1855.] 



AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 



355 



the other — before expressed — that Dr. Lillie should have " les- 

 sened the attraction of his production by taking away from it 

 the air of originality which it might with much less labour 

 than has been bestowed upon it have been made to wear/' by 

 a too rigid adherence to quotations from different authorities, 

 while their views and facts might, in many instances, have been 

 presented quite as truthfully, and far more impressively, in a 

 simple narrative form, similar to the original paragraphs which 

 are interspereed throughout the work. 



Vermes in Grasshoppers. 



Early in September last I visited a brother Entomologist, 

 who resides in ^lontreal, and my stay having been limited to 

 one week I resolved to make good use of my time ; therefore, 

 the forenoons were devoted to collecting insects, and on a few 

 occasions in the evenings, I accompanied my friend in his 

 boat to the Rapids opposite the city, where we fished. The 

 bait generally used for still-fishing are grasshoppers, freshlj' 

 collected and kept in a bottle. Ort one occasion I selected a 

 specimen measuring about 14 lines (probably an QSdiiwda), 

 found commonly on the island of St. llellens. It had been a 

 short time in the water, and I had indication of a " nibble ;" 

 shortly afterwards, on esaming the bait, the posterior part of 

 its body had been bitten ofi', and something protruded, having 

 a resemblance to white thread, and which, at first sight, I took 

 to be its intestines. I disengaged the thread-like substance, 

 and discovered it to be an inlcitiiia measuring at least nineteen. 

 inches in length. 



From one grasshopper two vermes were taken, and three 

 from another ; the latter were longitudinally coiled, and occu- 

 pied the whole of the insect's body. 



One of the oarsmen informed me that the grasshoppers 

 which he kept in the bottle, since our previous evening's fish- 

 ing, were dead on the following morning, and that a large 

 quantity of vermes lay at the bottom — evidence enough to ex- 

 hibit a common disease in this species of Orthoptera. 



Judging from its form and length, I take it to be a species 

 of Echinorliijnclms — a type chiefly infesting the higher orders 

 of animals, and am led to think, have not been hitherto found 

 in insects. They are cylindrical, without joints, with a .sharp- 

 pointed retractile proboscis. 



Should students of Ilelminthology, or Mieroscopists wish 

 to examine them, they can l>c seen at the Museum of the 

 Canadian Institute. 



Toronto, October, 1S55. WM. COUPER. 



Parasites iu the Bat 



Detroit, 15th Sept., 1855. 

 In dissecting a small bat, a few days ago, my attention was 

 directed to some round spots of inconceivable minuteness in 

 that portion of the incsoilerr/ which connects the spleen, 

 •stomach, and small intestine. On examining the spots with 

 the microscope, they proved to be C'lMoid cntozoa, of a species 

 that I have not seen before, nor do I believe they have yet been 

 described. Seen with low power, they appeared to be identi- 

 cal with Trichina xjjirafi.f, found occasionally (and only found) 

 in human muscle, wanting, however, the remarkable external 

 cyst, supposed to result from the irritation of the cyst contain- 

 ing the entozoon ; but, with increased magnifying power, it is 

 altogether a diflcretit animal, simply agreeing with the former 

 in the spiral form it assumes in the ey.-it. 



The body is composed of a great nfimber of delicate segments, 

 while its interior displays a well-developed alimentary canal, 

 possessingadistinctlymarkedpyloricconstriction : moreover, the 

 stomach is provided with a mucous membrane, and muscular 

 coat of considerably densitj'. 



On continuing my examination, I found one similar cyst in 

 the centre of the urinary bladder, and three at its neck. 



These parasites occupied the fat lobules, and 12 of them, 

 all that there were, occun-ed iu a space less than one-eigth of 

 an inch square. They now form permanent preparations for 

 the microscope. 



HENRY GOADBY, M.D. 



American Associatlou for the Advancement of Scicuee. 



The following notices of the proceedings of this scientific bodj', at 

 their annual meeting hold in the city of Providence, Rhode Island, 

 -•'ugust 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th, are necessarily extremely brief; but 

 of the more important papers read at the several meetings, we shall 

 have an opportunity of giving more complete abstracts in future 

 numbers of the Journal: 



PHYSICS. 



Notice of Earthquake Waves. By Professor A. D. Bache. — On the 

 23d of December, 1854, at 9 A. M., an earthquake occurred at Simodo, 

 on the Island of Kiphon, Japan, that resulted in the wreck of the Russian 

 frigate Diana. The harbor was first emptied of water, then came in 

 an enormous wave which again receded. (It appeared from the Rev. 

 Mr. Jones that the whole character of the harbor of Simoda, previously 

 surveyed by the Powhatan, has been changed bj' the earthquake.) A 

 I'cport from the Benin Islands is not sufficiently exact to use for our 

 main purpose, but jjoints to Simoda as the centre of disturbance. 

 (Simoda, according to the Rev. Mr. Jones, is volcanic ; Benin appears 

 not to be.) Now the Coast Survey has three self-acting tide-gauges 

 at Astoria, on Columbia River, San Francisco and San Diego. They 

 record the rise of the tide on a cylinder tm-ned by a clock. The ap- 

 paratus is protected more or less from the oscillations that wind-waves 

 would cause, which only cause a trembling of the index or stylus. The 

 gauge at Astoria was but slightly affected by the earthquake wave, 

 owing to the bar on the river and the distance it had to ascend. At 

 San Francisco, 4,800 miles from Simoda, the wave arrived 12 bom's 16 

 minutes after the beginning of the earthquake. A series of seven 

 waves, each about half an horn- in duration, or 35 minutes, each series 

 successively smaller, and separated by a quiet time of an hour 

 from the preceding, was recorded at San Francisco. At San Diego 

 the wave had traversed 5,200 miles in 12 hours 38 minutes, and pro- 

 duced likewise a series of seven waves, each nearly corresponding to 

 those at San Francisco, but the second series stronger than the first 

 and third. In height they were less, the highest at San Francisco being 

 .7 of a foot, at San Diego .6. The waves at San Diego conld not have 

 come from San Francisco, as they would have arrived much later. 

 The velocity with which a wave travels depends on the depth of the 

 ocean. The second and third series were but repetitions of the first 

 wave that had reached the s.amc points, travelling through sh.illower 

 water. The calculations based on these diitagive for the Pacific Ocean 

 ft depth of from 14,000 to 18,000 fathoms. It is remarkable how the 

 estimates of the ocean's depth have grown less. La Place assumed 

 it at 10 miles, Whcv.'ell at 3.5, while this estimate brings it down to 

 about 2 miles. 



Frozen Wells. — Two deep wells at Owcgo, Tioga county, N. Y., 

 seem to freeze in tlie latter part of winter, and to remain frozen until 

 September. In the Jurassic formation of Europe, Prof. Guyot alluded 

 to the ice caves common in that formation. lie instanced one of these 

 caves, 3000 feet above sea level, about 00 feet deep, whose bottom was 

 always covered with ice several feet in thickness, while stalactites 

 of ice depended from the roof. The whole was a small glacier. The 

 stalactites were formed by water percolating through the covering 

 of the cave. It was also stated that there was a cleft in the mountain 

 not far west of Williams College, called the Snowliole, where snow might 

 always bo found. Similar occmTcnccs had also been noticed in a 

 range of mountains, composed of a porous sand rock, in Southern Vir- 

 ginia. 



It was remarked by Prof. Agassiz, tlmt lie had never been able to 

 find any largo accumulations of ice with a temperature much below 



