March 27, 1891.] 



SCIENCE. 



171 



left off the worship of Baal, and have deserted the grores and high 

 places, and have sworn allegiance to the true god of science, thal^ 

 you, the people, should wander off after all manner of idols, and 

 delight more and more in patent medicines, and be more than 

 ever at the hands of advertising quacks. But for a time it must 

 be so. This is yet the childhood of the world, and a supine 

 credulity is still the most charming characteristic of man. 



Some of the brightest hopes of humanity are with the medical 

 profession. To it, not to law or theology, belong the promises. 

 Disease will always be with us, but we may look forward confi- 

 dently to the time when epidemics shall be no more, when typhoid 

 shall be as rare as typhus, and tuberculosis as leprosy. Man, 

 naturally a transgressor daily, both in ignorance and deliberately 

 breaking the laws of health, will always need doctors; but the 

 great group of preventable diseases will disappear. The progress 

 will be gradual. What has been done is but an earnest of the 

 things that shall be done. Amid many disappointments, we must 

 not be impatient, as ' ' science moves but slowly, slowly creeping 

 from point to point." 



January last, when the announcement was made by the State 

 geologist in a letter to the governor. 



Partial Analyses of Bauxite from Arkansas. 



BAUXITE IN ARKANSAS.! 



The Geological Survey of Arkansas has discovered deposits of 

 bauxite in that State, the first considerable ones thus far found in 

 this country. In 1887 a small deposit was discovered in Floyd 

 County, Ga., but that is said to cover "an area of about half an 

 acre" only.^ 



The Arkansas beds occur near the railway in the vicinity of 

 Little Rock, Pulaski County, and near Benton, Saline County. 

 The exposures vary in size from an acre to twenty acres or more, 

 and aggregate something over a square mile. This does not, in 

 all probability, include the total area covered by bauxite in the 

 counties mentioned, for the method of occurrence of the deposits 

 leads to the supposition that there are others as yet undiscovered 

 by the survey. 



In thickness the beds vary from a few feet to over 40 feet, with 

 the total thickness undetermined. The average thickness is at least 

 15 feet. 



These Arkansas deposits occur only in tertiary areas and in the 

 neighborhood of eruptive syenites ("granites"), to which they 

 seem to be genetically related. In elevation they occur only at 

 and below 300 feet above tide-level, and most of them lie between 

 260 and 270 feet above tide. They have soft tertiary beds both 

 above and below them at a few places, and must therefore be of 

 tertiary age. As a rule, however, they have no covering, the 

 overlying beds having been removed by erosion, and are high 

 enough above the drainage of the country to be readily quarried. 

 Erosive action has removed a part of the bauxite in some cases; 

 but there are,* in all probability, many places at which it has not 

 yet been even uncovered. 



It is pisolitic in structure, and, like all bauxite, varies more or 

 less in color and in chemical composition. At a few places it is 

 so charged with iron, that attempts have been made to mine it 

 for iron ore. Some of the samples from these pits assay over 50 

 per cent of metallic iron. This ferruginous kind is exceptional, 

 however. Prom the dark-red varieties it grades through the 

 browns and yellow to pearl-gray, cream-colored, and milky white ; 

 the pinks, browns, and grays being the more abundant. Some of 

 the white varieties have the chemical composition of kaolin; 

 while the red, brown, and gray have but little silica and iron, and 

 a high percentage of alumina. The analyses given below show 

 that this bauxite is as good as that of France, Austria, and Ire- 

 land, for the manufacture of chemical products, for refractory 

 material, and for the manufacture of aluminum by the Deville pro- 

 cess. Should there be a mai-ket in this country for such material, 

 Arkansas will be able to supply any demand that may be made for 

 it. No use has ever been made of the Arkansas material except 

 for road-building: indeed, it was not known what it was until 



> By John C. Branner, r h.D., State geologist of Arkansas (American Geolo- 

 gist, March, 1891). 



2 Transactions of tlie American Institute of Mechanical Engineers, xvl. 



p, no5. 



Alumina 



SUloa 



Ferric oxide 



Titanic oxide 



Loss on ignition (water) 



VIII. 

 51.90 

 16.76 

 3.16 

 3.50 



Average of Fourteen Partial Analyses of Bauxite from France, 

 Austria, and Ireland.^ 



Alumina 53.7 per cent. 



Silica 7.1 " " 



Ferric oxide 19.1 " '* 



Water 16.4 " " 



The above analyses made by the State Geological Survey show 

 the composition of average samples. 



REMOVING TASSELS FROM CORN. 



Experiments with strawberries made at the Ohio Experiment 

 Station indicate that pollen-bearing is an exhaustive process, and 

 that larger yields of fruit, as a rule, may be expected from those 

 varieties which produce pollen so sparingly that a small propor 

 tion of other varieties producing pollen abundantly must be 

 planted with them in order to insure a full crop, than from those 

 which produce sufficient pollen for self-fertilization. 



The following very interesting and valuable experiment on 

 corn, made by the experiment station of Cornell University, at 

 Ithaca, N.Y., gives strong support to this theory. 



It has been claimed that if the tassels were removed from com 

 before they have produced pollen, the strength thus saved to the 

 plant would be turned to the ovaries, and a larger amount of 

 grain be produced. To test the effect of this theory, the following 

 trial was made during the past season. 



In the general cornfield a plot of forty-eight rows, with forty- 

 two hills in each row, was selected for the experiment. From 

 each alternate row the tassels were removed as soon as they ap- 

 peared, and before any pollen had fallen. The remaining rows 

 were left undisturbed. The corn was Sibley's Pride of the North, 

 planted the last week in May in bills three feet six inches by 

 three feet eight inches, on dry, gravelly, moderately fertile 

 soil. 



On July 21 the earliest tassels began to make their appearance 

 in the folds of the upper leaves, and were removed as soon as they 

 could be seen, and before they were fully developed. A slight 

 pull was sufficient to break the stalk just below the tassel, and the 

 removal was easy and rapid. 



On July 25 the plot was gone over again for the removal of 

 such tassels as bad appeared since the previous work, and at this 

 time by far the greater number of the tassels were removed. 



On July 28, when the plot was gone over the third time, the 

 effects of the tasselling became apparent in the increased number 

 of silks that were visible on the rows from which the tassels had 

 been removed. 



On the 1,008 tasseUed hills there were visible 591 silks: on the 

 1,008 untasselled, 393 silks. 



On Aug. 4 the plot was gone over for the last time, but only a 

 few tassels were found on the very latest stalks. The preponder- 

 ance of visible silk on the tasseUed rows was still manifest, there 

 being at this time 3,542 silks visible on the tasseUed rows, and but 

 2,044 on the untasselled rows. The corn was allowed to stand 

 without cutting until ripe. 



1 From analyses principally by SaintnClaire Deville given intheAnn.de 

 Chimie et de Pnyslque, Ixi. 1861, p. 309 et seq.; Bull. Soc. Geol. de France, xvi. 

 1888, p. 345; Dlngier's Poiytechnisohes Journal, 198, p. 156, and 234, p. 465; 

 Blachof's Feuerfeaten Thoue, p. 194; Percy's Metallurgy, p. 133. 



