August 19, 1892.] 



SCIENCE. 



107 



setting forth, as they do, characterizations of the several genera 

 and species to which the author has given his attention. 



R. W. Shxjfeldt. 



Takoma, D. C, Aug. 15. 



The Color of the Blood in Man. 



Having recently examined a large number of specimens of hu- 

 man blood from persons of different ages ranging from four to 

 seventy-six years, some being those in robust health, others 

 being tuberculous, I was struck with the great difference in the 

 shade of color presented, some being of a very rich tint, others 

 very pale. The richest color was in the blood of a girl twenty- 

 six years of age, a graduate of Vassar College, who had the 

 highest anthropometric measurement for respiratory capacity in 

 a class of about 500 girls. Her health was excellent, and she con- 

 sumed rather more flesh-food than is usual. The next highest 

 tint was found in the blood of a woman about seventy years old, 

 with a somewhat unusual chest measurement, having also excel- 

 lent respiratory capacity and being in fine health. This woman, 

 on the contrary, does not eat flesh at all. I expected in her case 

 to find a more than ordinary number of white blood corpuscles ; 

 but there were far less than usual, it being difficult to find them, 

 they were so few. The palest blood was from a chlorotic Irish 

 servant-girl of twenty-flve years, and in a tuberculous boy of 

 four. There was not much perceptible difference in their cases. 

 The girl had naturally good respiratory power, but she had les- 

 sened it by tight clothing and an almost constant in-door life for a 

 long time. After spending a month at the seaside, I examined 

 her blood again, and found the tint somewhat deeper than before. 

 As we know, the color of the blood is caused by the hasmoglobin 

 in the red blood corpuscles, and if this is greater when the respira- 

 tory capacity is greatest, may not the color of the blood be height- 

 ened by enlarging the chest and increasing the lung-power? 

 From some observations I have made I believe it can. 



M. L. HOLBROOK. 

 New York, Aug. 16. 



Snake Eats Snake. 



While walking over a dry mesa, yesterday, I noticed a small 

 snake slowly crawling to the shelter of a mesquit bush. On 

 capturing it, I found it to be of a very dark olive-green color, in 

 large, square pattern, the lines between the plaids being of lighter 

 green; undei'neath, white, with very dark-green blotches. Its 

 head was very dark green, and rather small; it had small fangs. 

 The length of the snake was nineteen inches. Noticing that the 

 body seemed much distended, I opened it, and found, nicely 

 packed away inside, the body of an ordinary, brown, striped "grass 

 snake," as we call them here, twenty-two inches long. This green 

 snake may be a new species of snake-eating serpent. The grass 

 snake is very swift, and I am puzzled to know how the green 

 snake caught it; it was swallowed head-first. 



C. W. Kempton. 



Oro Blanco, Arizona, Aug. 8. 



Cleistogamy in the Pansy. 



Me. Darwin, in " Forms of Flowers," notes that, though cleis- 

 togamy is the rule in the genus Viola, the pansy, Viola tricolor, 

 has not been known to exhibit it, though it does sometimes pro- 

 duce very small and closed self-fertilizing flowers, which would 

 critically be termed cleistogamic if some portions of the floral 

 organs were to abort. In our country this condition may more 

 readily occur than in the Old World. In many localities the pansy 

 has become partially wild and cleistogamy may be looked for. 

 Mr. Ohalkley Palmer has sent me some specimens in fruit, found 

 wild in some place in New Jersey, which are certainly in one or 

 the other condition noted by Mr. Darwin. They appear to be 

 truly cleistogamic, but were too far advanced to determine with 

 accuracy. THOMAS Meehan. 



Germantown, Pa. 



BOOK-EEVIEWS. 

 Annual Report of the Geological Survey of Arkansas for 1890. 

 Vol. III. Whetstones and the Novaculites of Arkansas. By 

 L. S. Griswold. Little Rock, Arkansas. 



The history of the rise and progress of geology in the United 

 States remains to be written. It dates back to early in the cen- 

 tury; for in 1807 McClure published a paper containing geologi- 

 cal observations. Mitchell, Baton, Dewey, Silliman, and hosts 

 of others followed one another in rapid succession. Nor were the 

 observations of private individuals all that appeared in the early 

 decades, for in 1823 Olmsted published a report on the geology 

 of North Carolina, as one result of a regularly organized State 

 survey, while Hitchcock in 1831 reporled upon the geology of 

 Massachusetts. Between that date and 1840 State surveys had 

 been organized and reports had been published in Maine, Connec- 

 ticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Mary- 

 land, Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, 

 and Michigan. The general government, too, had sent expedi- 

 tions to the north-west, Schoolcraft reporting upon the Michigan 

 region as early as 1830. It is true that many of the State surveys 

 ceased after the issuance of a few documents, but their existence 

 even for a brief period was evidence of the belief in their value. 

 Some of the States organized second surveys at a later date and/ 

 published numerous volumes, among which New Jersey, Pentf- 

 sylvania, Ohio, and Kentucky are especially to be noted. The 

 survey of New York has been continued from 1837 until the 

 present time. 



In those olden times the State survey reports were general; ob- 

 servations were made over an extended area; profuse details 

 were given of township or county geology ; but no one subject 

 was treated in an exhaustive manner. The result was that, when 

 ten or a dozen or more volumes had been published, it still re- 

 mained to collate and epitomize the information. For the States 

 of New York, Pennsylvania,' Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois and others 

 this has never been done, and the numerous volumes of these sur- 

 veys are masses of details with full and comprehensive accounts 

 of scarcely a single subject. Dr. Branner, as the State Geologist of 

 Arkansas, has seen fit to change this ancient order of things, and 

 as a result in his annual reports we have volumes describing the 

 Mesozoic geology, the gold and silver fields, and the coal of the 

 State, as well as exhaustive volumes on Manganese and the Nov- 

 aculites. The first geological survey of Arkansas published tv^'o 

 reports, in 1859 and 1860. The beginning of the war put a stop 

 to the work, however, and it was not until 1888 that any further 

 work in the State was published. The report for that year, and 

 those for 1889 and 1890, of which the volume under review is the 

 third, contain much information valuable alike to the State and to 

 the world at large. 



Whetting, or sharpening, is one of the ancient arts. That it 

 was practised by early civilized man is evidenced by the existence 

 in the Sanscrit of the word fa, meaning to sharpen or whet. 

 From this comes the Latin cos, a whetstone, hone or flint-stone, 

 and hence cotaria, a whetstone quarry. Coticula, meaning a 

 small touch-stone, is also a derivative, and from this comes the 

 French coticule, meaning a whetstone of a fine quality. Novacu- 

 lite comes from novacula, a sharp knife or razor, and this in turn 

 is derived from the Latin novare, to renew or to make fresh. 



Many writers from Pliny down discu.ss whetstones or hones for 

 sharpening tools. Linnaeus used the word novacula in his time, 

 and it was seemingly anglicized by Richard Kirwan into novacu- 

 lite in 1784. Mr. Griswold believes, although all mineralogists do 

 not agree with him,^ that it is practicable " to revive the word as 

 a scientific term, in its original sense, to denote a fine-grained, 

 gritty, homogeneous, and highly siliceous rock, translucent on 

 thin edges, and having a conchoidal or sub-conchoidal fracture. 

 If this definition is strictly adhered to, no confusion will arise 

 from the use of the word in commerce" (p. 18). 



The knowledge of whetstones in America dates from 1818, 

 when they were mentioned by Bringier as occurring in Arkansas. 



' Professor J. L. Lesley Is now engaged on this work, and Vol. I. of his final 

 report has appeared. 



' For example, Q. P. Merrill In Annual Eeport IT. S. Nat. Mus. tor 1890, 1892. 

 p. 525. 



