August 5, 189.'.] 



SCIENCE. 



75 



depth of 1000 feet, with a probable 100 or 200 feet more cov- 

 ered with sediment 600 feet above tide-water, which would 

 make its bottom 500 feet below sea-level. To conceive it as 

 an old river channel would require an elevation of the conti- 

 nent of 1500 feet above its present level. It is, moreover, 

 surrounded by high rocky shores having few rivers coming 

 into it, as its watershed was never large and not channeled 

 by fjords. 



There may have been an elevation of the continent, but 

 the lakes went up with it; there was undoubtedly ice but the 

 lakes were there before it. They are pools left by the old 

 Azoic Sea. 



Clintou, Iowa. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



In the latest quarterly statement of the Palestine ExploratSon 

 FunJ as we learn from Nature, it is said that considerable prog- 

 ress is being made vvith the Akka-Damascus Railway, the route 

 of which, after various expensive surveys, has been definitely de- 

 cided upon. The line chosen is practically that first suggested by 

 Major Conder, E.E.. several years ago. Beginning at the great 

 fortress of Acre, the railway will run down the plain of Acre 

 parallel with the sea, throwing out a branch to Haifa, at the' 

 northern foot of Mount Carmel, and thence to and across the plain 

 of Esdraelon, passing near Nazareth to Shunem and Jezreel, and 

 through the valley of Jezreel, skirting the slope of the hills, to the 

 river Jordan, which will be crossed within sight of Bethshean. 

 The Jordan here offers exceptional facilities tor the erection of the 

 railway bridge, consisting of two spans. Not only are the two 

 opposite banks of the river formed of solid rock, but the centre of 

 the river contains a large block of similar rock, from which each 

 span of the bridge will be thrown to the east and west bank re- 

 spectively. From the Jordan the railway will ascend the slope of 

 the Jaulan Plateau, along the crests that close the eastern shores 

 of the Sea of Galilee, this ascent constituting the only difficult por- 

 tion of the line, but which the surveys now made show to be much 

 easier of accomplishment than was originally anticipated. The 

 plateau near El'Al being reached, an easy gradient will carry the 

 line by Seil Nawa and Kesweh to Damascus. Passing through 

 the finest plains of western and eastern Palestine, the railway 

 will be one of great importance. The authorities of the Palestine 

 Exploration Fund are of opinion that its construction can hardly 

 fail to lead to important archaeological discoveries, and the com- 

 mittee hope to make arrangements for obtaining full information 

 respecting these. 



— The Kew Bvlletin for May and June, according to Nature, 

 contains several contributions which will be of great interest to 

 botanists and to various classes connected with the industrial ap- 

 plioaiions of botany. One of these contributions is a valuable 

 report (with a plate) by Mr. George Massee on a disease that has 

 attacked vanilla plants in Seychelles. In the same number are 

 printed the second of the Decades Kewenses Plantarum Novarum 

 in Herbario Horti Regii Conservatarum, and the second decade of 

 new orchids. An excellent illustration of the way in which the 

 authorities at Kew seek to promote industry is afforded by a cor- 

 respondence on Sansevieria fibre from Somali- land. The increased 

 attention devoted to the production of white rope fibres in the 

 western tropics appears to have had a stimulating effect in the 

 East Indies, and now the production of fibre from Agave vivipara 

 in Bombay and Manila is followed by a fibre obtained from Somali- 

 land from a singular species of Sansevieria. This fibre was first 

 received in this country as an "Aloe" fibre. It was soon noticed, 

 however, that it possessed characteristics differing from all ordi- 

 nary " Aloe ' fibre, and a request was made to the Foreign Office 

 that Colonel Stace should be invited to obtain for the Royal Gar- 

 dens a small sample of the fibre, a large leaf from the plant yield- 

 ing it, and, if possible, a few small plants for growing in the Kew 

 collection. In due time the specimens arrived in excellent order, 

 and it was found that the fibre is one of the many so-called Bow- 

 string Hemps, and probably yielded by Sansevieria Ehrenbergii, 

 a plant first coUecteJ by Dr. Schweinfiirth. Little or nothing 



was known of it until it was described by Mr. J. J. Baker, F.R.S., 

 in the Journal of the Linnean Society, Vol. xiv., p. S-IG. Its 

 locality is there stated as "between Athara and the Red Sea."' 

 The plant is described in a letter to the Foreign Office, written by 

 Mr. D. Morris, as a very interesting one, and he adds that its ex- 

 istence as a source of a valuable supply of fibre will be sure to 

 awaken attention among commercial men in Great Britain. 

 Messrs. Ide and Christie, writing to Mr. Morris, speak of the fibre 

 as an excellent one of fair length and with plenty of " life." " In 

 character," they say, " it strongly resembles the best Sisal hemp, 

 with which we should have classed it l:iut for your statement that 

 it is derived from Sansevieria. With the exception of its color, 

 its preparation is perfect, and. even as it is, we value it to day at 

 £25 per ton. We are of opinion that if care were taken to improve 

 the color a considerably higher price would be readily attainable, 

 perhaps as much as £.50 per ton, if a pure white fibre could be 

 attained without loss of strength and lustre." 



— The Harvey pi'ocess of case-hardening, which has been so suc- 

 cessfully applied to giving a hard surface lo armor plates, is carried 

 out as follows, according to Engineering : The plate to be treated 

 is made out of mild steel, containing, say, 0.10 per cent to 0.35 

 per cent carbon, and, after being formed to its final shape, is laid 

 flatwise upon a bed of finely-powdered dry clay or sand, which is 

 deposited upon the bottom of a fire brick cell or compartment 

 erected within the heating chamber of a suitable furnace. The 

 upper surface of the plate is then covered with powdered carbon- 

 aceous material, which is tightly packed. Above this is a layer 

 of sand, and over the sand is laid a heavy covering of fire-bricks. 

 The furnace is then lighted and raised to a temperature sufficient 

 to melt cast-iron, and this heat is maintained for a greater or lesser 

 period, according to the amount of caibonizing to be effected. 

 About 130 hours are said to be required for a plate 104 inches 

 thick. On removal from the furnace such a plate is found to have 

 had the composition of its upper surface changed. At a depth of 

 about 3 inches from this surface the percentage of carbon has 

 been raised by about 0.1 per cent, which increases progressively 

 as the outer surface is neared, when the amount of carbon may 

 rise to 1 per cent. It is said that this process, though, as will be 

 seen, it resembles the ordinary cementation process, does not cause 

 any blistering of the surface of the plate. This the inventor at- 

 tributes to the high temperature at which it is carried out; but 

 it is also suggested that the absence of blisters may be due to the 

 homogeneity of the metal used, which, unlike the wrought-iron 

 bars used in the cementation process, is free from cinders. 



— An interesting addition to the much-vexed Sumero- Akkadian 

 question has recently been made by an Ottoman scholar. Ohannes 

 Sakissian Effendi, an official in the Treasury department at 

 Constantinople, has issued privately the first instalment of a work 

 intended to prove that the non-Semitic idiom of the cuneiform 

 inscription is related linguistically to Armenian, Turkish, and an- 

 cient Egyptian. He strenuously combats the theory of the Rev. 

 C. J. Ball, of the affinity of Akkadian and Chinese. That 

 Akkadian or rather Sumerian was related to Turkish or to Ar- 

 menian is by no means inherently improbable. We can hardly 

 admit being convinced by the author as yet, and would prefer 

 awaiting some ethnologic evidence before reaching a conclusion. 

 But we cannot fail to welcome to the ranks of students of the 

 ancient civilization of Mesopotamia the first subject of the Em- 

 pire of which Mesopotamia is a part, who has busied himself with 

 cuneiform studies Turkey has produced investigators in all 

 branches of modern science, a classical archfeologist and explorer 

 like Hamdi Bey, a Turkish lexicographer like the late Ahmed 

 Vefik Pacha, or a man hke Tewfik Bey Ebuzzia, the historian of 

 Turkish literature, a writer on military matters like. Djeva Pasha, 

 the present Grand Vizier, or a student of pure mathematics like 

 Tewtik Pasha, the present minister of public works. Sakissian 

 Eflfendi is the first Ottoman who, to our knowledge, has written 

 on a subject connected with cuneiform research, and we take the 

 appearance of his brochure as an omen that these studies will be 

 seriously taken up at the Imperial Museum in Constantinople. 

 A catalogue of the cuneiform objects preserved in that museum 

 would tie eagerly welcomed by the learned world. 



