220 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XXII. No. 559 



on the Chicago Eiver. Taking an Ai-cher Avenue car from 

 down town we soon found the limestone quarries for 

 which we were seeking. At this place the Niagara Lime- 

 stone crops out, and having been found to produce a very 

 good quality of lime, has been extensively mined and 

 large lime kilns erected. 



Having obtained a permit from the office of the Lime 

 Company, we descended into the pit, which, on looking up 

 from the bottom, appeared like a large amphitheatre of 

 rock. 



They had just finished blasting before we arrived, 

 hence we found the place most favorable for collecting 

 fossils. For several hours we climbed over the rough 

 masses of rock, hammer in hand and stowed away in a 

 large bag the choice specimens found. The most abund- 

 ant fossil was an undetermined species of Macrostylo- 

 crinus, of which we collected several dozen fine speci- 

 mens. Next in abundance was the large crinoid Siphono- 

 crinus nobilis, Hall, of which we collected eighteen choice 

 specimens, also specimens of the following crinoids: Euca- 

 lyptocrinus chicagcensis, E. rotundus, Eolocystites alternatus, 

 and Caryocrinus ornatus, Say. The most abundant coral 

 was Japhrentis Turbinatum, Hall. We also found Platy- 

 ceras Campanulatum, Amphicoelia, neglecta, McChesney, 

 Trilobites, Brachiopods, and a very fine Ammon- 

 ite. 



Li this way one interested in geology, while visiting 

 Chicago, may fill in an odd day by collecting some inter- 

 esting specimens. Paul Van Eipee. 



Niles, Midi. 



Coon Cats. 



Speaking of cats, I saw, in a private house in Chicago 

 recently, two cats which the owners called "coon cats." 

 They had been obtained in the edge of the forest around 

 Moosehead Lake, and it was claimed that they were 

 hybrids, or descendants of hybrids of the domestic eat 

 and the raccoon. They were larger than the ordinary 

 house cat, had very coon-like countenances and bushy 

 coon-like tails that were always expanded. One had the 

 habit of ascending something high and resting stretched 

 out, and their motions when in a little hurry were a coon- 

 like gallop. 



The claws were retractile, the foot digitigrade. I did 

 not examine the dentition, but could find nothing but 

 appearance that indicated a coon kinship. They interbred 

 with the common cat. Can some one tell me more about 

 them? J. N. Baskett. 



Mexico, Mo., Aug. 2S. 



Damage to Cotton by Liqhtninq. 



The communication of Mr. Frank E. Emery on "Damage 

 to Cotton by Lightning" in your issue of Sept. 8, prompts 

 me to communicate the following facts, bearing directly 

 on Mr. Emery's subject. 



For thirty years prior to 1890 some cotton fields at 

 Goldsboro, N. C, owned by the State for the use of the 

 Colored Insane Asylum, have been "struck" by lightning. 

 Occasionally the fields were spared, and then again they 

 suffered two or three times a year. Each stroke would 

 destroy from one-quarter to one-half an acre. The light- 

 ning would strike very near the same place every year. 

 In the year 1890 electric light wires were run from the 

 city lighting plant to the Asylum. During the summers 

 of 1890 and 1891 the poles near where the lightning was 

 accustomed to strike, were badly split up. In the sum- 

 mer of 1892 lightning arresters were placed near these 

 points, and since that time there has been no trouble 

 from lightning. Since the wires have been strung on 

 this pole line, lightning has not struck the fields, the 

 wires protecting them perfectly. 



These facts are vouched for by a gentleman residing in 

 Goldsboro, who lived on the farm above mentioned before 

 it came into the possession of the State and for the last 

 few years has been manager of the electric plant, thus 

 being acquainted with all lightning troubles that his 

 plant has had to contend with. A. F. McKissick. 



Auburn, Ala., Sept. 23. 



Rhytina qiqas Linn, at Princeton. 



In numbers 522 and 523 of Science may be found 

 descriptions of the skeleton of Steller's Sea-Cow {Rhytina 

 gigas Linn.) as preserved in the various museums. The 

 Museum at Princeton, New Jersey, has lately come into 

 the possession of a most beautiful set of casts of Rhytina, 

 which were obtained from Mr. Robert F. Damon, of 

 Weymouth, England, and are an exact reproduction of 

 the originals found at Behring's Island, and secured by 

 the late Robert Damon, P. G. S., through Dr. Dybowski 

 and presented to the British Museum of Natural History 

 at South Kensington, {vide description by Dr. H. Wood- 

 ward, F. R. S., Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc, 1885, XLL, 

 pp. 457-72). The casts in the Princeton Museum are the 

 following: cranium and jaw (length 68cm) brain cavity, 

 dorsal, lumbar and caudal vertebrae, five cervical verte- 

 brae, atlas and axis, three auditory ossicles, scapula, 

 humerus, radius and ulna. John Eyeeman. 



Oakhnrst, Easton, Pa., Sept. 22. 



Sugar From Corn Stalks. 

 Mr. Stewart's articles on this subject were intensely in- 

 teresting and his investigations will doubtless lead to im- 

 portant economic results. As an item of news in this 

 connection I may say that I have a neighbor who made 

 sugar from corn stalks nearly forty years ago. She ex- 

 tracted the sucrose partly by diffusion (boiling the stalks 

 in water) and then by pressure and obtained a sugar 

 nearly white in color and excellent in flavor and sweet- 

 ening power. A. Stevenson. 



Arthur, Ontario. 



"Curious Ears of Indian Corn." 



Me. Heeshet, a recent correspondent in Science, speaks 

 of a maize plant producing a cob at the summit of the 

 stalk where we usually find only the tassel of staminate 

 flowers. Such cases, I think, cannot be uncommon, I ob- 

 served three last year within a small plot of a few square 

 yards. This year a neighbor showed me an even more 

 curious variation of the same kind. The stalk terminated 

 in a spike of about 8 inches long, the upper 'half of which 

 had contained staminate flowers, while the lower half, 

 which was considerably stouter, contained immature 

 grains. It was m fact a small cob without husks, and the 

 grains were greenish in'consequence. Branching off from 

 the stalk at the base of the cobs were two slender pedicels 

 of the remains of staminate flowers. The cob on this 

 specimen contained no staminate flowers, but they were 

 quite numerous on the stunted cobs which I saw last year. 



A. Stevenson. 



Arthur, Ontario. 



Evolution of Science Teaching in Primary Schools. 



In Science, No. 554, Dr. George G. Groff well shows 

 how insufiicient are the means provided in certain profes- 

 sional schools, for properly instructing and training 

 teachers for science teaching in secondary and primary 

 schools. The numerical results of his tabulations cer- 

 tainly place the normal schools of Pennsylvania on the 

 side of tradition as against progress. The ratio of gram- 

 mar teachers to science teachers is five to four, and the 

 number of teachers of mathematics is approximately that 

 of the teachers of science. 



