152 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 343. 



sounds has been most satisfactory tliey have 

 been made up of the fundamental and string 

 over-tones and not by the combination of the 

 pitch tone with a ' characteristic pitch ' having 

 no harmonic relations between the two. In the 

 case of spoken vowels it seems to me of funda- 

 mental importance that the individual should 

 speak upon a known pitch, otherwise the case 

 is hopelessly confused by a constantly changing 

 fundamental. In a great many of the investi- 

 gations involving the so-called characteristic 

 pitch of the different vocal sounds, it seems 

 uncertain as to whether or not this so-called 

 ' chai'acteristic pitch ' may not be more directly 

 due to some inherent rate in the apparatus 

 itself, rather than in the sound which it is sup- 

 posed to record impartially. In this connec- 

 tion it must be borne in mind that the widest 

 possible variations in tone quality are still rec- 

 ognized as the same vowel spoken by different 

 individuals under different conditions. This 

 discussion has wandered from the musical in- 

 strument to the articulator. In music the 

 vowel is everything, the consonant usually in- 

 conspicuous ; in speech the vowel is secondary 

 and the consonants all- important, 



William Hallock. 

 Physical Laboratory, 

 Columbia University, June, 1901. 



' is laev^ contagious ? ' 

 The following cross interrogatories were 

 prepared by the district attorney of a .county in 

 a western State for a deposition. 



What is larvae ? What does larvse come from ? Is 

 larvae injurious to fruit trees? Is it contagious? 



What is pupae]? Describe it fully ? Is it inj urious 

 to fruit trees ? Is it contagious ? 



It seems to me that the questions furnish an 

 answer to the frequent question in the scientific 

 laboratory, '^Will this ever be of any use to 

 me?' If such knowledge furnish nothing else 

 to a man, it would prevent him from making 

 such questions as these. H. S. Gaus. 



CURRENT NOTES ON PHYSIOGRAPHY. 

 glacial corries in the bighorn 

 mountains. 

 The glaciated district near Cloud Peak, Big- 

 horn Mountains, at altitudes above 10,000 feet, 



contains over forty corries or cirques of more 

 or less iDronounced form, as mapped and de- 

 scribed by Mattbes ('Glacial Sculpture of the 

 Bighorn Mountains, Wyoming,' 21st Ann. Rep. 

 U. S. Geol. Surv., 1900, pt. II., 167-190). 

 A contour map shows the summit of the range 

 in general with rounded forms free from sharp 

 peaks and precipitous cliffs. The valleys on 

 the slopes below 10,000 are usually broadly 

 open ; but on ascending towards the stream 

 sources, the valley walls steepen on either side 

 of a broad floor where rock basins hold many 

 little lakes, and at or near the valley head the 

 walls close in a great clifFed amphitheater. 

 Highland streams cascade down from shallow 

 hanging valleys into the deep cirques. It is 

 concluded that these peculiar forms are here, 

 as elsewhere, to be regarded as glacial modifi- 

 cations of preexistent valleys that once had 

 more ordinary form. In a few cases, the widen- 

 ing and headward recession of the valley walls 

 have resulted in the consumption of the rounded 

 uplands of the mountains so far that only a 

 narrow, sharp, serrate wall remains ; this is 

 well seen -around Cloud Peak, thus giving sup- 

 port to Richter's views regarding the imjDor- 

 tance of glacial action in producing sharp peaks 

 and arretes in the Alps. In a single remark- 

 able example, an east-sloping valley (No. 20) 

 receives the drainage of the uppermost mile of 

 a southwest-sloping valley (No. 18) in such a 

 way as to suggest very strongly the glacial cap- 

 ture of the latter by the former ; and this is 

 made the more probable when it is noted that 

 the capturing valley has a distinctly stronger 

 slope than the captured. If it be admitted 

 that glacial erosion has made significant 

 changes in the valley forms — and this does 

 not seem to be open to dispute — the present 

 pattern of drainage in these two valleys could 

 not have existed in preglacial time. 



It is a curious commentary on the education 

 of our topographers that articles of the kind 

 here referi-ed to should be so rare. 



THE NORTH GERMAN LOW'LAND. 



The accounts of the North German lowland 

 as a region of glacial topography by Berendt, 

 WahnscahafFe, Keilhack and others are supple- 

 mented to an extraordinary degree of detail by 



