SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. II. No. 29. 



The deposit has been noted by J. A. ITdden, 

 in the American Geologist, June, 1891. 



I have examined the deposit at various 

 points of exposure, the extreme points 

 being about fifteen miles apart. The de- 

 posit where noted is ft-om two to four feet 

 in thickness. It rests on a bed of clay and 

 is overlaid by a bed of yellow marl. The 

 altitude of the exposures varies perhaps 

 forty or fiftj^ feet. At the lowest point the 

 dust is well assorted and stratified: at the 

 higher points it shows signs of having been 

 deposited in shallow water. 



During the past winter I had Mr. Jas. 

 Gilbert, a candidate for a higher degree at 

 the Kansas State University, and former 

 pupil of mine, make an analysis of some 

 samples of the volcanic dust. The follow- 

 ing is the result : 



Si 0„ and insoluble residue 92.32— 



FeoOs, AUO3 2.66— 



CaO 60— 



MgO 2.88— 



H, 1.22- 



Traces of P, CO^, CI, ISTa, K. 



Under the microscope it is found to con- 

 sist almost wholly of microscopic, trans- 

 parent, silicious flakes of various irregular 

 forms. The most common forms being 

 curved and nearlj' triangular. How did so 

 large a deposit of volcanic dust reach cen- 

 tral Kansas? H. J. Haenly. 



McPheeson, Kansas. 



SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 

 Zur Psycliolocjie • des Schreibens mit besonderer 



RiicJcsicht mtf individuelle Verschiedenheiten 



der Handscliriften. Von W. Peeyer. 



Mit mehr als 200 Schriftproben im Text 



nebst 8 Diagrammen und 9 Tafeln. 



Hamburg und Leipzig, Leoj)old Yoss. 



1895. 230 pp. with index. 



The writer of the following lines ap- 

 proached the object of reviewing this book 

 with German seriousness and with a deter- 



mination to do justice. It is not always easy 

 to do justice to a German book written with 

 a serioiis purpose, because one is invariably 

 entangled in a maze of details from which 

 it is impossible to be free without incur- 

 ring the reproval of neglecting some part of 

 the argument. Yet the details are multi- 

 plied, like the testimonj' in the Roger Tich- 

 borne case, until one is simply drowned in 

 them without being convinced of their rele- 

 vancj\ These remarks applj' rather to those 

 cases where German perseverance and Ger- 

 man accuracy are enlisted in trancendental 

 or speculative philosophy than to the dis- 

 cussions of exact science, M^here these Teu- 

 tonic virtues evolve models of correct pro- 

 cedure. German ' Genauigkeit ' applied to 

 chimeras is like the application of the Lick 

 telescope to the determination of the longi- 

 tude of a cloud, or the aiDplication of the 

 fine grinding mill, to which Huxley com- 

 pared mathematics, to the reduction of 

 worthless mat&'ial. His apothegm, it will 

 be remembered, was that however perfect 

 the treatment, the value of what you got 

 out depended upon the value of what you 

 put in. Let us examine the book before us 

 more attentivelj'. 



The work consists of 223 pages of text 

 divided into five chapters and an appendix 

 of three pages (of which more presently) 

 on the relations of Goethe, Lavater and gra- 

 phology reciprocallj^ 



The subjects treated are as follows : 



Chapter I. Wherein do handwritings 

 differ from each other ? 



Chapter II. How do diflerences of hand- 

 writing arise ? 



Chapter III. Analj'sis and synthesis of 

 handwriting. 



Chapter lY. The significance of indi- 

 ■vidual characteristics of writing. 



Chapter Y. Concei'uing the pathology 

 of writing. 



Appendix. The beginnings of gra- 

 phology with Goethe and Lavater. 



