66 SCLENGE. 
Frost Plants. 
ProrrssorR McDoveGat’s article in Sczence for Dec. 29, 
1893, and especially Professor Atkinson’s notes in the 
Botanical Gazette for January, 1894(p. 40), prompt me to 
record another fact tending likewise to show how hard it 
is to make an absolutely new observation in science, and 
how slightly what are afterwards found to be interesting 
facts of science are apt to impress us when first discovered. 
I was driving one day last summer through the section 
where Mr. Mason and I had seen the frost flowers of 
Cunila in company with Mr. William Hunter, now of the 
National Zoélogical Park, but who was reared in that 
country, and has recently become thoroughly acquainted 
with its flora, furnishing me from there a large number of 
additions to my flora of Washington and vicinity. As we 
passed the spot I pointed it cut to himand told him there 
was where we saw the frost-freaks. With periect naiveté 
he replied that he had been familiar with them all his life, 
having played with them when a school-boy at the village 
of Accotink, hard by! Lester F. Warp. 
Coral Reef Formation. 
I HAVE just seen Dr. Le Conte’s note concerning ‘‘ Coral 
Reef Formation ” in Sczence for Dec. 8, p. 318. 
I am sure that all who are interested in the study of 
coral formations will be grateful to Dr. Le Conte for call- 
ing attention to his paper, which is of much importance. 
In my search for whatever had been written on the sub- 
ject I intended to be thorough, but I wholly overlooked 
the paper referred to. I greatly regret that this isso, for 
not only does the oversight leave my account incomplete, 
but does, although quite unintentionally, injustice to one 
whom all scientists delight to honor, and I am very glad 
that Dr. Le Conte did not allow the matter to pass un- 
noticed. I hope that any who may read my paper in 
Science for October 20 will also add the note in Sezence for 
December 8. GEORGE H. PERKINS. 
University of Vermont, Dec. 27, 1893. 
Earthquakes in the San Juan Mountains. 
Apout midnight the morning of Jan zr an earthquake 
shock was felt at Silverton, Red Mountain, Ouray, and 
other pointsin the San Juan Mountains. Another came 
at half-past one, another at three, another at four, and 
again at half-past seven. No clocks were stopped, and 
the times are only known approximately. Windows and 
dishes rattled, walls and roofs creaked, a sound as of a 
team rushing over the snow was heard, in one miner’s 
cabin on the mountain a stove was overturned, and in 
small houses the floors distinctly trembled and reeled. 
Most of the shocks were accompanied by a single loud 
sound, as of a heavy blast—a familiar sound in these 
mountains. These noises were very distinct in the mines 
at Red Mountain up to 600 feet in depth. Similar shocks 
came at intervals for two days and three nights after the 
first. The wide extent of country over which the phe- 
nomena were substantially the same makes it probable 
that these shocks proceeded from some point at a distance. 
No one seems to have been able to perceive the direction 
of propagation. Did they proceed from some distant 
volcanic eruption? Gro. H. STONE. 
Ouray, Colo., Jan. 6, 1804. 
An Explanation of the Rope of Maggots. 
Tue ‘‘ Rope of Maggots” which Mr. Jones described 
in Sczence of December 29 was due to the larve of a fly 
belonging to the genus Sczara, of the family Wycetophilidae, 
Vol. XXIII. No. 574 
a genus which includes many species. The phenomenon, 
while it has been but seldom observed in America, has 
been long known in Europe, especially in connection with 
the larve of Sctara militaris, which derives its specific 
name from this peculiar habit. The maggots are known 
as the ‘‘ Heerwuerme ” or, in English, the ‘‘army worms.” 
We have several species in America which are closely 
allied to S. mlitar’s, and it is perhaps the larvee of some 
one of these species which formed the ‘‘rope” in the case 
mentioned. I have never seen any reason given why the 
larvee congregate and travel in this way. They do not 
feed on carrion. S. W. WILLISTON. 
Petrified Eyes. 
Is it known that the crystalline lens of the eye has ever 
been petrified in homogeneous quartz ? Ihave never seen 
or heard of such a thing except in a popular school 
geology, and do not believe the following statement, 
which is taken from the book: : 
‘A monster, some thirty feet long, with jaws nearly a 
fathom long, and huge saucer eyes, which have since been 
found so perfect that the petrified lenses have been split off and 
used as magnifiers.” 
Have such lenses ever been found, or is this merely the 
material of which elementary science books are formed? 
Gro. G. GRorr. 
Lewisburg, Pa. 
“Do Earth Worms Rain Down?” 
In Sccence of Jan. 5, under the above caption, Charles 
B. Palmer refers to the old-time notion that worms, frogs, 
fish, etc., rain down as one seldom mentioned by intelli- 
gent people except in the way of ridicule. That this 
notion is yet entertained by many will appear from what 
follows. A few days ago I presented this subject to a 
class pursuing the study of zodlogy, and several stated 
they had found fish and frogs aftera rain on land where 
before no water could be found. A young man, of undis- 
puted intelligence, declared that about two years ago, in 
this city, children on their way to school picked up fish as 
they fell on the sidewalk in a rain storm and brought them 
to the school where he was in attendance. 
On Jan. 20 a wind unusually heavy for this section 
prevailed in Nashville. Rain fell abundantly in the latter 
part of the day. In the evening seven young men were 
standing under the awning of a certain store when they 
heard a sudden splash, mud and water being thrown on 
one of the boys and upon the corner post of the awning. 
Their attention was directed to a living creature about five 
feet from the pavement, which they succeeded in captur- 
ing. The specimen was brought to me for indentification 
and proved to be a full grown sword-shaped salamander 
(Amblystoma xiphias), measuring ten and three-fourths 
inches in length. Upon questioning the young men I ob- 
tained the following testimony: They did not see it falling ; 
they did not see it in the air; they heard the splash; in 
falling it burieditself in the mud and water; they were 
fully persuaded that it had rained down. 
The following day I observed earthworms on the brick 
pavement. This fact and the occurrence of- the above 
species in mid-winter away from winter quarters, together 
with the facts that butterflies, moths and grasshoppers 
were seen on the wing on Christmas Day, that a butterfly 
(Agraulis vanillae) emerged on Jan. 15 in a breeding cage 
which had been kept in a cool room, that the p cele has 
been spending the winter with us, and that such fowers 
as the ground ivy and dandelion have been in bloom, will 
suggest the mildness of the winter we have experienced 
up to the middle of January. Wm. OSBURN, 
Nashville, Tenn., Feb. x, 1894. 
