236 



SCIENTIFIC NEV\^S. 



[Dcc. 1st, 1 5 



result had been to smooth the surface and give it a contour 

 very different to that it possessed before the ice settled down 

 upon it. The two characteristics of this kind of contour were 

 the smoothness of the rocks and the ruts which had appeared 

 upon them, showing the action of the ice. In the strip of country 

 from the Severn to the Thames no traces of the action of ice were 

 to be found, and, that being so, what was the condition of 

 things which produced its peculiar contour? That was a prob- 

 lem which continually exercised his mind. One or two ques- 

 tions in connection with it were tolerably clear. In the first 

 place, in that part of England a great thickness of rotted rock 

 was met with, and wherever this rotted material had been acted 

 upon by rain there was a tendency to the formation of rain 

 wash, or brick earth, which might be taken in connection with 

 the valley gravels. In these formations the geologist was often 

 confronted with the difficulty of explaining the collocation in the 

 same deposit of the remains of animals which affected different 

 climates, and in the Thames valley were found both the re- 

 mains of the hippopotamus, which affected a warm climate, and 

 the mammoth, which affected a cold climate. But from the 

 analogy of the sand dunes these remains need not have been 

 contemporaneous. There were glacial evidences in the south 

 of England to be found in the formation of Selsea Bill, and the 

 valley gravels showed that the rivers were during part of the 

 year frozen. This southern part of England, to which he had 

 referred, was exposed to the influence of air and wind, of wash- 

 ing by rain and of frost, all of which helped to produce its varied 

 cont'jur, and an interesting contrast might be made between that 

 tract of country and the southern portions of Dorset and Devon- 

 shire into Cornwall, where there were clays and limestones 

 which bore signs of a long-continued process of denudation. 

 All over that area valleys had been cut out and hills left be- 

 hind. There were certain dry valleys north of Brighton in which 

 there were no streams and which lay above the water level of 

 the chalk, and it was very difficult to understand by what pro- 

 cess those valleys had been excavated. Mr. Reid, of the 

 Geological Survey, had lately suggested that they were exca- 

 vated during the glacial period, when the soil was frozen hard 

 and the rain and melted snow were able to flow over the surface 

 and denude them. That suggestion had a very high degree of 

 probability in its favour. Such were some of the facts and 

 problems which he had come across in the course of his recent 

 work, and it would easily be seen in how many ways the co- 

 operation of local observers and fellow-workers in the science 

 was desirable. 



SOCIETY OF TELEGRAPH ENGINEERS AND 

 ELECTRICIANS. 



AT a recent meeting of the Society, iVlr. Edward Stallibrass 

 read a paper on deep-sea sounding in connection with 

 submarine telegraphy. Mr. Stallibrass said the work of survey- 

 ing with a view to ascertain the configuration of the ocean bed 

 previous to laying a submarine cable was of vital importance. 

 Between Cadiz and Teneriffe alone, a distance of about seven 

 hundred miles, 673 soundings were taken on one expedition, re- 

 sulting in the discovery of two banks, two coral patches, and 

 four other shoal spots. Some of the inclines near these banks 

 were remarivable for their steepness. On the east side of one 

 of these the bottom fell precipitously for 450 feet, and on a 

 sounding, taken by the Dacia during her survey of the Seine 

 bank, a precipice of i.Soo feet was found. A map of the mouth 

 of the Congo showed a most remarkable submarine gully, the 

 contour lines of which were drawn from 202 soundings, many of 

 these having been taken at intervals of less than one mile. 

 In the mouth of this remarkable river a depth of no less than 

 1,452 feet was found, the Thames in a similar locality giving only 

 about forty feet. The gully was distinctly traced one hundred 

 miles out at sea. 



REVIEWS. 



The Popular Science Mofithly. November, 1887. 



This journal contains as usual a series of thoughtful papers 

 on a variety ot scientific subjects, as well as an abstract of a 

 practical character. 



The " Unhealthfulness of Basements," by Dr. W. O. Stillman, 

 is a timely protest against the mistake— we might almost say 



the sanitary sin — of constructing sunk stories, and of living or 

 working in such when built. Man is not, like the mole, the 

 rabbit, or the beaver, a burrowing animal, and for him to adopt 

 underground habits is emphatically a stride in the wrong direc- 

 tion. It is not pleasant to learn that basement dwellings which 

 differ from cellar dwellings only in degree, are quite as common 

 in the cities of America as in those of Europe. The writer 

 points out that basements are usually damp, and that they are 

 in danger of the indraft of contaminated air from leaky sewers, 

 gas-mains, and from the general filth of the subsoil. Another 

 source of mischief which the writer has overlooked, is the com- 

 parative absence of sunshine, or indeed, of good daylight. This 

 is a fruitful source of the degeneration of a race. The precau- 

 tions which the author lays down for preserving basements in 

 a tolerably healthful condition are judicious, but we fear they 

 are too rarely carried out in practice. Among the diseases to 

 which the dwellers in sunk stories are especially subject, the 

 author mentions neuralgia, rheumatism, and consumption. The 

 author has seen many cases of tuberculosis developed in such 

 localities, " particularly noticeable among servant-girls of foreign 

 birth." Here in London we have in this respect very little 

 room to throw stones at New York, for the number of base- 

 ments here used for living, working, and even sleeping, and the 

 depth of some of them below the level of the street are truly 

 deplorable. It is not generally known, however, that we have 

 in England one large town — Sheffield — perfectly free from this 

 disgrace, unless modern "progress" has quite recently brought 

 them in its track. 



Professor E. S. Morse furnishes the second part of a very in- 

 teresting summary of " What American Zoologists have Done 

 for Evolution." Nowhere has evolution been more cordially 

 accepted as a basis for biological research than in the United 

 States, the only opponent worth mentioning being an eminent 

 savant— 2i Franco-Svi'iss by birth, who had come to America 

 when already thoroughly saturated with French views. We 

 have here an instance of that power of prediction of which 

 science most fully legitimates her conclusions. We here read 

 that in 1874 Professor Cope predicted that the ancestor of all 

 the mammals would be a iive-toed, flat-footed walker, with 

 tubercular grinding teeth. Seven years afterwards he found 

 evidence that such a type had abounded in North America 

 during the Eocene period. This seems to us as great a triumph 

 as the prediction by De Verrier and Adams of the size and posi- 

 tion of the planet Neptune before human eye had ever beheld 

 it, or that by Mendelejeff of the properties of the metal gallium 

 before it had been discovered to exist. 



The "Chemistry of Oyster Fattening," by Professor W. O. 

 A-twater, exposes a malpractice which closely verges upon fraud, 

 i.e., the custom of placing oysters after being taken from their 

 beds in fresh or brackish water for forty-eight hours. By this 

 means they become plumper and rounder, and increase so in 

 bulk and weight as to command a higher price. The increase, 

 however, is simply water, whilst the actual flesh of the oyster 

 loses about 5 per cent. 



An article on "Wedding Rings," by D. R. McAnally, is 

 curious as giving an account of the mystical virtues ascribed to 

 various gems and their suitableness for brides born in the different 

 months. Thus, if a lady had been born in December the gift of 

 a turquoise would insure her constancy ; if in May, an emerald 

 would make her a happy wife. " A ring made, it was alleged, 

 from the hoof of the ass which carried Christ into Jerusalem 

 was used in a wedding at a country church near Madrid in 

 1881." 



The most important article in the number before us is 

 " Agassiz and Evolution," by Professor Joseph Le Conte. 



As is well known, Agassiz met the doctrine of evolution, as 

 enunciated by Darwin, not merely with hesitation and doubt, 

 but with an emotional opposition. This position, on the part of 

 one who had done such splendid work in biological science, and 

 who had before him essentiall}' the very same evidence which 

 had guided Darwin and Wallace, naturally occasioned no little 

 surprise and regret, and various suggestions have been put for- 

 ward to account for his conduct. If we set aside such unworthy 

 motives as jealousy, the most probable hypothesis is one put 

 forward by our late friend, Dr. G. M. Beard, of New York, in a 

 a work entitled, "Legal Responsibility in Old Age." Said he, 

 with reference to the death of Agassiz ; " The intemperate 

 manner of his opposition to the theory of evolution, by which 

 he was so rapidly winning favour among the thoughtless and 



