner 

 of beast, bird, or reptile has caused 

 the shutter to open." 



.Although many of the portraits 

 thus obtained are not in every de- 

 tail satisfactory to the naturalist, 

 yet they frequently reveal the 

 animal in characteristic and un- 

 suspected attitudes, or display 

 peculiar alarm-features, such as 

 the expansion of the hairs of the 

 light rump-patch of the wapiti re- 

 vealed in one of the author's pic- 

 tures. Such pictures are indeed 

 especially valuable in the case of 

 many of the smaller mammals, the 

 nocturnal habits of which make it 

 >o difficult to become acquainted 

 with their mode of life. 



Whether photography — flashlight 

 or otherwise — will, as the author 

 and Sir Harry Johnston (in the in- 

 troduction to the English edition 

 of Mr. Schillings's book) hope, 

 ever induce sportsmen to be satis- 

 fied with pictures instead of the 

 lives of their quarry remains to be 

 seen. R. L. 



T' 



Suddenly there is a click, and a white wave of light 

 breaks out from the bow of the boat — deer, hills, 

 trees, everything stands out for a moment in the 

 white glare of noonday. A dull report, and then a 

 veil of inky darkness descends. Just a twenty-fifth of 

 a second has elapsed, but it has been long enough to 

 trace the picture of the deer on the plates of the 

 cameras, and long enough to blind for the moment 

 the eyes of both deer and men. Some place out in the 

 darkness the deer makes a mighty leap ; . . . and 

 soon he is heard running, as only a frightened deer 

 can." 



A variation of the plan is to let the creature take 



NO. 1924, VOL. 74] 



SEARCH FOR A BURIED 



METEORITE. 

 HE mode of origin of a re- 

 markable terrestrial feature, 

 known as Coon Butte or Coon 

 Mountain, has been the subject of 

 much speculation and study, of 

 which an account was given in the 

 year 1895 to the Geological Society 

 of Washington by Mr. Grove Karl 

 Gilbert, of the United States Geo- 

 logical Survey, in a presidential 

 address entitled "The Origin of 

 Hypotheses." 



This so-called mountain, situ- 

 ated in Central Arizona, rises 

 only 130 to 160 feet above the surrounding plain. 

 When climbed, it is found to contain a crater 530 

 to 560 feet deep, the dry bottom being thus 400 feet 

 below the level of the land surrounding the rim. 

 The crater is almost exactly circular, and is nearly 

 three-quarters of a mile across, two diameters at 

 right-angles with each other measuring 3654 and 

 3S08 feet respectively. From the crest of the rim 

 to a distance of about three and a half miles out- 

 wards the surface of the country is strewn with 

 fragments of sandstone of various colours; for the 

 first half-mile the fragments are large blocks, sonn' 

 of them of enormous size, 60 or even too feet in 



Magazi. 



