Febeuaey 9, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



235 



several Nicaraguan streams have lost their 

 headwaters to the Rio Grande, which enters 

 the Pacific at Brito ; and the point where one 

 of the now beheaded Nicaraguan rivers rises on 

 its old valley floor is the lowest pass on the 

 present continental divide, and hence is se- 

 lected for the path of the canal from the lake to 

 the ocean. A fuller discussion of the region is 

 given by the same author in Bulletin of the 

 Geological Society of America (x, 1899, 285-348). 



THE PLAINS OF ETJSSIA. 



A NOPE in Science, May 2, 1898, was in 

 error in describing the plains of central Russia 

 as dipping under the drift sheet on the north- 

 west. The plain is continuous across the older 

 rocks and the drift sheet of the first glacial 

 invasion, and both areas are to-day dissected 

 similarly by valleys. Philippson returns to 

 this subject (Pet. Mitt., xlv, 1899, 269-271) to 

 emphasize his conclusion that the paleozoic and 

 mesozoic area of the plain is a surface of denu- 

 dation, now broadly uplifted and somewhat 

 dissected ; the denudation being completed 

 contemporaneously with the formation of the 

 drift plain. The rivers may have followed 

 shallow depressions in the surface of the great 

 plain, but the valleys of to-day are undoubtfedly 

 the work of erosion after uplift, and hence all 

 of quaternary date. Even the broad and un- 

 symmetrical valley of the Volga is held to be 

 of later origin than the first glacial epoch. 

 Small rivers have cut valleys 100 meters deep, 

 either entirely in the older rocks, or in the 

 drift area, or passing back and forth from one 

 to the other. Most of the valleys are of a con- 

 siderable width already, with well graded 

 floors ; but where the Dneiper crosses the 

 granite swell of soxithwestern Russia there are 

 rapids in its course. Philippson urges that the 

 solution of morphological problems of this kind 

 should not be postponed until the completion 

 of detailed geological surveys, but that they 

 should be studied during the prosecution of the 

 surveys ; he also wishes fuller information from 

 the Russian geologists concerning the date of 

 folding in the Urals and of their later up- 

 heavals after extensive denudation. 



THE AMALFI LANDSLIP. 



The Boston Transcript of January 13th gives 



a translation from an Italian newspaper. La 

 Trihuna, describing the landslip at Amalfi on 

 December 23d, last. For several days preced- 

 ing the disaster a trembling motion had been 

 noticed in the mountain over the town and 

 many peasants had left their houses. Early on 

 the morning of the 23d, a noise like that of 

 splitting wood was heard in Hotel Santa Cate- 

 rina on the mountain slope, and a crack was 

 found in one of the walls. A 'man from a 

 quarry brought news that a small fissure had 

 opened in the mountain side. Soon afterward* 

 stones began to roll down the steep slope at 

 more and more frequent intervals, and then a 

 mass of rock estimated at 30,000 cubic meter* 

 broke away from the mountain and fell with 

 terrible noise, crushing everything in its way 

 and raising a dense cloud of dust. Some 

 peasants working on the upper slope saw a 

 long fissure open 'beneath their feet' and had 

 onl5' time to leap aside before the ground on 

 which they had been standing broke away and 

 fell. Others working at a lower level were 

 killed. The sliding mass swept away a peasant 

 settlement on the upper slope, buried the 

 Hotel Caterina, crushed one end of the old 

 monastery known now as the Hotel Cappuccini, 

 a favorite resort of travellers, and then ran 

 into the sea, destroying two boats, capsizing 

 two others, and obstructing the shore waters. 

 The highway near the shore was covered and 

 all travel on it was suspended for fear of later 

 disasters. Along the track of ruin for some 

 distance up the mountain side, houses are de- 

 molished, trees uprooted, and gardens over- 

 whelmed. A number of lives were lost, and 

 the damage is estimated at over 1,000,000 lire. 

 W. M. Davis. 



GUBBENT NOTES ON METEOROLOGY. 



A NOTEWOETHY BALLOON VOYAGE. 



An interesting point in connection with a re- 

 cent balloon trip is noted in the Zeitschrift filr 

 Luftschiffahrt for December. The trip in ques- 

 tion was made by MM. de Saint- Victor and 

 Mallet, starting from Paris on September 30th 

 last, at 6:15 p. m., and landing near Veste- 

 wick, in Sweden, on the evening of the follow- 

 ing day. The duration of the trip was 2Si 

 hours, and the distance passed over was 1330 



