448 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. IV., No. 92. 



gneisses, with their accompanying coarse lime- 

 stone and graphite ; and, to the latter, a large 

 part of the chlorite and mica schists, and ser- 

 pentine, with associated limestone, steatite, and 

 argillite, and chrome and nickel ores, east of 

 the Susquehanna, and the felsitic, chloritic, 

 epidotic, and quartzose rocks of the South 

 Mountain. 



The felsites are said to be distinctly inter- 

 stratified with the other rocks named, and the 

 theory of their igneous origin is vigorously 

 combated. The position of the Huronian in 

 this region is shown to be clearly above the 

 Laurentian, and below the primal sandstone ; 

 but it is also allowed to fill this great gap, to 

 the exclusion of the Montalban S3 r stem, which 

 Dr. Hunt has recognized here. 



The Taconian system is not admitted to 

 the Pennsylvania column ; but the quartzite, 

 schists, marble, argillite, and iron-ores claimed 

 by its defenders are referred, as by the first 

 survey, and by Lesley, Dana, etc., to the Cam- 

 brian. With the exception of the Scolithus, 

 found in a small part of the so-called primal or 

 Potsdam series, all these rocks are alike unfos- 

 siliferous. Lithologically and stratigraphically 

 they present little resemblance to the primal, 

 auroral, and matinal west of the great valley 

 and in New York ; and hence the confident 

 reference of these semi-c^stalline rocks to the 

 horizons named seems to rest on a very slender 

 basis of facts. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



The English astronomers continue their obser- 

 vations of the great red spot on the planet Jupiter 

 with all the enthusiasm of past years ; one observer, 

 Mr. Stanley Williams, obtaining, as early as the morn- 

 ing of Sept. 20, a favorable sight of that part of the 

 disk of Jupiter which should be occupied by the red 

 spot. It was still a visible object, although, at the 

 then unfavorable position of the planet, one of ex- 

 treme difficulty and delicacy. Only a very occasional 

 glimpse of it could be obtained at all, as a faint patch 

 of no particular color or boundary, until after its tran- 

 sit of the central meridian, when the spot was once 

 seen in its entirety, and with a distinct reddish tinge 

 about it. The great hollow in the red south equato- 

 rial belt still remains visible, but it appears to have 

 much diminished in plainness. Mr. Williams has 

 also observed three equatorial white spots, one of 

 which is probably identical with a well-known white 

 spot which has been followed for many years. The 

 red spot has also been re-observed by Mr. Denning. 



— At the October meeting of the Natural science 

 association of Staten Island, Mr. Davis exhibited a 

 specimen of one of our green grasshoppers, Cono- 

 cephalus dissimilis, which he had found without any 



head, and stridulating while perched upon a blade 

 of grass. When touched by the finger, the insect 

 did not close its wings tightly, as usual, but let them 

 remain far apart. It had evidently not been long 

 decapitated; for, when captured, the muscles in the 

 thorax had their normal appearance. But gradually 

 the tissues dried, and on the third day of its captivity 

 it died without having stridulated again, though 

 every means thought of was employed to induce it. 



— Dr. David Gill, her majesty's astronomer at the 

 Cape of Good Hope, will contribute the article on 

 parallax for the forthcoming volume (xviii.) of the 

 ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. 



— Dr. E. B. Tylor, in an address to the anthro- 

 pological society of Washington a few weeks ago, in 

 which he narrated some of his experiences among 

 the Mohaves and Zufiis last summer, said the Mohave 

 has the same abhorrence of parting with a lock of his 

 hair that is shown by an Italian or a Spaniard. The 

 Zuiii uses the same sound-producing piece of wood 

 to warn the women away from certain rites attending 

 the admission of youths to the privileges of manhood 

 as is used for a like purpose both in Africa and Aus- 

 tralia. The latter consists of a piece of wood at- 

 tached to a thong, and well known in England as a 

 ' bull-roar,' from the character of the noise it makes 

 when whirled rapidly. The use of bark skirts by 

 the Zufii women, who now wear a part of them 

 under their joined red handkerchief robes, is paral- 

 leled by that of the Australian females. The Zufiis 

 wore these originally in two parts, — one in front, and 

 the other at the back, — forming, when both in place, 

 a complete covering for the lower part of the body. 

 Now that cotton-cloth is procurable, they make a 

 skirt of bright-colored handkerchiefs sewed together, 

 and wear this outside the bark garment, only the rear 

 half or bustle of which they wear. The Australian 

 women preserve the ancient custom by putting on 

 bark skirts on festival occasions. Both customs show 

 a tendency to survival, and a corresponding mode of 

 perpetuating an ancient usage. 



— A correspondent of the Science monthly writes 

 that for the last year he has been engaged in the her- 

 ring-fishery on the Kintyre coast, and has often been 

 surprised during the night to hear a strange chirp- 

 ing-sound, like the far-away disconsolate ' chirp ' of 

 some small dying bird. "It was something in the 

 air, and always portended southerly winds and foul 

 weather, and was known everywhere as the ' Cheep- 

 ach,' " was all the explanation that his mates had to 

 offer. It is most frequently heard from the begin- 

 ning of August till the end of November, and is never 

 heard before sunset or after sunrise, but always 

 during the darkness of night. It is never heard 

 ashore, but often enough within two or three hun- 

 dred yards of it. It is generally heard whilst sailing, 

 but sometimes, though rarely, while lying at anchor. 

 It is always accompanied by a dampness in the atmos- 

 phere, though never with rain, so far as he remem- 

 bers. The sound is so very like the chirp of a bird 

 that superstitious fishermen attribute it to the ghosts 

 of little birds that have blown to sea and drowned. 



