74 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XII. No. 289. 



therelfare no commanding eminences ; the 

 widest panoramas from the hill tops extend but 

 a few miles, and the general evenness of the 

 skyline is usually broken only by remnants Of 

 the old forest, not yet cut or burnt. It ig 

 significant that the name ' mountain ' has been 

 applied by local surveyors to hillocks only 100 

 or 200 feet in local relief. The minor features 

 are explained by the scouring action of the ice 

 sheet on this preglacial peneplain. The areas 

 of massive crystalline rocks have a surface 

 mammillated with rocky knobs and pitted with 

 hollows ; the first are largely bare, the second 

 are filled to their brim with ponds or quaking 

 bogs. Ledges and scarps are found at the bor- 

 der of the stronger rocks, while the weaker 

 rocks, eroded to a somewhat lower level, are 

 covered with drift plains which are mostly fol- 

 lowed by the main streams. The drainage is 

 very immature, varying irregularly from stand- 

 ing water in lakes and sluggish meandering 

 streams in swamps to flowing reaches in graded 

 drift channels and rushing rapids on rocky 

 ledges. The lakes have generally been reduced 

 to a lower level than that of their original shore 

 line ; they are often surrounded by muskegs or 

 reduced to 'hay mai'shes.' Swamps cover a 

 large part of the surface, not only filling many 

 basins and valley floors, but ascending gentle 

 slopes to the spring line on the hillsides ; their 

 thick spongy carpet of moss retains sufficient 

 moisture for the growth of cedars and other 

 swamp-loving trees and shrubs. 



This district is of interest as a sample of the 

 geographic conditions that prevail over a vast 

 area of the Laurentian highland in north- 

 eastern Canada; an ancient mountainous region, 

 reduced to moderate relief before the Cambrian 

 strata were laid upon it, and since then re- 

 maining remarkably quiescent while so many 

 changes were going on in other parts of the 

 world. 



WATERPOWBE IN NOETH CAEOLINA. 



Bulletin No. 8 of the North Carolina Geo- 

 logical Survey (Raleigh, 1899) is devoted to an 

 account of the water powers of that State, con- 

 tributed by several writers. The volume opens 

 with a chapter on the general physiographic 

 features of North Carolina, in which the essen- 



tial peculiarities of coastal plain, piedmont 

 plateau and mountain belt are well presented 

 by J. A. Holmes. The fourth chapter, by the 

 same author, discusses the geologic distribution 

 of waterpower and refers the rapids and falls 

 of the rivers to their controlling causes. In the 

 mountains, falls are determined by irregular 

 variations in the resistance of the crystalline 

 rocks ; here short ungraded rapids frequently 

 alternate with longer graded reaches. The 

 narrows and falls of the Yadkin in the pied- 

 mont plateau occur where the river crosses a 

 belt of resistant schist between belts of weaker 

 argillaceous slates. The Roanoke descends 85 

 feet in nine miles as it passes from the pied- 

 mont crystallines to the weak strata of the 

 coastal plain. The Tar has an abrupt fall of 

 15 feet at Rocky Mount, some 20 miles east of 

 the border of the piedmont area, where the 

 river has cut down through the coastal plain 

 strata upon a reef of schists and resistant 

 granite. The greater number of pages is de- 

 voted to details of individual rivers. The vol- 

 ume is well illustrated by half-tone plates. 

 W. M. Davis. 



BOTANICAL NOTES. 

 RECENT BOOKS FOE SECONDARY SCHOOLS. 



Peofessoe Baenes has prepared a little book 

 under the title of ' Outlines of Plant Life,' for 

 use in such secondary schools as cannot give as 

 much time to the subject as is requii-ed by his 

 earlier ' Plant Life. ' He has omitted much of 

 the minute anatomy ' upon the assumption that 

 no laboratory work with the compound micro- 

 scope is possible,' an unfortunate assumption in 

 our opinion. However, the author does not 

 reduce his work to this low plane, but freely in- 

 troduces suggestions for microscopical studies 

 quite at variance with his prefatory statement. 

 The sequence of structui'al study is from the 

 simple to the complex plants, considerably 

 more than a hundred pages being given to this 

 part of the subject. This is followed by about 

 the same number of pages devoted to physio- 

 logical studies, and sixty pages of ecological 

 matter. It should be very helpful to teachers. 



The same publishers (Holt & Co.) bring out 

 a smaller edition of Professor Atkinson's ' Ele- 



