NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. : 123 
gists) that in the stems of the bamboo small erystals of quartz 
are found, known by the name of tabasheer; he suggests, whether 
it may not be possible that the diamonds yielded by these old 
plant beds similarly owe their origin to vegetable growth. The 
idea is well worthy the attention alike of the chemist, the miner- 
alogist and the botanist. — The Academy. 
DISCOVERY OF ÅCTUAL Cerne ON THE Rocky MOUNTAINS.— 
Mr. Clarence King announces in the March number of the “ Amer- 
ican Journal of Science and Arts,” the fact that while “extinct 
glaciers, equalling in all respects the former grandeur of the alpine 
system,” were discovered by Prof. Whitney and his corps, there 
are still in existence glaciers on the northern side of Mt. Shasta 
in Northern California, “ the largest about four and a half miles in 
length, and two to three miles wide.” Glaciers have also been 
found by Mr. Emmons on Mt. Tachoma, or Rainier, and on Mt. 
Hood by Mr. Hague. On the former mountain (Rainier) :— 
“The main White ecg ~~ the grandest of the whole, pours 
straight down from the rim of the crater in a northeasterly direc- 
tion, and pushes its cai farther out into the valley oar Bnd 
of the others. Its greatest width on the steep slope of the 
tain must be four or five miles, narrowing towards its biteni to 
about a mile and a half; its length can be scarcely less than ten 
miles. The great eroding power of glacial ice is strikingly illus- 
trated in this glacier, which seems to have cut down and carried 
away on the northeastern side A hi isan ee fully a third of its 
mass. The thickness of rock cut away, as shown by the walls on 
either side, and the isolated treet a the heid of frei triangular 
of the ice of the glacier, I have no data for making estima ae 
though it may probably "be reckoned in thousands of feet.” 
Eozoon Canapense.— Some doubts having been thrown on the 
organic origin of this oldest known geological form of life by a 
correspondent in “Nature,” Dr. Carpenter has been induced to 
recapitulate the arguments in favor of the organic theory; and 
has also brought from Principal Dawson of Montreal, in “ Na- 
ture” for February 9th, an account of recent explorations and ob- 
servations in the Laurentian rocks of Canada, which seems dully 
to establish the claims of Eozeon to the character of a veritable 
fossil.— A. W. B. 
