Juxe 26, 1885.] 



SCIENCE, 



517 



4 hotel' in the bottom of the canon. This is 

 a board shanty of a single room below, with a 

 kitchen attached, and two bedrooms under the 

 roof above. Primitive as the accommodations 

 are, and although, when there is no press of 

 company expected, the functions of stage pro- 

 prietor, road-owner, driver, guide, landlord, 

 and cook are all merged in one person, we 

 found that person adequate to all those du- 

 ties ; and even the lady of our party was 

 comfortably cared for, both as to bed and 

 board. When this extraordinary place comes 

 to be better known and more largely visited, 

 ampler accommodations will doubtless be pro- 

 vided, both in the canon and at the railway- 

 station. The ' hotel' stands at the junction of 

 the Peach- Spring Canon and that of the Dia- 

 mond River, close to the refreshing stream of 

 pure water. The Diamond-River Canon, of 

 which Dr. Newberry gives two good illustra- 

 tions, was explored upward for two or three 

 miles on the afternoon of the first day. The 

 following morning suffices for the junction of 

 this canon with the Colorado, which is near by, 

 and for the views up and down the river, which 

 are to be had for less than an hour of climbing. 

 Altogether, there is nothing like this canon. 

 The far-famed Yosemite is more beautiful and 

 more varied, but not more magnificent, nor 

 half so strange and weird. 



I may be allowed to add the remark that the 

 botan}' of these lateral canons is very interest- 

 ing, and inviting to a longer stay. It had been 

 so well explored by Mr. and Mrs. Lemmon a 

 year before, that we could not expect our hur- 

 ried visit to be rewarded with any thing abso- 

 lutely new. But here we saw an abundance of 

 the singular and striking Fouquieria in flower, 

 and that alone well repaid the toils of the ex- 

 cursion. 



This is the only accessible point at which a 

 descent can be made into the bed of the Grand 

 Canon. But from Flagstaff — a station about 

 nine hours farther east, and at considerably 

 greater elevation, in a district of pine-forests, 

 and close to the beautiful and snow-clad San 

 Francisco mountains — a wagon-journey of 

 two days over the mesa will take a party to 

 the Marble Canon, described and illustrated by 

 Powell, where the Colorado flows twenty-five 

 hundred feet below, between unbroken vertical 

 walls of many-colored marbles. Moreover, 

 the neighborhood of Flagstaff abounds in cliff- 

 dwellings and cave-dwellings, the latter com- 

 parative^ little known ; and altogether this 

 seems to us a most inviting place of summer 

 resort. 



Journeying eastward, the traveller passes 



one of the most interesting of the Indian 

 pueblos, that of Laguna ; and that of Zuni is 

 well within reach from Fort Wingate. 



A. G. 



THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT, AND 

 THE LIGHTNING STROKE OF JUNE 5. 



The recent injury to the Washington mon- 

 ument by lightning has attracted attention 

 throughout the country to such a degree that 

 a short statement of the facts in the case will 

 doubtless be of interest to the readers of Sci- 

 ence. On the afternoon of June 5 a thunder- 

 storm of no unusual character passed over 

 Washington. At about fifteen minutes past 

 three there was a single burst of thunder of 

 some violence, which was about the only nota- 

 ble electrical disturbance of the afternoon. 

 Although it had successfully passed through 

 disturbances apparently much more violent on 

 one or two previous occasions, this time the 

 monument was ' struck,' and some damage 

 done to one of the stones near the apex. Two 

 men who were inside of the structure, at the 

 base, describe the sound produced as resem- 

 bling the simultaneous discharge of a great 

 number of cannon, and declare that the ' whole 

 monument trembled.' Two others were in a 

 small wooden building, used as an office, near 

 by. One of them was looking out of the win- 

 dow, away from the monument, toward the 

 north. He affirms, in the most positive man- 

 ner, that he saw a ball of fire, which he says 

 was as large as his fist, coming directly towards 

 the window out of which he was looking. 

 Both he and his companion (who was not look- 

 ing out of the window, and who did not see 

 the ball of fire) seem to have felt something 

 of the usual effect of a shock. Those who 

 were within the monument say they felt no 

 unusual sensations except those produced by 

 the noise. 



When the monument was examined from 

 the ground with the unaided eye, no injury 

 could be detected. On applying a good tele- 

 scope, however, it was seen that one of the 

 stones just below the capstone was split from 

 top to bottom, the crack produced being about 

 four feet long, and it was open to the extent 

 of about two inches. A small corner of the 

 lower corresponding angle of the capstone 

 had also been carried away, this doubtless 

 resulting from the opening of the crack in the 

 stone upon which it rested. _J 



The appearance of the apex is fairly repre- 

 sented in the sketch, in which (a) represents 

 the aluminum tip, (b) the capstone, and (c) 



