April 27, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



671 



under ether, chloroform, nitrous oxide, etc., than 

 has as yet been made. Scientific literature has 

 frequently contained accounts of isolated in- 

 dividual experiences reported most often be- 

 cause of their strangeness. A very large num- 

 ber of descriptions of the ordinary experiences 

 is what is now desired, and to this end blanks 

 have been prepared on vi^hich replies to certain 

 simple questions may be written. All persons, 

 and especially hospital surgeons, officers of 

 medical societies, and instructors in medical 

 schools, are respectfully requested to send to 

 the undersigned for as many of these blanks as 

 they care to distribute among persons who 

 have been under an anaesthetic. These will be 

 gratefully sent, and received when filled out. 

 George V. N. Dearborn. 

 Physiological Laboeatoey, 

 Haevaed Medical School, 

 Boston, Mass. 



note on the pigments of the coccid 



chionaspis furfura, fitch. 

 I HAVE just had occasion to examine some 

 specimens of Chionaspis furfura sent me by Pro- 

 fessor C. A. Keffer, from Tennessee, and in so 

 doing, I found some pigments which may be of 

 interest to others than coccidologists. The fe- 

 male C. furfura is brown-pink, but on being 

 placed in liquor potassse immediately becomes 

 olive-green. The addition of hydrochloric acid 

 at once restores the brown-pink color, showing 

 that the two are simply acid and alkaline phases 

 of one pigment, the living female having an 

 acid reaction. These two colors are strikingly 

 like those seen in the feathers of certain birds, 

 namely the jacana, and the herons of the sub- 

 genera Sydranassa and Butorides ; the resem- 

 blance being so close as to suggest that the 

 maroon and green colors of these birds are like- 

 wise due to two phases of a pigment closely 

 similar to that of the Chionaspis. The eggs of 

 C. furfura, abundantly present in the material 

 examined, are purplish-pink, with orange por- 

 tions due to an oil or fat. The oil retains the 

 same brilliant orange color even after boiling in 

 caustic potash, but collects in globules varying 

 from 6 to 60 i" diameter. The purplish-pink 

 pigment is turned Prussian-green by liquor po- 

 tassse, but in a short while this again alters to a 



clear indigo blue. The latter change is hastened 

 by boiling. On adding hydrochloric acid, the 

 blue becomes reddish-purple. The egg-pig- 

 ment is therefore similar to that of the mother 

 insect, yet apparently not identical. 



T. D. A. COCKEEELL. 



Mesilla Paek, New Mexico, March 31, 1900. 



CURRENT NOTES ON PHYSIOGRAPHY. 



PORTO EICO. 



E. T. Hill has prepared some ' Notes on the 

 Forest Conditions of Porto Rico ' (U. S. Dep't 

 Agric, Forestry Bull. 25), which are prefaced 

 by a description of the island's configuration 

 and by a plate taken from a relief model. The 

 discontinuous axial sierra, steeper to south than 

 north and mostly of volcanic rock, is of rug- 

 ged aspect, less than 3500 feet in height. The 

 mountains do not rise to a single crest line, but 

 form a sea of conical peaks and beaded ridges, 

 elaborately dissected by numerous ravines and 

 valleys between knife-edged spurs of graded 

 slope. Here habitations find no place in the 

 narrow valley floors but occupy the mountain 

 sides, where heavy rainfall and deep-weathered 

 tenacious soil support a luxurious vegetation ; 

 coffee and tobacco are cultivated to the very 

 summits. The sierra is surrounded by a nar- 

 row and broken ' collar ' of limestone, forming 

 coastal hills of heights up to 500 feet or more, 

 round or dome-like in form, with few ravines ; 

 here the surface is sheeted with a thin red ar- 

 gillaceous residual soil. South of the sierra, 

 where the climate is relatively dry, the hills are 

 mostly covered with thorny vegetation or chap- 

 paral. Longitudinal valleys sometimes sepa- 

 rate the hills from the sierra ; transverse val- 

 leys divide the hills into groups separated by 

 wide alluvial floors which open into triangular 

 plains (filled estuaries) occupied by sugar plan- 

 tations on nearing the coast. A great part of 

 the island has been cleared of its original for- 

 est. The 3268 square miles of the island con- 

 tain 26,650 farms, which therefore average 7.4 

 to the square mile ; but much land once culti- 

 vated, is now ' ruinate ' from long use without 

 fertilizers or from soil-washing. 



The ' Water Eesources of Porto Rico ' are 

 described by H. M. Wilson (Water Supply and 



