March 23, 1894. 
and Bailey Willis, son of Nathaniel P. Willis, the poet 
and littérateur. 
Among palzontologists are Dr. W. H. Dall, Dr. C. A. 
White, Mr. C. D. Walcott and Mr. Robert T. Hill. 
Among chemists are Professors F. W. Clarke, H. W. 
Wiley, R. B. Warder, and C. E. Munroe, Dr. J. M. Toner, 
Mr. W. F. Hillebrand and Mr. T. M. Chatard. 
Biological science is represented in all its branches— 
botany by Mr. George B. Sudworth, Mr. F. V. Coville, 
Mr. W. R. Smith, Dr. Erwin F. Smith, Mr. B. T. Gallo- 
way and Mr. F. H. Knowlton; entomology by Prof. C. V. 
Riley, Mr. L. O. Howard, Mr. W. H. Ashmead and Mr. 
George Marx; ichthyology by Prof. Theodore N. Gill, 
Dr. Tarleton H. Bean, and Mr. Richard Rathbun; orni- 
thology by Mr. Robert Ridgway, Dr. Elliott Coues, and 
Mr. H. W. Henshaw; mammalogy by Prof. F. A. Lucas, 
Mr. C. Hart Merriam and Mr. F. W. True. 
Professors Cleveland Abbe and F. H. Bigelow, meteor- 
ologists, are enrolled, and Messrs. H. M. Wilson and 
F. H. Newell, whose work in the arid West upon problems 
of irrigation has given them prominence. 
Among anthropologists are Colonel Garrick Mallery, 
Dr. Robert Fletcher, Prof. O. T. Mason, Mr. James C. 
Pilling, Mr. Thomas Wilson, Mr. F. H. Cushing, Drs. 
Cyrus Thomas, J. Owen Dorsey and A. S. Gatschet, 
Captain J. G. Bourke and Mr. James Mooney. 
Outside the sphere of technical science many distin- 
guished names appear in the list of members. Here are 
the venerable Alexander Melville Bell and his son, 
Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone. 
Education is represented by Dr. James C. Welling, 
President of Columbian University, Prof. W. B. Powell, 
Superintendent of the Public Schools of Washington, 
President J. E. Rankin, of Howard University, and 
President E. M. Gallaudet, of the National College for 
the Deaf. 
Literature and journalism are represented by Mr. Henry 
Adams, the historian, Mr. George Kennan, Mr. William 
BH. Curtis, Mr. ©. S. Noyes, Mr. 1. W. Noyes; Mr. S. EH. 
- Kauffman, Mr. H. L. West, Mr. H. B. Macfarland, Mr. 
Harry Godwin, Mr. W. A. Croffut, Mr. E. B. Wight, 
Mr. Henry Farquhar, Mr. C. R. Dodge, and Mr. Clifford 
Howard. 
Other well-known members are Mr. Gardiner G. 
Hubbard, Mr. B. H. Warner, Mr. John Tweedale, Dr. 
Swan M. Burnett, Prof. A. H. Thompson, Prof. Gilbert 
Thompson, Dr. R. W. Shufeldt, Dr. Cyrus Adler, Rev. 
Teunis S. Hamlin, Rev. G. M. Searle, Dr. Joseph Pohle, 
R@We Jo Ge islagem, Ii NG Wo. Iie, Wir, IL. (Co 1eoxormais, 
Mr. John Joy Edson, Rev. J. Macbride Sterrett, Mr. 
William B. Taylor, Mr. Edward Clark, Prof. H. L. Hodg- 
kins, Dr. Theobald Smith, Dr. D. E. Salmon, Mr. Henry 
Ulke, Mr. J. Stanley Brown, Major William H. Webster, 
Mr. A. B. Johnson, Dr. H. C: Yarrow, Mr. C. J. Bell, 
Mr. Edwin Willits, Mr. W. A. De Caindry, Mr. J. Ormond 
Wilson, and Mr. W. B. Chilton. 
Among ladies enrolled are Mrs. Caroline H. Dali, Miss 
Alice Fletcher, Miss Kate Foote, Mrs. J. M. Lander (who 
will be remembered by old play-goers as Miss Jean Daven- 
port), Dr. Anita Newcomb McGee, Mrs. E. R. Scid- 
more, Miss Sara A. Scull, Mrs. M. C. Stevenson, Mrs. 
L. O. Talbott, and Miss Haidee Williamson. 
Meetings of the societies are held monthly or semi- 
monthly from October to May at the Cosmos Club, at 
Madison Place and I Street, and at each meeting two or 
more papers are usually read and discussed. 
Most significant is the extent of the out-of-town mem- 
bership of these societies, including some of the best- 
known scientific men in the country, among them Prof. 
W. O. Atwater, of Wesleyan University; Dr. F. Bascom, 
~ Ohio State University; Dr. J. C. Branner, Leland Stan- 
SICIISIN (Cle. 
ford University; Prof. T. C. Chamberlin, Unive: 
Chicago; President John M. Coulter, Indiana Univ 
Dr. Thomas Craig, Johns Hopkins University; 
W. R. Dudley, Leland Stanford University; Pri 
Daniel G. Gilman, Johns Hopkins University; Prof. KE. L. 
Greene, University of California; Prof. E. S. Holden, 
Lick Observatory; Prof. E. S. Morse, Peabody Academy 
of Science; Prof. H.S. Pritchett, Washington University, 
St. Louis; Prof. I. C. Russell, University of Michigan; 
Prof. H. M. Seely, Middlebury College, Vermont; Prof. 
D. P. Todd, Amherst, Mass.; Prof. Winslow Upton, 
Brown University, R. I.; Prof. C. R. Van Hise, Univer- 
sity of Wisconsin; Prof. George H. Williams, Johns 
Hopkins University; Prof. H. S. Williams, Yale; Prof. 
Alex. Ziwet, University of Michigan; Prof. J. E. Whit- 
field, Philadelphia; Dr. Washington Matthews; Major 
C. E. Dutton and Mr. Charles Nordhoff. 
The constant increase in the number of this class of 
members is an indication that Washington is rapidly 
becoming a national centre of scientific thought. 
GOLDEN SANDS OF THE PACIFIC COAST. * 
BY CLARENCE M. BUEL, E.M., ST. PAUL, MINN. 
TuHEsE auriferous deposits denominated ‘‘ Black sands ” 
occur at intervals from Takutat Bay, some 250 miles 
north of Sitka in Alaska to Santa Cruz Bay, California, 
and haye been worked for many years with primitive 
appliances, sluice box and pan, the gold being fine flake 
or flour, less than twenty-five per cent being saved. These 
deposits already mined, milled and on the dump, ready to 
work, contain a sufficient quantity of gold to more than 
pay the national debt, cow/d it be saved, but the prospector 
finding two hundred colors in his pan, little thinks that 
the color visible to the naked eye is but the 1,000,oooth 
part of a grain, finds it so alluring that he at once rigs up 
a rough sluice box, and often sends asample to an assayer 
who gives him returns from $5 to $40 per ton, wonders 
that he seldom makes more than $4 per day, though other 
methods have been pursued in attempting to separate the 
gold from the sands too numerous to relate. Accompanying 
the gold is found platinum and nearly all the platinoid 
metals. Chlorination has been tried without success, and 
the cyanide process (McArthur-Forrest patent) proved a 
failure, the reason cheifly being that the magnetic iron of 
which these deposits are largely composed converts the 
cyanide of potassium into a ferro-cyanide, and the zine 
used in precipitation rendered inert by reason of its 
speedy oxidation in the humid saline atmosphere to which 
it must needs be subjected. On the Oregon coast, at the 
mouth of the Coquille, the camp of a thousand miners a 
few years since is now reduced to a single miner. There 
are old beaches miles back from the present beaches, 
with beds several feet in thickness, rich in gold, inex- 
haustible in extent, unworked now and awaiting some 
method by which the precious metal may be extracted. 
This state of affairs exists at Gold Beach, Port Orford, 
Yaquina Bay, Peterson’s Point, and over one hundred 
other localities. Yet each year sees its quota of Chinese 
working in their crude manner and paying a royalty of 
$1 per foot for the privilege. ‘The magnetic iron forms 
nearly 40/roo and is a mixture of the protoxide and 
sesquioxide of iron, having 72 parts metallic iron to 28 
of oxygen. It is quite hard and scratches glass; strongly 
magnetic, it is the same as the lodestone, excepting that the 
latter possesses polarity. It is found in nature dissemi- 
nated through granite, gneiss, mica, slate, syenite, horn- 
blende slate, chlorite slate and limestone, and is suitable 
for making the finest quality of steel. Zircon is also 
found, though too small to be noticed except mineral- 
ogically. 
