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SGIUJVCU. 



LVoL. IX., No. 208 



past fiscal year there were 764 boxes of foreign 

 transmissions, 14,496 parcels of domestic ex- 

 changes, and 143 boxes of government exchanges 

 handled by the institution. Over two hundred 

 thousand persons visited the Smithsonian institu- 

 tion and the national museum during the year. 



Much difficulty has been experienced in ac- 

 counting for the occurrence of cases of contagious 

 diseases, when, so far as could be ascertained, 

 no exposure to any pre-existing case had occurred. 

 These instances have been regarded by some as 

 evidence of the possibility of their originating 

 spontaneously. M. Verneuil has suggested a 

 theory which, if true, would account for such 

 anomalies. The microbes of disease, according 

 to this view, remain in the skin and other portions 

 of the body in a state of quiescence, and may 

 continue thus inactive for years. By some means, 

 as yet inexplicable, these microbes are aroused to 

 a condition of activity, reproduce themselves in 

 great numbers, and set out on their deadly mis- 

 sion. It is, in the absence of evidence to the 

 contrary, much more reasonable to suppose, that, 

 in the obscure cases in which exposure has not 

 been recognized, such exposure has actually oc- 

 curred, than to adopt a theory like this, which 

 has not the slightest basis for its existence. If all 

 oases which cannot be traced to their source were 

 to be explained in this way, it would be the rule 

 rather than the exception. A physician who had 

 had large experience in an English small-pox 

 hospital delared that not one case in twenty was 

 capable of being referred to any known source 

 of infection, the disease being ascribed by the 

 patient to cold, fatigue, or some other innocent 

 circumstance. The instance referred to by Sir 

 Thomas Watson, in his essay on ' The abolition of 

 zymotic disease,' should be a constant reminder 

 to those who would refer the appearance of these 

 diseases to a spontaneous origin. In 1839 a pris- 

 oner in Millbank penitentiary was attacked with 

 small-pox, under such circumstances that it was 

 thought no possible exposure could have taken 

 place, and for thirty years the case was quoted as 

 proof of the possible spontaneous origin of small- 

 pox. In 1860 the fact for the first time became 

 known that the physician of the penitentiary had 

 come directly from a case of confluent small-pox 

 in a neighboring town to the prisoner's cell, and 

 had undoubtedly been the carrier of the disease. 



THE SUBMERGED TREES OF THE COLUM- 

 BIA RIVER. 



The attention of many tourists who have trav- 

 ersed the magnificent valley of the Columbia Eiver 

 through the Cascades, has been called to two 

 phenomena which have excited their interest. 

 One is the occurrence of submerged trees in the 

 bed of the river : the other is the slow lateral 

 creeping of the road bed and track of the Oregon 

 railway and navigation company. During the 

 last summer I had an opportunity to make a brief 

 study of these two subjects, and, as they are 

 likely to prove of increasing interest, it may be 

 worth while to recite the results of the examina- 

 tion. 



The Columbia enters the Cascade barrier three 

 or four miles below the Dalles. The platform of 

 that range here has a width of eighty miles. From 

 the Dalles to the Cascade Locks, a distance of over 

 fifty miles, the Columbia flows as a broad, deep, 

 quiet stream, with a sluggish current at low water. 

 Its course resembles that of the Hudson through 

 the highlands ; and this fact is at once suggestive, 

 because the passage of rivers through mountain- 

 ranges is generally swift, and broken by many 

 rapids. If it is otherwise, there is almost cer- 

 tainly an interesting reason for it. The Cascade 

 Locks are situated almost exactly on the axis of 

 the Cascade range. Here is a cataract which has 

 always been an insurmountable obstacle to navi- 

 gation ; for, within a distance of a few hundred 

 yards, the river makes a descent of about thirty 

 feet. The government is now building a short 

 canal with large locks, to enable steamboats from 

 below to reach the still waters above. Beginning 

 at a point about a mile and a half above the cata- 

 ract, the traveller, as he sails up the river, ob- 

 serves many old stubs protruding from the water 

 and from the sand-banks, laid bare during the losv 

 stages of the river. They are seen for a distance 

 of thirty miles, recurring at frequent intervals, 

 here clustered thickly together like the piles of an 

 old wharf whose superstructure has decayed and 

 vanished, there with wide intervals between them. 

 During high water these tree-trunks are entirely 

 submerged. An examination of the wood serves 

 to identify them with the living species of fir 

 which form the forests upon the mountains and 

 cliffs round about. 



These submerged trees, together with the long 

 still reach of water above, at once suggest that 

 an obstacle has been placed athwart the stream, 

 forming a dam which converted the river-valley 

 above it into a long narrow lake, and that the ris- 

 ing water submerged an old forest of which these 

 trees are the vestiges. Indeed, this is the only 

 explanation which suggests itself. It is strongly 



