422 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Riley, C. V Insect Life. Vol. I, No. 9. Wash- 

 ington: Government Printing-Office. Pp. 86. 



Sbufeldt, R. W., M. D. Osteology of Arctic and 

 Sub-Arctic Water-Birds. Pp. 80.— Osteology of the 

 North American Anseres. Pp. 86. 



Snyder, 'William L. The Geography of Marriage, 

 or Legal Perplexities of Wedlock in tbe United 

 States. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 

 834. $1.50. 



Starcke, C. N. The Primitive Family, its Origin 

 and Development. New York : D. Appleton & Co. 

 Pp. 315. $1.75. 



Stowell, T. B. Syllabus of Lectures in Anatomy 

 and Physiology. Syracuse, N. Y. : C. W. Bardeen. 

 Pp. 118. 



Thomas, Cyrus. Aids to tbe Stndy.of the Maya 

 Codices. Washington : Government irinting-Office. 

 Pp. 100. 



Todd, W. G., Editor. " The Teacher's Outlook " 

 Monthly. Vol. I, No. 1. Des Moines, Iowa : Teach- 

 ers' Publishing Company. Pp. 32. 



Trent, William P. English Culture in Virginia. 

 Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University. Pp. 141. $1. 



Wentwortb. G. A., McLellan, J. A., and Glashan, 

 J. C. Algebraic Analysis, Solutions, and Exercises, 

 illustrating the Fundamental Theorems and the most 

 Important Processes. Boston : Ginn & Co. Pp. 

 418. $1.60. 



Whitman, C. O., and Allis, Edward Phelps. Jr. 

 "Journal of Morphology." April, 1889. Boston: 

 Ginn & Co. Pp. 260, with Plates. $9 a year. 



Winchell. N. H., State Geologist. The Geologi- 

 cal and Natural History Survey of Minnesota. Re- 

 port for 1887. Minneapolis. Pp. 501. 



POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



An Estray Wreck. — One of the most 

 useful features of the monthly "Pilot Charts," 

 published by the Hydrographic Office of the 

 Navy Department, is the series comprising 

 tracings of the courses of derelict vessels. 

 It is said that between twenty-five and forty- 

 five of these peripatetic dangers to naviga- 

 tion are recorded every month in the North 

 Atlantic alone, and the supply is constantly 

 kept up by the fruits of every great storm. 

 Their wanderings are often very eccentric. 

 Thus the W. L. White, a lumber-laden three- 

 masted schooner, having been abandoned off 

 Delaware Bay during the blizzard of March, 

 1888, started off to the southward under the 

 influence of the inshore current and the north- 

 west gale. Upon reaching the Gulf Stream 

 she turned away to the eastward and began 

 her long cruise toward Europe, directly in 

 the track of thousands of vessels ; drifting 

 blindly about at the mercy of wind and cur- 

 rent. During the former part of her wander- 

 ing she followed a course about east- north- 

 east, at an average rate of about thirty-two 

 miles a day. From the beginning of May 

 till the end of October she pursued an ex- 

 traordinarily zigzag course, seesawing back 

 and forth, and doubling upon herself, " stag- 



gering like a drunken man all over a com- 

 paratively small area, a constant menace to 

 navigation in its most frequented ground." 

 After escaping from this snarl, she moved east 

 and northeast, 1,260 miles in eighty-four days, 

 or an average of about fifteen miles a day. 

 Finally, on the 23d of January, 1889, she 

 was stranded on one of the islands of the 

 Hebrides after a cruise of ten months and 

 ten days, in which she traversed a distance 

 of more than five thousand miles, and was 

 reported forty-five times ; while many more 

 vessels may have passed dangerously near 

 her at night or during thick weather. 



Tbe Canadian Lakes and the Glaciers. — 



In accounting for the origin of the great 

 lake basins in Canada, Dr. Robert Bell re- 

 gards Lake Superior as of volcanic origin, 

 and Hudson Bay as having some points in 

 common with it ; while Athabasca, the Great 

 Slave Lake, Lake Winnipeg, the Georgian 

 Bay, and Lake Ontario, lie along the line 

 where the limestones and sandstones meet 

 the older Laurentian and Huronian strata, 

 and were probably excavated by post-tertiary 

 glaciers. Dr. Bell also points out that dikes 

 of greenstones, etc., often formed the origi- 

 nal lines along which the channels of rivers, 

 arms of lakes, and fiords, were cut by denud- 

 ing forces. Prof. A. T. Drummond suggests 

 that the glaciers have been called upon to do 

 too much work. There is difficulty in ac- 

 cepting the theory of such colossal glacial 

 systems as geologists invoke. The vast ef- 

 fects of erosion by atmospheric and other 

 agencies in Miocene and Pliocene ages which 

 immediately preceded the Glacial epoch, and 

 the great deposits of decomposed rock which 

 must have accumulated during those ages, 

 have been overlooked. The continental gla- 

 cier, even if only a mile in thickness, of 

 the extent demanded by the theory, would 

 represent a depth of about five hundred or 

 six hundred feet taken uniformly everywhere 

 from the waters of the ocean and transformed 

 into ice. The withdrawal of such a mass of 

 water from the North Atlantic would have 

 carried our coast-line from seventy-five to 

 one hundred miles seaward, would have ren- 

 dered the Gulf of St. Lawrence dry land and 

 brought the Great Banks of Newfoundland 

 to the surface, and would have obliterated 

 the German Ocean. Are we prepared to ac 



