192 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



DOES FREEZING PURIFY WATER. 



A WEEKLY JOURNAL, 



Da voted to Field and Aqtjatio Sports, Practical Natural History, 

 flshiculturk, the protection off game, preservation of forests, 

 and the Inculcation in Men and Women of a healthy interest 

 m Out-door Recreation and Study : 



PUBLISHED BY 



IT CHATHAM STREET, (CITY HALL SQUARE) NEW YORK, 

 [Post Office Box 2832.] 



Termt , Four Dollars a Year, Strictly In Advaaea. 



Twenty-five per cent, off for Clubs:of Three or more, 



THE DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS. 



Advertising Bates. 



Inside pages, nonpareil type, 20 cents per line: outside page, 30 cents. 

 Special rates for three, six, and twelve months. Notices in editorial 

 columns, 40 cents per line. 



*#* Any publisher inserting our prospectus as above one time, with 

 brief editorial notice calling attention thereto, and sending marked copy 

 to us, will receive the Forest and Stkeam for one year. 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, JANUARY 25, 1877. 



To Correspondents. 



All communications whatever, whether relating to business or literary 

 Correspondence, must be addressed to The Forest and Stream Pub- 

 Lishino Company. Personal or private letters of course excepted. 



All communications intended for publication must be accompanied with 

 real name, as a guaranty of good faith. Names will not be published 

 objection be made. No anonymous contributions will be regaraed. 



Articles relating to any topic within the scope of this paper are solicited 



We cannot promise to return rejected manuscripts. 



Secretaries of Clubs and Associations are urged to favor us with brief 

 notes of their movements and transactions, as it is the aim of this paper 

 to become a medium of useful and reliable information between gentle- 

 men sportsmen from one end of the country to the other ; and they wil 

 llnd our columns a uusirable medium for advertising announcements. 



The Publishers of Forest and Stream aim to merit and secure the 

 patronage and countenance of that portion of the community whose re- 

 fined intelligence enables them to properly appreciate and enjoy all that 

 Is beautiful in Nature. It will pander to no depraved tastes, nor pervert 

 the legitimate sports of land and water to those base uses which always 

 tend to make them unpopular with the virtuous and good. No advertise- 

 ment or business notice of an immoral character will be received on any 

 terms ; and nothing will be admitted to any department of the paper that 

 may not be read with propriety in the home circle 



We cannot be responsible for the dereliction of the mail service, if 

 money remitted to us is lost. 



Advertisements should be sent in by Saturday of each week, if possible. 

 %$!?* Trade supplied by American News Company. 

 CHARLES HALLOCK, 



Editor and Business Manager. 



To Contributors. — We are overwhelmed with the 

 favors of our contributors, — chiefly miscellaneous sketches 

 — which it will take a long time to print. We crave the 

 indulgence of our friends, ancl trust they will possess 

 their souls in patience, assuring them that all will appear 

 in due time. We endeavor to acknowledge receipt of 

 articles as soon as read, notifying the writer of acceptance 

 of rejection. We do not return manuscript unless re- 

 quested to do so. 



-«^». 



Locomotives for Australia.— Americans as railroad 

 engineers and bridge builders hold the foremost rank the 

 world over. In South America, and especially in the 

 mountain regions of Chili, their achievements have been 

 wonderful, the Verrugas Viaduct (one pier 252 feet 

 high) being the highest in the world. But at every step 

 amoDg foreign countries Englishmen have disputed their 

 progress. At last, despite this opposition, the British 

 lion is bearded in his own den. We learn through the 

 eminent engineer, W. W. Evans, Esq., that two Rodgers' 

 locomotives are about being shipped for Australia, the first 

 American engines ever sent to that country. 

 .+««. 



Tribute from a Naval Officer.— An officer in the 

 Navy sends us the following complimentary letter: — 



Little Falls, January 14th. 

 Editor Forest and Stream:— 



Yesterday a. m. I arrived home from a trip to Washing- 

 ton, and found that most valuable addition to my library — 

 the bound volume of Forest and Stream. I am delighted 

 with them, and spent all day over Volume 1. I cannot 

 but wonder how there is anything left to write up. At 

 first I thought your field a narrow one, and that but a 

 few men would care for the paper— the small class of real 

 sportsmen; but there is aggregated an amount of informa- 

 tion upon almost every subject — enough to supply a whole 

 village, from the Dominie to the gardener— including the 

 ladies, with interesting reading matter for a year. 



I have read every number as it came out, but yesterday, 

 turning over leaf by leaf, and stopping to read, when I 

 was attracted. I spent the whole day over the first third 

 of the first volume, and from your answers to correspond- 

 ents have jotted down at least twenty bits of information, 

 which I considered worth having in the house. Accept 

 my thanks, and believe me, that now I know and realize 

 their value. I'll neither lend nor give away (the same 

 thing) any more of my weekly numbers." *#* 



— In Stock operations the bullseye of the target is very 

 often the target of the Bulls' eyes. 



A conespondent calls our attention to an article re- 

 cently published in these columns, entitled "Salt in its 

 relation to Mankind," in which he takes exception to the 

 statement that "Water in freezing separates from itself all 

 impurities and substances held in solution." He says: — 



"I have read a number of opinions, based on scientific 

 investigation, to the contrary. 



A little discussion on this subject at this season, when 

 many are engaged in harvesting their ice crop, might be 

 interesting to other readers as well as to myself." 



Our correspondent's point is well taken, and we thank 

 him for calling our attention to the matter. The extract 

 quoted is too sweeping, and should be modified to read : 

 "water in freezing separates from itself the greater part of 

 the impurities and substances held in solution, etc." This 

 is shown in many ways, and some of the examples are 

 familiar enough to all of us. If a pan of maple sap is ex- 

 posed to severe cold, it will freeze almost solid, the ice 

 having a slightly sweetish taste, and the unfrozen resi- 

 duum at the bottom of the vessel being thick and sweet 

 like syrup. The sweet taste is due to the particles of 

 saccharine matter entangled in the ice during the process 

 of congelation, and perhaps in part to the presence of such 

 particles on the surface of the ice. The same experiment 

 may be tried with cider, or, as remarked in the articles re- 

 ferred to, with saltwater, though this last must be exposed 

 to a very low temperature before it will freeze. In evtry 

 case the result will be the same, namely, concentration of 

 the solution in the unfrozen liquid. 



Of course matter held merely in suspension is frozen 

 into the ice, and many of the particles of a solution may 

 be so caught, especially if the freezing takes place rapidly. 

 The idea conveyed by the paragraph referred to, that ice 

 is necessarily pure, is an erroneous one, and we hasten to 

 correct it. It is apparently the water only that freezes, but 

 in its congelation many impurities may be entangled in 

 the ice, and there retained to be set free*on the melting of 

 the mass. 



The often cited case of icebergs having streams of fresh 

 water running down their sides, has nothing to do with 

 the point under discussion, for icebergs do not consist of 

 frozen sea water, but are masses broken off from the 



glaciers and ice cliffs of circum polar regions. 

 -+«^- 



Field Journals as Mediums for Advertising. — We 

 expect the thanks of our sporting contemporaries for 

 calling the attention of the commercial public to the fact 

 that in London the leading field journals are preferred by 

 business men as the channels through which to reach the 

 purchasing public. The advertisements of the Times and 

 other dailies do not begin to roach the number printed in 

 the journals devoted to field sports and out-of door pas- 

 times. We find each weekty number of the "Field" for 

 instance, to contain often, in the busy season, twenty- 

 eight four-column pages of small (nonpariel) type, tthe 

 income from which must be enormous. Indeed we have 

 been semi-official ly informed, unless our memory fails us 

 sadly as to figures, that the net profits of that journal 

 reach £50,000 per annum. Each weekly issue of the 

 British Mail, whose scope is somewhat wider than the 

 Field's, contains forty-eight pages besides supplementary 

 sheets! Bells Life and the Sporting Gazette, and, indeed, 

 all the kindred papers have a ponderous line of advertising. 

 This choice of the public is of course based upon experi- 

 ence. 



In America the people have not yet fully learned the 

 value of the medium we refer to. The impression has 

 prevailed until recently that the circulation of field 

 journals was confined to turfmen, gunners, and anglers, 

 and that they were useful to no other classes of advertisers 

 than those who dealt in sportsmen's specialties. The 

 premises taken are wholly wrong, and their coHclusions 

 are based on fallacious reasoning. The advertiser should 

 start from the point that gentlemen of leisure are most apt 

 to be gentlemen of wealth, and buyers, not only of luxur- 

 ies, but necessaries of life. Men's wants multiply with 

 their means, and advertisements of novelties suggest new 

 wants. There is no class of advertising sheet that begins 

 to be scanned with the scrutiny that a ield journal is. 

 Papers of this ilk are read in moments of leisure, as a 

 pastime, and read through and thoroughly, and not hastily 

 glanced at for latest news, and thrown aside. They are 

 preserved and filed, and constantly referred to. They are 

 passed from hand to hand; they lie on Club tables, and 

 in Society libraries, so that a 10,000 circulation of a journal 

 of this character is really equal to 50,000 of a daily paper. 



Now, if our readers will take the trouble to refer to our 

 own advertising columns, they will see evidences of a 

 growing appreciation of the facts and arguments which we 

 have presented. Our line of advertising patronage is de- 

 cidedly large and miscellaneous in its variety. At first, 

 the columns contained little else than the advertisements 

 of dealers in guns and fishing tackle. Now, fully one- 

 half of our space is occupied by general advertisers, very 

 few of whom have anything but satisfaction to express for 

 the results of their ventures. We can assure those who 

 hold back from lack of confidence, that they will be 

 astonished at the returns which almost invariably follow. 



"Think on these things." 



Lighting Railroad Cars. — That vigorous corporation, 

 the Montclair and Greenwood Lake Railway Company, 

 have just introduced on their road a brilliant light, known 

 as the "mineral sperm," a substance literally non-explo- 

 sive, and standing the fire test of 300. An evening ride in 

 their cars is a luxury. 



NO branch of natural history has been more cultivated 

 of late, and has shown better results, either in num- 

 ber or kind, than that which inquires into the distribution 

 of animals over the earth's surface, and seeks to find out 

 the reasons for their being placed as we find them. The 

 master in this department, in many respects, is Alfred 

 Russell Wallace, who last year was President of the bio- 

 logical section of the British Association, and whose in 

 structive address we have been printing in our Natural 

 History columns . Mr. Wallace has always been a leader 

 in the Darwinian ranks, and has the credit of originating 

 that aspect of it which is known as "natural selection." 

 His "May lay Archipelago" with its history of the resplend- 

 ent Paradise birds, attracted much attention upon its ap- 

 pearance three years ago, and Mr. Wallace has just issued 

 an exhaustive work, which has been reprinted by the Har- 

 pers, upon the Geographical Distribution of Land Ani- 

 mals. Some of the more remarkable and interesting facts 

 in this volume we wish briefly to indicate. 



The object of his studies, Mr. Wallace tells us, "has 

 been to show the important bearing of researches into the 

 natural history of every part of the world upon the study 

 of its past history. An accurate knowledge of any groups 

 of birds or of insects, and of their geographical distribu- 

 tion m'ay enable us to map out the islands and continents 

 of a former epoch— the amount of difference that exists 

 between the animals of adjacent districts being closely re- 

 lated to preceding geological changes." This well shows 

 the scope of the work, and marks out the depth to which 

 his investigations and arguments often carry us, startling 

 us sometimes by the portentous conclusions to which we 

 are led by the irresistible logic of the simplest facts. 



The author first shows that all land animals have means 

 of locomotion, are naturally disposed to wander, and that 

 their means of dispersal are limited only by unfavorable 

 climatic conditions, the resistance of enemies, and by such 

 barriers as rivers, arms of the sea, deserts and mountain 

 ranges. But as obstacles these of course vary in their sig- 

 nificance according to the animals themselves. Many lar- 

 ger beasts, like the lion, rhinoceros and the oxen, seem to 

 have the ability to go anywhere. But other groups are 

 much more limited. Our gophers and prairie dogs would 

 not extend themselves into a forest country; nor could our 

 pronghorn and the antelopes of South Africa abandon 

 their grassy plains. The open cofrntry limits the spread of 

 such as these. On the other hand many groups, such as 

 the lemurs and monkeys, the squirrels, the opossums, the 

 arboreal cats, the sloths and others are so strictly adapted 

 to an arboreal life that the edges of the forest forever limit 

 their range. The camel and gazelle are well off only in 

 the desert, where it would be death for the beaver and otter 

 to venture. Rivers often form the boundary to the range 

 of certain families, and high ranges of mountains, especial- 

 ly those extending north and south, always divide faunas 

 with greater or less precision. This is the case even with 

 birds, whose wings might seem able to bear them any- 

 where; yet it is found that nearly the same causes which 

 limit the distribution of mammals from their metropolises 

 act similarly upon birds — those which are adapted to for- 

 ests rarely being found in a plain country, and vice versa. 

 Even great rivers, like the Amazon, form boundary lines 

 for many species. 



The range of most insects seems to be determined by 

 the presence of their food, and as in many cases this is 

 confined to a single sort of plant, the area over which 

 some species occur is narrow. In respect to terrestrial and 

 fiuviatile mollusks, the myriapods, and the like, they are 

 almost entirely dependent upon accidental methods of dis- 

 persal—drifting from one shore to another on tree-trunks, 

 having their eggs carried adhering to the feet of birds, etc., 

 so that it is hard to attach much significance to their dis- 

 tribution at present. 



The subject of migrations naturally follows, and it is re- 

 garded "as an exaggeration of a habit common to all loco- 

 motive animals of moving about in search of food." Much 

 evidence is presented to establish the idea that migration 

 is governed by certain intelligible laws, and it is a less 

 mysterious matter than is generally supposed. The night- 

 ingale is taken as a typical migrant, and the account of its 

 annual movements brings out a very interesting bit of his- 

 tory. After describing its annual incursion in spring into 

 the temperate parts of Europe and return to North Africa 

 and Syria across the Mediterranean, Mr. Wallace says: 

 "Migrations of this type probably date back from at least 

 the period when there was continuous land along the route 

 passed over; and it is a suggestive fact that this land con- 

 nection is known to have existed in recent geological times. 

 Britain was connected with the continent during and prob- 

 ably before the Glacial epoch, and Gibraltar, as well as Sici- 

 ly and Malta, were also recently united with Africa, as is 

 proved by fossil elephants and other large mammalia found 

 in their caverns, by the comparatively shallow water still 

 existing in this part of the Mediterranean, while the re- 

 mainder is of oceanic prof oundity, and by the large amount 

 of identity in the species of land animals still inhabiting 

 the opposite shores of the Mediterranean. The submersion 

 of these two tracts of land, which were, perhaps, of con- 

 siderable extent, would be a slow process, and from year 

 to year the change might be hardly perceptible. It is easy 

 to see how the migration that had once taken place over 

 continuous land would be kept up, first over lagoons and 

 marshes, then over a narrow channel, and subsequently 

 over a considerable sea, no one generation of birds ever 

 perceiving any difference in the route." Mr. Wallace 



