634 



SCIENCE. 



[N.S. Vol. XIX. No. 485. 



The slope from the bottom of Death Gulch 

 from the mouth upward is very great, afford- 

 ing a hard climb for any who may attempt to 

 pass up it. Occasionally, shelves are en- 

 countered adding to the difficulty of reach- 

 ing the place where the animals are found. 

 It is above one of these shelves or steps where 

 all of the carcasses were lying, and the floor 

 of the gulch at this place is comparatively 

 level for a distance of twenty feet or more. 

 At the upper end of this space and about four 

 feet up the side is the fissure described. You 

 may see this offers a fine opportunity for the 

 accumulation of gas. 



Thinking of the preservative effects of the 

 gas, I believed at first the bear discovered by 

 ' Pvt. Wilson ' was the one I found the fol- 

 lowing June but later learned that the former 

 was a large bear from which the claws had 

 been taken by the soldiers, while the latter 

 was a small bear still retaining its claws. 



Water flowing in the upper part of the 

 gulch has a distinct acid reaction. One de- 

 termination showed the acidity calculated to 

 sulphuric acid to be equal to one third of a 

 gram to the liter. This acidity disappears 

 before the lower part of the gulch is, reached, 

 a sample half way down from the top giving 

 a neutral reaction. 



The production of gas is probably connected 

 with this neutralization of the acid water. 

 The action of the acid on carbonates and 

 sulphides liberates the gases. 



The symptoms experienced by members of 

 our party while in the gulch were not those 

 of asphyxiation, the usual result of the action 

 of carbon dioxide, but while no two were 

 affected exactly alike, dizziness was noted in 

 each case. In addition to dizziness one had 

 nausea, another headache and the third was 

 dizzy but noticed no other effect. 



Taken altogether, the phenomena of this 

 ■region are most interesting and deserve fur- 

 ther study. In taking samples of the gas it 

 was necessary to watch the flow of acidulated 

 water containing cadmium sulphate, in which 

 the sulphureted hydrogen was collected, to 

 see that none of the precipitated cadmium 

 sulphide was siphoned off. 



Bending over watching this intently I was 



almost overcome by the gas, and but for the 

 assistance of my friends in getting to fresh 

 air 1 should have remained with ' Wahb ' and 

 his brethren at the bottom of Death Gulch. 

 F. W. Traphagen. 

 Montana State College, 

 BozEMAN, Montana. 



A LOACH FROM NANAIMO. 



Through the kindness of Mr. Jaeger, of 

 Brannan St., San Francisco, Stanford Uni- 

 versity has received a live specimen of a very 

 mysterious fish. It is a loach, an eel-shaped 

 fish with the head of a sucker and the beards 

 of a cat-fish, a group of fishes abundant in the 

 Old World in the brooks from Ireland to 

 Japan, but never before found in America. 



The loaches are very hardy, as much so as a 

 salamander, and they sometimes come out into 

 the wet grass in search of insects. 



This loach was brought to San Francisco 

 in a coaling ship from Nanaimo. He was said 

 to have been found in a puddle in the coal- 

 bank. He was put into a tumbler of water 

 at San Francisco, and then revived. When 

 I found him he was still in the glass of water 

 and lively enough, the bottom of the glass 

 being covered with coal dust. 



His origin is a puzzle. Some patriotic 

 Englishman might have brought a loach to 

 Nanaimo. Some Chinaman may have car- 

 ried about a live loach as good medicine. 

 Some Japanese may have had him in his 

 little tray-garden. It is not easy to conceive 

 that this family should be native to America 

 and that we should have overlooked it so long, 

 while describing so many Asiatic and Euro- 

 pean species. 



This loach has six barbels, short dorsal, a 

 rounded caudal. It can not, therefore, belong 

 to any one of the three European genera. Its 

 place is in the genus Orthrias, lately framed 

 by the writer for a species from northern 

 Japan. But the new loach is not this species, 

 nor does any one of the few Chinese species of 

 Orthrias, of which I find accounts, resemble it 

 very much. 



This is clear. The loach from Nanaimo 

 belongs to a new or rare species. It is either 

 native to Vancouver Island or else it has been 

 brought over alive from China. Meanwhile 



