24 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



it thus: Chuyte, a German word, meaning "cut off," and relates how an old 

 trapper named Aber came to the mouth of the stream and mistook it for a " cut 

 off" or slough of the river and steered his boat up some distance before discov- 

 ering his mistake. 



Long, in his expedition to the Rocky Mountains, 1823, speaks of the Little 

 and Great Chmy au Barre, and says that a hunter named Au Barre was formerly 

 lost there for some time, passing up one stream and then another, mistaking them 

 for the Missouri. From these names, whichever may have been correct, the 

 transition is easy to Sniabar, or Snybar, still shortening to Sny. 



G. C. Broadhead. 



The monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society for March mention 

 the great number of sun spots recently visible. These spots make unusual activ- 

 ity in the sun, and the theory is that there has been a general meteorological dis- 

 turbance. The increased solar energy is believed to have licked up more than 

 the usual quantity of water, in the southern seas, to be precipitated in our hemi- 

 sphere. There have also been great magnetic disturbances, which have been at- 

 tributed by some to solar influences. 



BOTANY. 



DARWIN ON MOVEMENT IN PLANTS. 



DAVID S. JORDAN. 



The purpose of Mr. Darwin's latest work is to give a detailed account of a 

 great number of experiments on the movements of different parts of growing 

 plants, together with a general resume of what is known of these movements and 

 their causes. The accounts of the experiments are, of necessity, extremely tech- 

 nical, and are intended for the use of botanical investigators rather than for the 

 general reader. The discussions and conclusions which accompany them will, 

 however, interest every one who has the slightest curiosity in regard to the ac- 

 tions of ' ' our brother organisms, the plants." These parts of the work, " to save 

 the reader trouble," have been printed in larger type than the more technical 

 portions. 



A few of the more interesting facts developed by Mr. Darwin's investigations 

 may be here briefly summarized. First of these must be placed the central idea 

 of the book — that of the " circumnutation," or perpetual squirming, of the grow, 

 ing parts of all plants. It is known to every one that the stems of the various 



