680 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
Last summer the workmen in a quarry at this place found a fine specimen 
of a species ot Lepidodendron which I secured and have in my collection ; in 
fact I have four specimens of it. The impression is in rather coarse sandstone 
belonging to the carboniferous age. The impressions of the bark are absolutely 
perfect, some of the finest lines being visible. From the same quarry are some- 
times obtained specimens of calamites (Canneformis) so perfect that the joints 
are plainly visible, also the longitudinal flutings. Some of the specimens, most 
of them in fact, are branched, the branches being constricted near the main 
trunk, with short joints close to the same, but as it grows outward the branch 
lengthens and enlarges in diameter, at the same time curving upward until it 
becomes parallel with the trunk. 
I have, in connection with my friend H. Baldwin, analyzed all the native 
and naturalized plants of this County that we have met with, consisting of nearly 
I, GOO species. I mean to arrange the work to exhibit at the County and perhaps 
at the Illinois State Fair. 
S. A. Maxwell. 
PHYSICS. 
THE SWISS EARTHQUAKE OF 1881. 
ALBERT S. GATSCHET, WASHINGTON, D. C. 
One of the observed earthquakes is the one that occurred in the level parts 
of Switzerland on the afternoon of January 27, 1881. A tertiary sandstone con- 
stitutes the main portion of the Swiss plateau, where the phenomenon was felt 
in its greatest intensity, the heaviest of the motion being at Berne and in its 
immediate vicinity. 
Prof. Dr. A. Foster, the Director of the Telluric Observatory, at Berne, has 
gathered a large amount of well ascertained details about it and published them 
in an interestmg quarto monograph of twenty-nine pages (Berne, B. F. Haller) 
under the title: '■'■ Das Erdbeben der Schiveizenchen Wochebene vofn 27 Jan. 1881, 
{Berner Beben). The scientific results obtained by him may be summed up as 
follows: The principal shock took place at 2h. 19m. 53s. P. M.; it was pre- 
ceded and followed by lighter oscillations of the soil and occurred at a time when 
the perihelion and the perigee coincided, though new moon was two and a half 
days later. The upper culmination of the moon had occurred five hours before, 
A long period of frost had just given way to a sudden thaw, but there were no 
disturbances of terrestrial magnetism several days before and after. The whole 
area set in motion, having a longitudinal extent of 260 kilometres, experienced 
the shock exactly at the same astronomical time : there was no central shock, for 
