278 A. LIVERSIDGE. 



ing, it therefore seems that on April 2nd, at a distance of 

 from 200 to 400 miles from the coast of China, there was 

 a cloud of dust which may have been over 1,000 miles and 

 possibly 2,000 miles in length. Dr. B. Koto, who examined 

 the dust tells me that the particles are chiefly felspar, but 

 there is a little quartz and shreds of plants. 



An article referring to a shower of dust in connection 

 with snow in Indiana and Kentucky, appeared in the 

 Monthly Weather Revietv in 1895. 1 The dust does not 

 appear to have been the nuclei of the snowflakes, but was 

 intermingled in the air with the snow and fell during an 

 interval between two snow storms. The examination of 

 a large number of specimens showed that the dust was 

 made up largely of silt, mixed with organic matter. A 

 number of fresh water algse were present, though they 

 appear to have been dead and dried for some time. . . . 

 Everything indicated that the material had come from the 

 bottom of some dried up lake, pond, marsh or river bed. 

 The dust was almost identical with the so-called "loess" 

 formation, which covers very extensive areas in Illinois, 

 Indiana, Nebraska and adjoining States, its depth in some 

 places amounting to 100 feet or more. This is interesting, 

 because there is a long standing controversy as to the origin 

 of the "loess" of the north-west. Certain portions of the 

 "loess" formation of Asia are known to be wind deposits, 

 and there is very strong presumptive evidence, now borne 

 out by the examination of the samples of dust, that much 

 of the "loess" of the Western States is also a wind deposit. 

 . . . . This light soil is easily raised and carried off by 

 strong winds of the western plains of America ; instances 

 have occurred in which six inches of surface soil have been 

 blown away from freshly cultivated fields in the course 

 of a single wind-storm. 



1 "Nature," August 29, 1895, p. 419. 



