298 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. IX., No. 216 



on that day, when we were in latitude 37° 32' north, 

 longitude 51° 26' west of Greenwich. At that hour 

 the barometer fell to 29.33 ; and the wind, which had 

 been in the S.E., suddenly veered round to the S.W. 

 and W. It increased in intensity very fast, and in 

 an hour was blowing a whole gale, fully 70 knots an 

 hour. The direction of the wind during this change 

 was successively S.E., S.S.W., S.W., W., N.W., and 

 N.N. W., and during the next twenty-four hours it 

 was shifting back and forth from S.W. to N.N.W., 

 with frequent sqxialls of hail and rain and a very 

 heavy sea. The gale subsided the afternoon of the 

 24th, and the wind subsequent to the disturbance 

 was quite steadily from the N.N.W. 



The weather continued to be cloudy and squally, 

 with frequent hail and rain and heavy sea ; the ba- 

 rometer continued very low, and the wind strong 

 from the N.N.W. and W.N W., until the 27th, when 

 the wind veered to the W. and S.W., and remained in 

 that quarter until the Azores were passed. 



Early on the 1st inst. the wind shifted to the S.E. 

 and E., with strong and heavy sea, and remained a 

 steady head- wind, with cloudy and squally weather, 

 until we were within a hundred miles of Gibraltar, 

 the night of the 4th inst. At Gibraltar we learned 

 of the earthquakes hereabouts and in the south of 

 France, and were satisfied, that, if we had escaped 

 the shock of the earthquake, we had had our share 

 of earthquake weather. How far experienced ob- 

 servers may be able to connect our remarkable at- 

 mospheric disturbances at sea with the almost simul- 

 taneous quakings on land, I will not venture to 

 suggest, but leave with you the record as it was made 

 up at sea before we knew any thing of what was 

 taking place on land. 



At Gibraltar we learned that the western Mediter- 

 ranean had been exceedingly stormy during the week 

 following the earthquake, and it will probably be 

 found that the atmospheric disturbance corresponded 

 closely with that which we experienced at sea. 



Heney D. Haeeower. 

 Genoa, Italy, March 9 



Notes on the diet of amblystomas. 



All this past winter I have kept, in a little water in 

 a small covered tin can, a large adult specimen of 

 Amblystoma mavortium. Upon several occasions he 

 has had the water about him freeze perfectly solid ; 

 and by accident he once remained in this condition, 

 firmly fixed in the clear cake of ice, for a period of 

 forty-eight hours. When sj^ring came about, I re- 

 moved him to a large and comfortable glass jar, with 

 a heap of rocks in it for him to come out of the 

 water and rest upon. 



As he had not eaten any thing whatever for nearly 

 five months, it struck nae that he might have a good 

 appetite for some raw meat. My suspicions were 

 fully confirmed, for he ravenously devoured five 

 pieces of lean beef in rapid succession, each piece 

 being about as large as an ordinary lima bean. 



Next day I could not get him to touch any thing, 

 nor could he be tempted by the most delicate morsel 

 of raw beef on the second day after his feast. The 

 third day he seemed to me to he rather uneasy ; and, 

 believing him to be hungry again, I offered him a 

 nice little piece of lean and raw mutton, as I had no 

 beef. He at once snapped at it eagerly, taking the 

 entire piece in his mouth. It was not there more 

 than a fraction of a second, however, w;hen his eyes 



began to roll in his head with a peculiarly horrified 

 expression ; and with a disgusted effort he imme- 

 diately ejected the morsel of mutton again, and then 

 took to spitting and gaping in a way that I never 

 saw him guilty of before. There was no doubt in 

 the world but that he was hungry ; my several re- 

 newed efforts, however, to get him to eat the mutton, 

 all failed. 



So far as this individual specimen is concerned, he 

 undoubtedly has a great aversion to that kind of 

 meat, and it would be interesting to know whether 

 this is merely ' a personal idiosyncrasy,' or whether 

 it is universally the case. E. W. Shufeldt. 



Fort Wiugate, N. Mex., Marcli 14. 



Old maps of the Great Lakes. 



In looking over (for other purposes) some of the 

 old maps in the congressional library, I have been 

 struck with the confusion of ideas which seems to 

 have prevailed among the early geographers on the 

 subject of the drainage of the Great Lakes. Tra- 

 cings of several are before me. One marked conjec- 

 turally on the original ' ab 1690 ' shows ' Lake Erius 

 or Felis ' connected by a good broad natural canal 

 with the Potomac, which is represented as rising, at 

 farthest, not much above the site of Washington. 

 This is the harder to account for, inasmuch as the 

 river-bank below, and the adjacent shore of Chesa- 

 peake Bay, were evidently well settled. Port Tobacco, 

 Bristol, Calverton, St. Mary's, Arundelton, and 

 Whitehall make a good sprinkling of villages, mostof 

 which have changed their names or passed away 

 altogether ; but a little beyond them all is twilight, 

 with its illusions. So far as one can make out, the 

 Anacostia or eastern branch is given the work of 

 lake-drainage. 



On a map of the world piiblished in 1670 by 

 Thornton of London, the Mississippi takes its rise 

 in ' Grand Lake,' evidently Lake Superior. A map 

 of America ' ab 1685 ' makes Lake Ontarius the 

 source instead ; and there is yet another, of which I 

 made no note, that represents Lake Ei'ius as dis- 

 charging in the same manner and direction. All or 

 nearly all of these geographers were aware of the St. 

 Lawrence and its relations to the lake system, but 

 they believed in a double drainage in very different 

 directions. 



A map ('ab 1690') of "New England, New York, 

 New larsay, Pensilvania Maryland and Virginia, 

 sold by lohn Thornton at y'^ plass in y^ minoi'ies " 

 and others, is generally correct as to the outline of 

 Chesapeake Bay and the tide-water part of the Poto- 

 mac, but above the Little Falls it takes the name of 

 Turkey Buzzard Kiver. At no very great distance 

 north of this point, this stream rises amid figures of 

 trees and hills, with wild animals in the distance ; 

 but ' Lake Erius' is not called in to assist conjecture. 



Wm. H. Babcook. 

 Washmgton, D.C., March 10. 



A meteorological inquiry. 



Why do the winds at Denver blow either north or 

 south nearly fifty per cent of the time, coming from 

 the north during the day, and from the south by 

 night? The record for 1884 shows twice as many 

 south winds as north, but two observations are made 

 at night to one during the day. H. A. Howe. 



Denver univ., March 3. 



