36o 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XXI. No. 543 



which each explorer give?, every year, the summary of the work 

 done to the director of the survey, has not yet been issued, 

 although the volume in which it ought to be inserted was 

 printed three years ago. The stopping of the distribution of the 

 "Eleventh Annual Report" is somewhat mysterious. Two other 

 printed Annual Reports, the twelfth and thirteenth, remain also 

 undistributed, waiting for the distribution of the eleventh. 



Mr. A. Hyatt, in a printed letter in The American Geologist for 

 April, 1893, p. 281, admits that his verbal opinion, quoted by me 

 at page 213 of the same periodical, "is correct;" but that he had 

 " at present absolutely no opinion about the age of rocks of this 

 region." A rather curious conclusion for an explorer who has 

 passed two months on the same ground where I was only two 

 days, and who has studied the collection of fossils he made during 

 a whole winter. 



Evidently there is some secret about it. My old adversaries, 

 almost all alive now, with the exceptions of the two Shumards, 

 Meek and Newbery, are still at work against me. But I have re- 

 sisted their combined attacks during forty years, and I can con- 

 tinue very well the defence of my observations and opinions. 



However, I shall say nothing more for the present, waiting until 

 after the publication, by some paleontologist, of the fossils col- 

 lected at the Tucumcari by Messrs. Hill, Hyatt, and Cummins, 

 with descriptions and good figures ; for it is absolutely useless to 

 discuss any longer, without proper documents in the bands of 

 geologists, in order that everyone interested in the question may 

 be able to judge for himself as to the conclusions arrived at by the 

 different parties. Jules Maecod. 



Cambridge, Mass. 



Natural and Artificial Cements in Canada. 



Your issue of March 31, 1893, contains an article on "Natural 

 and Artificial Cements in Canada," which in part is incorrect, and 

 I wish to set you right with regard to the class of raw material 

 from which the "Star" Portland cement is manufactured. 



In the first place, Star cement is manufactured from shell marl, 

 which is thoroughly decomposed, and containing from 95 to 98 per 

 cent pure carbonate of lime, the clay used is an alluvial blue clay. 



The analyses of our clays and marl show them to be of superior 

 quality and equal to any deposits of a similar nature ; this has also 

 been fully demonstrated in the practical results obtained by users 

 of the cement when manufactured. E. Bravendee. 



Napanee Mills, June 12. 



Sound and Color. 



On reading Professor Underwood's paper on the above subject 

 in Science for June 16th, some rather peculiar experiences of my 

 own, which I have never read or heard of in others, were freshly 

 brought to mind. 



When intently listening to certain, but by no means all, emi- 

 nent speakers, and to a few operatic singers of great renown, I 

 have for some years past distinctly detected, or rather have in- 

 voluntarily become conscious of, an emanation of color from the 

 head of the speaker or singer with each distinct tone of the voice. 

 The more impassioned the words and tones the more intense the 

 color, and the larger the visible aureole or color area. The color 

 has thus far been limited, with a few exceptions, to a transparent 

 and ethereal but decided blue. It emanates suddenly with each 

 explosion of sound, passes upward like a thin cloud of smoke, and 

 fades like a swiftly dissolving view. I noticed it for the first 

 time while listening to Professor Felix Adler, later on when list- 

 ening to Colonel IngersoU, faintly over the head of William Win- 

 ter; again quite distinctly in case of General Sherman and Gen- 

 eral Horace Porter, faintly in case of some other public speakers, 

 including Anna Dickinson, Helen Potter, the elocutionist, and 

 some eminent divines, but not at all in case of President Cleve- 

 land and some other equally prominent public men. 



In case of singers, the most noted instances I can recall are the 

 DeRetszke brothers, Jean and Edward, Mdme. Emma Eames, 

 Lilli Lehmann, Mdme. Albani, Vogel, and Gudehus. 



In case of Mdme. Lehmann the blue color verged towards a 

 liquid green, and with Albani it was a pale sheen of silver vapor. 

 In case of Vogel, the tenor, the aureole was an evanescent and 



very pale slraw color. In Mdme. Mielke the blue became a vel- 

 vety purple or violet. Mdme. Nordica emitted an aureole of 

 pale, translucent gold ; Emma Juch gives me the impression of a 

 delicate and liquid pink, while Patti seemed to emit no distin- 

 guishing color, but rather a kaleidoscopic blending of many 

 colors. 



I should be glad to hear from others who have noted similar 

 phenomena, for I have been inclined to question the reliability of 

 my own impressions, vivid as they have been, and many times 

 repeated. Professor Underwood's recital inclines me to accord 

 them a little more respect. Samuel S. Wallian, M.B. 



Washington Heights, City. 



Age of Guano Deposits. 



The following particulars, recently given me by a friend who, 

 years ago, was a sailor, and whom I know to be a man of the 

 strictest veracity, may be of interest as possibly throwing some 

 light on the age of guano deposits. 



In the year 1840 his vessel loaded with guano on the island of 

 Ichabo, on the east coast of Africa. During the excavations 

 which were necessary, the crew exhumed the body of a Portuguese 

 sailor, who, according to the head-board, on which his name and 

 date of burial had been carved with a knife, had been interred 

 fifty-two years previously. The top of this head-board projected 

 two feet above the original surface, but had been covered by ex- 

 actly seven feet of subsequent deposit of guano. 



Robert R mow ay. 



U. S. National Museum, Washington, D.C., June S3. 



Correction. 



In 1887 I published in the Canadian Record of Science an ac- 

 count of a Permian glacial moraine in Prince Edward Island. I 

 have recently examined this formation more carefully, and am 

 not at all positive about its age. The bedding and jointage are 

 conformable with the underlying formation, but the cementing 

 material is purely calcareous, and the induration, though com- 

 plete, may be recent. In the absence of organic evidence, I do 

 not think we can positively say that this conglomerate is not 

 Quaternary. F. Bain. . 



North River, P. B. Island. 



BOOK-REVIEWS. 



Geological Survey of Missouri. Vol. II. A Report on the Iron 



Ores of Missouri. By Frank L. Mason. JeS'erson City, 



December, 1892. Plates, Map, etc. 366 p. 

 Vol. III. A Report on the Mineral Waters of Missouri. By 



Paul Schweitzer. Jefferson City, December, 1892. Plates, 



Map, etc. 256 p. 



There are but few States in the Union that have not had at 

 some time or other geological surveys of a part or the whole of 

 their territory. As a general rule, the surveys have been con- 

 ducted by different geologists, the same one seldom holding his 

 position for a long period, and, in point of fact, the survey itself 

 frequently ending before a decade has elapsed. There are, of 

 course, notable exceptions to this, Minnesota, for example, where 

 the State geologist has issued twenty annual reports, and New 

 York, which has enjoyed an almost uninterrupted existence since 

 1836. Yet more remarkable in this latter case is the fact that the 

 present head of the survey has been such for nearly fifty yeai'S 

 and was one of the original corps in 1836. This veteran, as every- 

 one knows, is Professor James Hall, still one of the most indefa- 

 tigable of all American geologists. 



The State of Missouri has had numerous surveys, which have 

 been carried on under various heads. The first survey existed 

 from 1353 to 1862, and published five reports ; the second lasted 

 from 1870 to 1874, and issued four reports; the third from 1876 to 

 1879, and published only one report; while the fourth has lasted 

 from 1889 to date, and has published three bulky volumes, of 

 which the present ones are two, five bulletins, an atlas of maps, 

 and a biennial report. We thus see that under the present man- 

 agement more work has been done than in any of the other surveys 

 lasting twice as long. 



