586 



KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



Mr. Alexander Agassiz is credited with 

 the very truthful remark that " the pupil 

 studies Nature in the schoolroom, and when 

 he goes out of doors he cannot find her." 



ITEMS FROM PERIODICALS. 



The Beloit (Wis.) OtUlook says of the Re- 

 view : " This interesting Western monthly is 

 well advanced in its fifth year and is becom- 

 ing better and better." 



Mr. W. E. Hidden has recently announc- 

 ed, through the American JoiLtnal of Science, 

 the discovery by him of emeralds of good 

 quality and in considerable quantity, about 

 sixteen miles northwest of Statesville, in 

 Alexander County, North Carolina. 



A NEW college magazine, entitled The Mis- 

 souri University Review, will be started in 

 February. 1882. It will be edited by Dr. S. 

 S. Laws, President, with Professors McAn- 

 ally, Thomas and Blackwell, as associate ed- 

 itors. The first volume will consist of five 

 numbers, issued in February, April, June, 

 October and December, devoted chiefly to 

 educational matters in Missouri. The names 

 and well-known ability of the editors are a suf- 

 ficient guarantee of the high standing this 

 magazine will occupy in the educational field. 

 Subscription price, $1.00 per annum. Ad- 

 dress, Missouri University Revieiv, Columbia, 

 Missouri. 



The " Concepts and Theories of Modern 

 Physics," by J. B. Stallo, will be soon pub- 

 lished by Appleton & Co.^ as a volume of the 

 popular International Scientific Series. 



Fowler & Wells, publishers of the Fhren- 

 ological Journal, are just sending out a pro- 

 fusely illustrated volume entitled " Phreno- 

 logical Miscellanies," comprising some 450 

 pages, made up largely from articles which 

 have appeared in i\ie Journal. 



The Literary World, E. H. Hames & Co., 

 Boston, is a fortnightly review of the best 

 new books and, from the care and just dis- 

 crimination with which its articles are writ- 

 ten, should be in the hands of every libra- 

 rian and book buyer in the country. Large 

 quarto, 32 pages ; $2 00 per annum. 



Professor R. A. Proctor's new scientific 

 magazine, Knowledge, is said to have secured 

 a very large circulation already in Great Brit- 

 ain, and on the continent. It has not yet 

 traveled as far west as Kansas City, where 

 the Professor has so many admirers. 



Major Lauer, of the Austrian engineers, 

 has for some time been using a new method 

 for blasting rocks under water at Krems on 

 the Danube. The chief feature of his sys- 

 tem is the employment of a hollow cylinder, 

 like a gas-pipe, to place the dynamite car- 

 tridge on the surface of the rock which it is 

 desired to shatter. The dynamite is explod- 

 ed by means of electricity, and the effect is 

 said to be greater than that of the usual car- 

 tridge in a hole bored in the rOck, and a sav- 

 ing of forty per cent is effected over the old 

 system. 



C. Lloyd Morgan, F. G. S., in an article 

 on " Miniature Physical Geology," in the 

 December number of the London Journal of 

 Science, calls attention to the process of fossil- 

 ization which may be seen in progress in the 

 blown sand on Mount's Bay. This blown 

 sand, composed of sand and shell fragments, 

 in process of time covers up such scrubby 

 vegetation as lies in its path. This vegeta- 

 tion rapidly decays and is as rapidly replaced 

 by lime, taken up from an aqueous solution 

 of the shell fragments, until a complete cast 

 or pseudo-morph is formed which in many 

 cases preserves the exact form, even to the 

 most minute filaments, of the decaying root 

 or branch. 



