November 20, 1891.] 



SCIENCE. 



287 



of tabasheer from Dr. F. H. Mallet of the Geological Survey 

 of India, who obtained it at the bazaar of the Calcutta Fair 

 in November of 1888, that the Indian snake stone is evi- 

 dently tabasheer. Tabasheer is a variety of opal that is 

 found in the joints of certain species of bamboo in Hindo- 

 stan, Burmah, and South America; it is originally a juice, 

 which by evaporation changes into a mucilaginous stale, then 

 becomes a solid substance. It ranges from translucent to 

 V opaque in color. I found it either white or bluish white by 

 reflected light, and pale yellow or slight sherry red by trans- 

 mitted light. Upon fracture it breaks into irregular pieces 

 like starch. As in Ta vernier's account of its clinging to the 

 palate and causing water to boil when immersed, it actually 

 has the property of strongly adhering to the tongue, and 

 when put into water emits rapid streams of minute bubbles 

 of air. It has a strong siliceous odor, but after absorbing an 

 equal bulk of water becomes transparent like a Colorado hy- 

 drophane described by the writer several years ago before the 

 New York Academy of Sciences. 



Although tabasheer is mentioned in nearly all the text- 

 books, very little of it has reached the United States. It is 

 highly interesting, since we have here an organic product 

 scarcely to be distinguished from a similar opal-like body 

 found by Mr. Arnold Hague in the geysers of the Yellow- 

 stone Park. Both tabasheer and the hydrophane were prob- 

 ably what was called " Oculus Beli," " Oculus Mundi," and 

 "Lapis mutabilis " by Thomas Nicol, Robert Boyle, and 

 other vfriters of the seventeenth century, and " Weltauge " 

 by the Germans. 



The great ca])acity of this substance for absorbing a, fluid 

 would undoubtedly render it as efficacious for the purpose of 

 absorbing poison as any other known stone, providing the 

 wound is open enough; and its internal use to-day as a medi- 

 cine is possibly aiso due to this property. 



Tabasheer, as known among mineralogists, is a corruption 

 of the word tabixir, a name which was used even in the time 

 of Avicenna, the Grand Vizier and body surgeon of the Sul- 

 tan of Persia in the tenth century. It played a very impor- 

 tant part in medicine during the middle ages. As to its ori- 

 gin, Sir David Brewster' says that tabasheer is only formed 

 in diseased or injured bamboo joints or stalks. 



Guibourt" differs from Brewster, inasmuch as he attributes 

 the different rates of growth to the fact that when there is a 

 superabundance of sap the tabersbeer is formed from the re- 

 siduum. More recently, Henry CeciP says, "In the onrush 

 of tropical growth in the young shoot, nature, after flooring 

 the knot, has poured in, as it were, sap and silica sufficient 

 for a normal length and width of stem to the knot next 

 above it. But by some check to the impulse, or by irregu- 

 larity of conditions, the portion of stem thus provided for is 

 shorter or narrower than intended, and the unused silica is 

 left behind as a sediment, compacted by the drying residuum 

 saj). " 



This latter view is sustained by Dr. Ernst Huth in his 

 elaborate description of this substance, entitled " Dev Tabixir 

 in seiner Bedeutung fur die Botanik, Mineralogie, und 

 Physik; X. Sammlung Naturwissenschaftlicher Vortrage, 

 herausgegeben von Dr. Ernst Huth, Berlin, 1887." 



In this article Dr. Huth discusses the name, history, ori- 

 gin, and reputed virtues of this substance with much full- 

 ness. In regard to its use in medicine during the middle 



' Edinburgh Philos. Journal. No. 1, p. 147; PMlos. Trans., cix., p. 283: and 

 "The Natural History and Properties of Tabersheer," 1828; Edinburgh Jour- 

 nal, viii., p. y88. 



^ Jour, de Pharmacies, xsvii., pp. 81, 161, 252; and Phil. Mag., x , p. 229. 



3 Nature, xsxv,, p. 437. 



ages, he quotes a remarkable list of applications to the ills 

 that flesh is heir to. 



Here it is cited as a remedy for affections of the eyes, the 

 chest, and of the stomach, for coughs, fevers, and biliary 

 complaints, and especially for melancholia arising from soli- 

 tude, dread of the past, and fears for the future. Other 

 writers speak of its use in bilious fevers and dysentery, in- 

 ternal and external heat, and a variety of injuries and mal- 

 adies. 



The writer has examined a large number of so-called mad- 

 stones, and they have all proved to be an aluminous shale 

 or other absorptive substance. But tabasheer possesses ab- 

 sorptive properties to a greater degree than any other min- 

 eral substance that I have examined, and it is strange that 

 it has never been mentioned as being used as an antidote. It 

 may be confidentially recommended to the credence of any 

 person who may desire to believe in a madstone. 



Geoege Frederick Kunz. 



THE PLANT-BEARING DEPOSITS OF THE AMERI- 

 CAN TRIAS.' 



The plant-bearing deposits of the American Trias are, so 

 far as known, confined to two general regions, viz., a series 

 of troughs in the piedmont region of the Atlantic slope ex- 

 tending from Massachusetts to North Carolina, and a great 

 basin or area in the territories of New Mexico and Arizona. 

 The character and structural relations of these rocks have 

 been fully discussed by numerous writers. It is proposed in 

 this paper to examine the evidence of the fossil plants as to 

 their geological position. This evidence may be considered 

 from two points of view; first, as to the relative position of 

 tlie several basins, areas, or plant-bearing portions; and, 

 second, as to the general relations of the flora as a whole 

 to other floras which resemble it sufficiently to admit of com- 

 parison. 



In looking at the subject from the first of these two points 

 of view, or that of the American distribution, it is convenient 

 to divide the general terrane into five geographical areas cor- 

 responding nearly with so many geological basins, viz., first, 

 that of the Connecticut valley ; second, the area that extends 

 with little interruption from the Hudson River to near Char- 

 lottesville, Virginia; third, the Richmond coalBeld; fourth, 

 the North Carolina coalfield; and, fifth, the western area, 

 which is not as yet sufficiently known to admit of subdivi- 

 sion. 



The fossil plants have nearly all been found in the Con- 

 necticut valley, the Richmond coalfield, the North Carolina 

 coalfield, and about the copper mines of New Mexico; a few 

 came from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, while 

 only silicilied trunks have thus far been discovered in Arizona. 

 All the material that has been found has been carefully stud- 

 ied and as accurately determined as its nature will permit. 

 The greatest abundance of vegetable remains occurs in the 

 Richmond and North Carolina coalfields. 



A careful comparison of all the forms shows that out of a 

 total of a hundred and nineteen species eighty-five are con- 

 fined to some one of the areas above enumerated, leaving 

 only thirty-four that occur in two or more of them. Tables 

 of the distribution of species with full analysis of their rela- 

 tions and significance are given in the paper. As a general 

 result, it is found that none of the basins except that of the 



1 Read by title, by Lester F. Ward, before Section E of the American Asso- 

 ciation for the Alvancemeut of Science, at WashiugtOD, D.C., Aug. 21, 1891: and 

 in full before the Geological Society of America, at the s'.rao pla:e, Aag, 24. 



ISOl. 



