946 The Amerwan Naturalist. [October , 
by the action of water, the columns will fall and form a pile of debris 
at the foot of the mountain, till it is slowly reduced to material light 
enough for transportation by aid of the rains and rivers. 
The duration of the picturesque aspect presented by these mountain 
facades is limited. With nearly every year new architectural forms 
of columnar structure appear, until the whole of the mountain has dis- 
appeared. 
This process of continuous detachment of masses of rock is materi- 
ally assisted by vegetable growth, which rises in the fissures of the 
walls. During the dry season the process of vegetation ceases, and 
dies off. The dry material usually becomes ignited, enveloping the 
whole district in a slowly-consuming fire. During night time the ap- 
pearance of those mountain fires is fearfully magnificent. In my 
memory I see at the present time those burning mountains before 
me. Iremember my hurried ride, on muleback, and I still hear the 
noise of the bursting and falling rocks. 
The occurrence of prairie and mountain fires, principally in the hot 
and low regions of Honduras, contributes, to a great extent, towards 
a rapid decay of the present mountain forms.—M. J. R. FRITZ- 
GAERTNER, PH.D, 
(To be continued.) 
GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY. 
The Barking Sands of the Hawaiian Islands. — The 
following is an abstract of a paper read on this subject read before the 
American Association for the Advancement of Science, at Indianapo- 
lis, August, 189o: 
About a year ago I read to this association a condensed account of 
an examination of the Mountains of the Bell (Jebel Nagous) on the 
Gulf of Suez, and of the acoustic phenomenon from which it is named. 
In continuation of my researches on sonorous sand, which are con- 
ducted jointly with Dr. Alexis A. Julien, of New York, I have now 
visited the so-called ** Barking Sands’’ on the island of Kauai. These 
are mentioned in the works of several travelers (Bates, Frink, Bird, 
Nordhoff, and others), and have & world-wide fame as a natural 
curiosity ; but the printed accounts are rather meagre in detail, and 
sel their authors to have been unacquainted with similar phenomena 
e. 
