October 22, 1886.] 



SCIENCE. 



369 



and coolly put his foot into it. He was there next 

 day, full of wrath, and a bullet put an end to his ex- 

 istence. H. J. T. 



Millerite. 



I wish to place on record the occurrence of the 

 mineral millerite in the Keokuk beds of the subcar- 

 boniferous rock of Iowa. I have just received a few 

 specimens of rock blasted out when the government 

 was deepening the channel at the ' rapids ' in the 

 Mississippi, above Keokuk, some years ago. The 

 specimens show cavities in the hmestone, partially 

 filled with calcite crystals, mostly of the scalenohe- 

 dral form. In some instances these crystals carry 

 very beautiful thread-like crystals of millerite. 

 They are usually aggregated in the form of cones, 

 the apices of which are almost solid on account of 

 the threads being so close together, while at the bases 

 of the cones they are much farther apart. 



The occurrence seems to be in every way similar to 

 the occurrence of the same mineral at St. Louis, Mo. 

 A few small crystals of tetrahedral chalcopyrite are 

 also present. Erasmus Haworth. 



Penn college, Oskaloosa, Jo., Oct. 9. 



Alligators in the Bahamas. 



Catesby, in his ' Natural history of Carolina, Flor- 

 ida, and the Bahama Islands,' published about a cen- 

 tury ago, speaks of having seen alligators on the 

 Island of Andros in this group. At present there are 

 none, and, with the object of finding out if there was 

 any tradition current bearing upon the subject, I 

 made inquiries through the medium of the Nassau 

 guardian. In answer to my questions, I lately re- 

 ceived from the rector of Inagua, at the extreme 

 south-east of the group, a letter, in which he men- 

 tions that stories of alligators having been drifted on 

 logs of mahogany, and thrown up on the shores of 

 the island, are common, but that he had not been able 

 to verify any of them. However, a few days previ- 

 ous to the date of the letter, while on a visit to one of 

 the settlements, Mr. de Glauville (the rector) was 

 shown the skin of an alligator eight feet long from 

 tip to tip, which had been shot on shore a day or 

 two before by a man whose name is given. Many 

 logs of mahogany had been cast up on the shores of 

 Inagua about that time ; but the alligator had not 

 been observed to land, and had been seen on shore 

 several times before it was shot. 



There seems, however, to be no reasonable doubt 

 that the alligator was drifted by the current from 

 the south-east to Inagua, on a log of mahogany from 

 San Domingo, the nearest place in which alligators 

 are found. This means that it ti-avelled a distance 

 of from one hundred to one hundred and fifty miles. 

 With regard to the occurrence of alligators on An- 

 dros, Catesby was a very accurate observer, and 

 there seems to be no reason for doubting his state- 

 ment. These alligators would appear to have been 

 carried on drift-wood from the north-west coast of 

 Cuba, a distance of three hundred miles, by the Gulf 

 Stream, and cast on the edge of the Great Bahama 

 Bank, whence local currents, aided by the wind, 

 might have carried them to the west coast of Andros. 

 The absence of traditions on the subject may be 

 owing to the fact that the present inhabitants of 

 Andros are principally descendants of persons who 

 settled there at a period subsequent to Catesby's 

 visit. 



These instances of the dispersion of large animals 

 by means of oceanic currents may be of interest to 

 those of your readers who study the question of the 

 geographical distribution of animals. 



While on the subject of Andros, may I be allowed 

 to mention two rather curious superstitions current 

 among the inhabitants of that interesting island ? 

 The interior of the northern part of the island con- 

 sists of swamps and lakes, interspersed with patches 

 of rocky ground on which the Bahama pine (P. ba- 

 hamensis) grows thickly. The negroes have a great 

 dislike to entering these pine-woods alone, or even in 

 small companies ; for they say that a peculiar race 

 of malevolent beings, called ' little people,' inhabit 

 the trees. These creatures are said to be like tiny 

 men covered with hair. They sit on the pine-boughs, 

 and if a man notices them, and points them out to 

 his companions, the whole party is rendered immov- 

 able for a day and a night ; but, if fire is thrown at 

 the ' little people,' they disappear without doing any 

 harm. 



The other superstition also relates to the pine- 

 woods. Creatures like enormous hairy men, called 

 by the negroes 'Yayhoos,' are said to march about 

 the woods in ' schools,' the largest coming first ; and 

 ' when dey cotch you, dey tear you.' These beings 

 are naturally much more dreaded than the ' little 

 people.' It looks as if their name had been given by 

 some traveller familiar with ' Gulliver's travels,' 

 and struck with the resemblance between them and 

 the terrible creatures of Swift's imagination. 



Both of these superstitions would appear to be tra- 

 ditions of the land from which the negroes originally 

 came. The ' little people ' are probably a recollec- 

 tion of the small, arboreal monkeys, while the ' Yay- 

 hoos ' represent the gorillas, of West Africa. 



John Gardiner. 

 Nassau, Bahamas, Sept. 17. 



Earthquake sounds. 



In answer to your correspondent who asks, in the 

 last number of Science, for some explanation of the 

 sounds which often precede and accompany an earth- 

 quake shock, I would offer the following brief state- 

 ment, condensed from Mallet's discussion of accom- 

 panying tremors and sounds (Eeport on Neapolitan 

 earthquake of 1857, vol. ii.) : Considering a rent or 

 fissure to form in rock and rapidly enlarge, its for- 

 mation is commenced and ended by tremors of very 

 small amplitude, while the waves of amplitude great 

 enough to produce the ordinary effects of an earth- 

 quake shock cannot be generated till after the focal 

 cavity is enlarged to a certain amount. Waves of 

 sound probably accompany the rending of the entire 

 fissure : if the velocity of inceptive rending be 

 sufficient, the sound waves set out the earliest of all, 

 and, travelling through solid rock with a far greater 

 velocity than in air, often reach the ear before the 

 tremors of the earthquake-vyave itself are noticed. 

 Thus an observer often first hears a low and distant 

 rumbling, then feels the tremors before the shock, 

 then the great shove of the shock itself, and, lastly, 

 the tremors with which it departs along with the 

 sound. The order of the phenomena must also de- 

 pend largely upon the distance and form of the focal 

 cavity ; the inclination of its plane towards or away 

 from the observer ; and many other circumstances, 

 such as the physical, geological, and topographical 

 character of the intervening country. 



It is extremely desirable that your correspondent, 



