September 24, 1886.] 



SCIENCE. 



281 



The following extract is from a letter received by 

 the present writer in May, 1884, from Paul Beaulieu, 

 interpreter to the White Earth Indian agency, Min- 

 nesota. Beaulieu is an intelligent half-breed, and has 

 lived all his life within seventy miles of the head 

 waters of the Mississippi. His letter was in answer 

 to an inquiry as to the views of the people of that 

 section on Captain Glazier's discovery. He writes, 

 "I would respectfully state that, according to the 

 ideas of the people of this section for scores of years 

 past, in alluding to Lake Itasca, which is known only 

 as Elk Lake, or Omushkos, by the Indians, it was 

 never by them considered as the head or source of 

 the Father of Running Waters, or May-see-see-be, 

 as it is by them named. I have received a map 

 showing the route of exploration of Captain Willard 

 Glazier, 1881, and being well acquainted with his 

 chief guide, Chenowagesic, who has made the sec- 

 tion of country explored by Captain Glazier, his 

 home for many years, and who has proved the truth 

 of his often repeated assertion, when maps were 

 shown him, that a smaller lake above Lake Itasca, 

 would, in time, change the feature of those maps, 

 and proclaim to the world that Lake Itasca cannot 

 any longer maintain its claim as being the fountain 

 head of Ke-chee-se-be, or Great River, which is 

 called May-see-see-be by the Chippewas. The map 

 as outlined by Captain Glazier's guide, Chenowagesic, 

 and published by the Glazier party, is correct, and it 

 is plain to us who know the lay of this whole coun- 

 try, (I mean by the word us, the Chippewa tribe in 

 particular, also the recent explorers for pine,) that 

 Lake Glazier is located at the right place, and is the 

 last lake on the longest stream of the several rivers 

 at the head of the great Mississippi." 



Now, respecting the latitude given by Captain 

 Glazier, it may be stated that he had with him no in- 

 strument for determining latitude ; and assuming that 

 the latitude given by Nicollet was that of the southern 

 point of Lake Itasca, not that of Schoolcraft's Island, 

 he did what any other person in like circumstances 

 would have done, made as near an estimate as pos- 

 sible, and placed the new lake in latitude 10" to the 

 south of that given by Nicollet. 



The extracts given by your correspondent from 

 Schoolcraft and Glazier, in parallel columns, even if 

 they do carry some slight resemblance, have no bear- 

 ing whatever upon the latter's claim to have dis- 

 covered a lake which was unknown to Schoolcraft, 

 Nicollet, or the officials of the land survey. What- 

 ever the merits of this controversy, it is most con- 

 clusive that there is a beautiful sheet of water above 

 and beyond Lake Itasca, which the Indians and 

 pioneers of northern Minnesota, as well as the major- 

 ity of American geographers and map-makers, now 

 recognize as Lake Glazier, the primal reservoir of the 

 Great River. Pearce Giles. 



Boston, Mass., Sept. 4. 



Hibernation of bats. 



In a brief notice recently published in Science 

 (viii. No. 187, p. 222), of a paper on the ' Migration 

 of bats,' which I read at the Buffalo meeting of the 

 American association, I am reported as saying that 

 ' there is no evidence that any forms [of bats] hiber- 

 nate.' Nothing in natural history is better attested 

 than the fact of the hibernation of bats, and I hasten 

 to correct the error made by your reporter. 



C. Hart Merriam. 



An easy method of measuring the time of men- 

 tal processes. 



Lest it should seem that I lay claim to what is not 

 my due, I would explain that I did not know of the 

 exactly similar experiment of Dr. Oliver Wendell 

 Holmes with a circle of people, until Professor Bow- 

 ditch called my attention to it at the recent meeting 

 of the American association. At that time the paper 

 printed in Science had left my hands. I hasten to 

 yield any claims to priority for this method of meas- 

 uring simple reaction times for the privilege of hav- 

 ing so distinguished an anticipator as Dr. Holmes. 



I must thank Professor Mendenhall for the refer- 

 ence to his interesting article. I find, however, that 

 his very ingenious method resembles the usual labo- 

 ratory methods much more than it does mine. 



Joseph Jastrow. 

 Germantown. Sept. 19. 



The la-w of volumes in chemistry. 



In my letter with the above title in Science for 

 Sept. 10, there occurs an obvious error, since 

 1,628x18 = 29,304, and not 30.304. The sHp of the 

 pen was the more curious from the fact that the cor- 

 rect figures were already printed in my yet unpub- 

 lished volume, ' Mineral physiology and physiography.' 

 The above coefficient for the formula of water is 

 calculated from the datum in Ganot's ' Elements de 

 physique,' that the relation between the volumes of 

 water at 0° and vapor at 100° = 1 : 1,698. I hope to 

 discuss at length the questions raised in my late letter 

 before the National academy of sciences at its meet- 

 ing in November. T. Sterry Hunt. 



Montreal, Sept. 17. 



Cause of a recent period of cool weather in 

 New England. 



In a recent issue {Science, viii. p. 238) I called at 

 tention to a period of cool weather which prevailed 

 in New England from Aug. 15 to Aug. 23, culminat- 

 ing on the night of Aug. 22 ; on which night, I now 

 learn, frosts were observed in the lowlands near 

 Boston. 



I now desire to call attention to another aspect of 

 this phenomenon ; namely, that, while this abnor- 

 mal cold prevailed at the earth's surface, at a not very 

 great altitude above the earth's surface the tempera- 

 ture was above the normal, and increased during the 

 night. At the top of Mount Washington the tem- 

 perature was several degrees above the normal, and 

 was slightly higher at the morning observation of the 

 23d than on the previous evening ; but an absence of 

 self-recording instruments prevents a more extended 

 study of the phenomenon. This want was, however, 

 supplied at Blue Hill, where a Richard thermograph 

 at the top showed an almost continuous rise of tem- 

 perature after the 11 p.m. observation of the 22d, 

 until after noon of the 23d ; while a Draper thermo- 

 graph at the base of the hill, 400 feet lower, showed 

 that the temperature fell almost continuously until 

 5 A.M. (about sunrise) of the 23d, at which time the 

 temperature was more than ten degrees lower at the 

 base than at the summit. Both thermographs showed 

 short undulations common to thermograph curves. 

 This fall in temperature during the night, no doubt, 

 also occurred at the Boston signal office, since the 

 temperature observed at 3 a.m. of the 23d was four 

 degrees lower than at 11 p.m. of the 22d. The close 

 coincidences between the readings of the self-record- 



