44 THE WEST AMEEICAN SCIENTIST. 



SINGING SANDS. 



[Written for the Scientist.] 



For age3 the wild Arab had known that there was the mystery of music among 

 the sands of Jabel Nakous or the ' Mountain of the Bell,' about three miles from the 

 gulf of Suez. Jahel Nakous and one other locality, in the neighborhood of Cabul, 

 were the only places known where the glistening sands sang their evening hymc, 

 until Hugh Miller, author of *The Oil Red Sandstone,' etc., in his 'Cruise of the 

 Betsey,' gave an account of a third locality which he himself discov red. 



Miller says: ' It seemed less wonderful that there should be music in the granite 

 of Memnon, than in the loose Oolitic sand of the Bay of Laig. As we marched over 

 the drier tracts, an incessant woo, woo, ivoo rose from the surface that might be heard 

 in the calm some twenty or thirty yards away, and was easily evoked by the foot.' 



And now a locality on the shores of Massachusetts has been found where the 

 sands have a similar musical tendency. 



Not to be outdone in anything, the sands on the shores of San Diego have a 

 music of their own equal in sweetness to the ' singing sands ' of all other localities, 

 presenting the beautiful phenomenon that ever since it was first observed has given 

 rise to more or less superstitions. E. E. 



THE POISONOUS SCORPION OF MEXICO. 



At a recent meeting of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelplia, Dr. 

 Leidy read a communication from Dr. V. Gonzalez, giving an account of the scor- 

 pions of Durango, Mexico, and the deadly effect of their sting. They are found 

 everywhere in the city, and every effort has been made to exterminate them, but 

 withouf effect. A reward of a cent and a half for males and double that amount for 

 females is paid by the authorities, and the records indicate that some years over one 

 hundred thousand are capture 1 and destroyed. The sting, especially in the case of 

 children, is invariably fatal; the victim, if under two or three years of age, dying in 

 a few hours, and sometimes in a few minutes, in strong general convulsions. No 

 antidote for the poison has as yet been discovered, and the assistance of Dr. Leidy is 

 aked by the writer in his endeavor to determine some successful mode of treatment. 

 It was suggested by Messrs. Horn, Heilprin and Leidy that the Mexican scorpion 

 must differ from the species found in Florida and California, as the sting of the lat- 

 ter is not usually graver than that of a wasp. — Scientific American. 



[My companion on my recent trip into Lower California was stun,' by a scor- 

 pion (scorpio allenii); the effect upon him was similar to the sting of a wasp. A 

 scorpion the size of a man's hand was reported to be found in the vicinity of San 

 Quentin bay, but its existenoe is doubtful. — Ed.] 



A northern blenny, Cebedichthys violaceus, hitherto recorded f :om Washington 

 Territory southward to Point Concepcion, was found in April south of San Quentin 

 bay, Lower California. 



