1064 The American Naturalist. [December, 
A careful examination of the structure of the reservoir building 
showed that the stalactites must have formed as follows: 
The reservoir’s arched roof from which they hung was built of 
bricks laid in cement (probably the kind known in America as Ger- 
man Portland, H. C. M.). Slight fissures had formed in the cement 
through which the water of the surface (rain water H. C. M.) had 
trickled. This down trickling water had dissolved portions of the 
cement, and then evaporating, had first caused a formation composed 
of particles of lime dissolved from the cement. This formation was the 
starting point of the stalactites. On it had been precipitated very fine 
particles of the reservoir water, leaving after they had evaporated a 
further residuum of lime upon the already existent pendant. 
This view is strengthened by the fact, that since the building of 
another more recent (so-called Fuchstein) reservoir 3 kilometers west 
of Bayreuth, stalactites 2.5 centimeters long have shown themselves 
hanging in the same way from the cement ceiling of the roofing arch. 
Moreover, if indentations are scratched in the cement, pendent accu- 
mulations of lime are soon formed, which, however, are not hollow in 
the middle like the stalactites. 
Finally, as the result of an experiment, the following method for 
producing stalactites artificially, may be mentioned : 
Take a common hectoliter cask. . Make a hole in its bottom. Plug 
this hole with a wooden plug so wound with tow that the water may 
trickle through it in very small quantities. Around the end of the 
plug on the outside of the bottom of the cask, spread cement (German 
Portland cement, H. C. M.) in which a slight fissure should be left. 
Then fill the cask with the water containing lime in solution and place 
it in the open air. Hang a piece of tow on the fissure in the cement 
so that the water trickles upon it, and stalactites will form very rapidly. 
In this way I made a stalactite 5 centimeters long inside of 8 weeks. 
Franz ADAMI. 
Bayreuth, September 30, 1894. 
Note by the Editor.—A very hard crust of stalagmite, covering 
a loam bed with rhinoceros teeth and human relies, overlaid the cave 
floor of Kents Hole (near Torquay, England) in which Mr. McEnery 
says (1825) that he found in no instance breaches or openings, “ but 
one continuous plate of stalagmite diffused uniformly over the loam.” 
Schmerling who (in 1832) used to climb down into Engis Cave (near 
Liege, Belgium) by a rope tied to a tree, and after a long crawl, stand 
in the mud to superintend by torchlight, workmen digging in a wet 
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