832 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVI-I. No. 961 



inent in the field of forestry, in the afternoons 

 and evenings of the week. 



The Wistar Institute in Philadelphia is re- 

 modeling a building 90' X 31', three stories in 

 height, to be used for an animal house. The 

 first floor and basement are to be entirely of 

 iron and concrete construction with rooms 

 varying in temperature and light according to 

 the requirements of the colony. The building 

 will have space sufficient for 1,000 cages, and 

 will be equipped with steam heat, electric 

 lights and hot and cold water. A covered 

 passageway will connect it with the present 

 museum and laboratory building. The build- 

 ing will contain a balance room where accu- 

 rate weights and measurements may be taken. 

 The necessary apparatus for the preparation 

 of food and a crematory for the disposition of 

 waste material and the heating of water will 

 be installed. The building will furnish more 

 ample space for the work in progress and give 

 opportunities for extending the experimental 

 work with animals. The colonies of white 

 rats and opossums will be transferred from 

 the laboratory building and the farm in New 

 Jersey to this building as soon as it is ready. 



A HUNDRED new maps a year are the prod- 

 uct of the big engraving and printing plant 

 of the United States Geological Survey at 

 Washington. About two atlas sheets a week 

 are turned out in the construction of the great 

 topographic map of the United States. The 

 15 new sheets added during the last six 

 weeks to the 2,200 now carried in the regular 

 stock show good examples of the widely dif- 

 ferent kinds of country covered by the govejn- 

 ment topographers. The areas mapped on 

 these sheets range from the high forested 

 mountain region of Colorado to the low, rich 

 alluvial bottom lands of Mississippi and 

 Louisiana — Elands valuable for mineral re- 

 sources, and lands rich in agricultural possi- 

 bilities beyond the dreams of avarice. For 

 any comprehensive development of these areas 

 the topographic base map becomes the first 

 engineering necessity. The scale of the maps 

 varies from 1 inch on the paper, representing 

 half a mile of country, with a contour interval 

 of only 5 feet, for the Mississippi delta lands 



— showing a very detailed survey suitable for 

 a drainage base — to 1 inch representing 2 

 miles, with 100-foot contours, for the Castle 

 Rock quadrangle, Colorado — covering an area 

 which does not require such refined work. 

 The Castle Rock area contains coal and lignite 

 and a report on it will be made later by the 

 survey in the form of a geologic folio ; but the 

 vicinity of Castle Rock is also famous for its 

 potatoes, which are comparable to the famous 

 Greeley potatoes, and for other agricultural 

 products. The western portion of the area 

 includes part of the Pike National Porest, and 

 for national forest administration the map 

 affords an ideal base. Three of the maps 

 represent lands along Mississippi River in the 

 Yazoo Delta; they show parts of the Moon 

 Lake quadrangle, the Hollywood (Tunica 

 County) quadrangle and the Lake Cormorant 

 quadrangle, all in Mississippi. These maps 

 were made in cooperation between the Federal 

 Survey and the Tallahatchie Drainage Com- 

 mission of the state of Mississippi. They are 

 on the scale of 1 inch to half a mile, with 

 5-foot contour intervals, and show every 

 slough and swampy place and every inequality 

 of the area which must be taken into consid- 

 eration in planning a drainage system that 

 shall make these lands the most productive in 

 the United States. Farther down the river, 

 in Louisiana, similar areas have been mapped 

 in cooperation between the Federal Survey 

 and the Fifth Louisiana Levee District of the 

 state of Louisiana, the sheets portraying por- 

 tions of three quadrangles, the Ashton Bridge, 

 Millikin and Millikens Bend — land built from 

 the silt brought down by the great river and 

 of nearly inexhaustible fertility. Another 

 map of an area cut by the course of the Mis- 

 sissippi — the Milan quadrangle, Illinois — 

 shows country of a different character. Here 

 at Rock Island the Father of Waters is less of 

 a problem. This map was made in coopera- 

 tion between the Federal Survey and the state 

 geologist of Illinois. The scale of this map 

 is 1 mile to 1 inch and the contour interval 

 20 feet. A still different contour interval — ■ 

 50 feet — is that of the map showing the 

 Salinas quadrangle, in Monterey County, Cal- 

 ifornia, where the work was done in coopera- 



