266 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVI. No. 398. 



strings of dried gourds around their waists 

 for preservers. 



The difficulties became greater and great- 

 er as the party floated swiftly into the wild- 

 er parts of the canyon, where rapids were 

 shot far larger than those where portages 

 had been made a day or two earlier. The 

 raftsmen's nerves were so completely un- 

 strung one night that they dared neither 

 shoot the rapids, nor climb the mountain 

 side to get help from the Kurds in making 

 a portage. Next day, the wildest of all the 

 rapids Avas reached. The raftsmen dared 

 not shoot it, and a portage was out of the 

 question, so the Americans decided to 

 shoot it alone, in spite of the entreaties of 

 the servants, who fell on their Imees, and, 

 with tears in their eyes, begged the for- 

 eigners not to go to certain death. The 

 raft shot into the rapids over a long 

 smooth, tilting sheet of water; there was a 

 wild exhilarating slide, and the great 

 waves broke over the explorers, time and 

 time again wetting them through to the 

 skin; the raft whirled round and round. 

 Soon the danger was passed, and the raft 

 safely moored. The journey lasted seven 

 days because of the numerous portages, 

 although the actual time occupied in float- 

 ing on the river was but thirty-seven hours. 



The youthfulness of the deeper part of 

 the canyon seems to be due to a recent re- 

 vival of deformation, which has caused the 

 streams to incise deep, steep-sided, V- 

 shaped, young valleys in the bottoms of 

 broad, U-shaped, older valleys. 



Systematic Geogro'phy: W. M. Davis. 



Observations of geographical matters by 

 travelers and explorers are visually incom- 

 plete in one respect or another, largely be- 

 cause there is no maturely developed and 

 generally accepted scheme of systematic 

 geographical classifications, by which the 

 relation of the whole of the subject to its 



parts is concisely indicated. The facts of 

 inorganic environment on the one hand 

 (physiography) and of environed organ- 

 isms on the other (ontography), which con- 

 stitute, when studied in their mutual rela- 

 tions, the subject matter of geography 

 proper, can only be appreciated after care- 

 ful analysis and arrangement. Geography 

 may be given a regional aspect when the 

 features of a single region are considered; 

 but complete regional description implies 

 a previous understanding of general sys- 

 tematic geography; for otherwise, regional 

 facts cannot be recognized as examples of 

 the large classes of facts in which they 

 fall. Systematic geography is therefore a 

 fundamental study. The author outlined 

 the chief subdivisions of its two parts, 

 physiography and ontography, and dis- 

 cussed the order in which the relations be- 

 tween them should be considered. 



Some Topographic Features in the South- 

 ern Appalachians : J. A. Holmes. 



TJie Petrographic Province of Neponset 

 Valley, Boston, MassacMisetts : F. Bas- 

 COM. (Read by title.) 



The Occurrence of Liquid Petroleum Her- 

 metically Enclosed with Quartz Crystals, 

 from Alabama: F. L. Stewart. 



Restoration of Embolophorus dollovia7ius : 

 B. C. Case. (Read by title.) 



Synopsis of the Missourian and Permo- 

 Carboniferous Fish Fauna of Kansas 

 and Nebraska: C. R. Eastman and E. 

 H. Babboue. 



The majority of Upper Carboniferous 

 fish remains from Nebraska are from the 

 Atchison shales in the southeastern part of 

 the State, and consist almost exclusively of 

 Elasmobranchs. Some of these are inti- 

 mately related to those of older horizons 

 from the region east of the Mississippi, in- 

 cluding even the Chester limestone, and a 



