August 2, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



119 



is reached at 95 feet from tlie surface, is 

 probably in motion, as its excellent qualitj' 

 is said not to have been disturbed by the 

 addition of a dozen or so sheep which acci- 

 dentally fell into the fissure. This last 

 point I could not investigate as the wind- 

 lass was not in operation at the time of my 

 visit. The occupant of the cabin told me 

 of other cracks of the same character about 

 fifty miles to the northward, and said that 

 one of them was considerably broader and 

 contained cliff houses. 



Very little surface water finds its way 

 into the fissure. As shown in the view 

 (Fig. 1) the edge has lost some of its original 

 angularity through weathering, and details 

 of surface which the view does not represent 

 show that waste has been chiefly through 

 solution. The small amount of this waste, 

 and the fact that the fissure is not clogged 

 above the water level by debris, show that 

 it is very young from the geologic point of 

 view, although in years or centuries it may 

 be venerable. 



The relation of this deep crevice to a fault 

 and its disassociation from all lines of sur- 

 face drainage show that it is not a canyon 

 carved by running water, and I see no pos- 

 sibility of avoiding the inference that it is a 

 crack resulting from tension of the rock. 

 Such cracks must be formed at the surface 

 wherever brittle rocks are bent in anticlinal 

 arches, but so far as my reading goes, the 



!. Diagram showing relation of rock fissure to 

 fault. 



record of them is rare. Popular, and for 

 ihat matter geologic, literature does indeed 

 contain many allusions to fissures that are 



assumed to be diastrophic, but such allu- 

 sions are usually based on misinterpreta- 

 tion, the fissures being really canyons of 

 erosion. Whymper, in his ' Travels amongst 

 the Great Andes' (pp. 108, 219, 220), de- 

 scribes a number of ' earthquake quebradas ' 

 which seem to be true fissures, and tradi- 

 tion makes them recent, the date 1868 be- 

 ing assigned to one of them. I am not 

 aware that any have been previously de- 

 scribed from North Amei'ica excepting, on 

 the one hand, cracks in alluvium produced 

 by earthquakes, and, on the other, rock 

 fissures partly or wholly filled by vein mat- 

 ter and afterward denuded. 



The reader who wishes to visit the local- 

 ity should leave the Atlantic and Pacific 

 railwajr at either Winslow or Canj^on Dia- 

 blo and secure private conveyance. 

 July 18, 1895. G- K. Gilbert. 



THE METRIC SYSTEM IN ENGLAND. 



On the 13th of February last, a select 

 Committee of the House of Commons was 

 appointed ' to inquire whether any and 

 what changes in the present system of 

 Weights and Measures should be adopted.' 



There were seventeen members of the 

 committee, including Sir Henry Roscoe, 

 Mr. Justin McCarthy, Sir Albert Kollet, 

 Mr. Charles Fenwick and others, some of 

 whom were known to be in favor of a 

 change, and others equallj' well known to 

 be opposed to any essential modification of 

 the existing system. The Committee had 

 power to send for Persons, Papers and 

 Records. In all fourteen sessions of the 

 Committee were held, the first being on 

 February 19th and the last on June 27tli. 

 During this period many witnesses Avere 

 examined representing manj^ difierent in- 

 terests, including oflScial, commercial, man- 

 ufacturing, trade, educational and profes- 

 sional. On July 1st the Committee made 

 a Eeport to the House of Commons, the 

 essential features of which received the 



