82 



SCIENCE. 



[YoL. VI., No. 130. 



species is indeed related to the monkeys, pos- 

 sibl}' more closely than even to the anthropoid 

 apes. 



The report on the museums of America 

 and Canada, recently made by Mr. Ball of the 

 DubUn museum to the Science and art depart- 

 ment of England, is not a very satisfactory 

 document. Apparently designed to furnish 

 hints to similar museums in the United King- 

 dom, it is nevertheless chiefly occupied with 

 descriptions of the scope of the different 

 establishments and of the contents, and to 

 some extent the general arrangements of the 

 several museums. But the account of the last 

 is generally unsatisfactory and imperfect, while 

 very slight or no mention is made of such 

 devices as are characteristically American, and 

 in which muscology has been notably advanced 

 by us. The best applications of American 

 ingenuity to questions of installation are un- 

 noticed : such as, the methods by which cases 

 are made air-tight, and are locked at several 

 points by a single turn of the key ; by which 

 shelf-supports are made light, secure, and 

 graceful, and variable at pleasure with slight 

 labor ; by which a case applied to one use can 

 be converted in a few minutes to another very 

 different one without interfering with its sight- 

 liness ; — these and many other problems of 

 museum economy are altogether overlooked. 

 The unit system of the National museum and 

 the systematic registry of the Smithsonian 

 institution are praised but not explained ; 

 while the applications of museums to public 

 educational uses by the special arrangement 

 of their material is very inadequately treated. 

 Although it is true that in this last point our 

 museums have more to show in promise than 

 in fulfilment, we have still not a little to teach 

 Europe ; while America, on its side, has much 

 to learn from such collections, for example, as 

 the Liverpool free museum. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



Miocene deposits in Florida. 



In view of the discussion as to the extent of mio- 

 cene deposits in Florida, it may be of interest to call 



attention to the discovery of the extremely character- 

 istic Ecphora quadricostata by Dr. R. E. C. Stearns 

 at Tampa. The matrix is a compacted fine greenish 

 sand, crumbling under moderate pressure. The lo- 

 cality of the find is on the long rocky point. It is 

 probable that there is a large area in Florida corre- 

 sponding in age to what has been called miocene in 

 Virginia and the Carolinas, and that it includes part 

 of the phosphatic sandstones, as well as the mam- 

 malian and reptilian bone-deposits noted by Jeffries 

 Wyman, Leidy, Neill, and others. 



Wm. H. Dall, U.S. geol. survey. 



Washington, D.C., July 23. 



Abert's squirrel. 



I have read with interest the article in Science re- 

 specting the Sciurus Aberti, from Dr. Shufeldt. 



Sciurus Aberti is not uncommon in northern Col- 

 orado. I have seen it as far north as the Cache a 

 La Poudre River, about 40° 30' north latitude, and up 

 to eleven thousand six hundred feet altitude near 

 Gray's Peak. In this part of Colorado (latitude 39° 

 45' north), and along the South Platte River in the 

 mountains south-west of Golden, I have seen this 

 spring three different individuals, — two of them 

 black; one gray and lighter beneath, with tips of its 

 hair on its back and sides mottled with black. In 

 fact, we see them here from gray to blackish gray, and 

 entirely black, although but little differing in size, 

 and all noticeable by long, tufted ears. It is more 

 terrestrial than arboreal in its habits, and, from 

 its extreme range, cannot be called or considered a 

 southern species straggling northward. Having been 

 in the San Francisco mountains, and in all northern 

 Arizona, I have not seen any S. Aberti as deep black 

 as those in northern Colorado. 



I have mentioned its existence here up to eleven 

 thousand six hundred feet altitude; but I should 

 qualify this statement by saying, that a squirrel in 

 every respect identical with the S. Aberti was seen by 

 me several times at the Loneland Pass, west of Gray's 

 Peak. But it was more than twice its size; indeed, 

 larger than any other species of gray, black, or fox 

 squirrel I have ever shot or seen. Its habitat was 

 near timber-line, feeding on pine-cones, and generally 

 returning to the enormous heaps of disintegrated 

 rocks which seemed its usual abiding-place. I never 

 succeeded in getting a specimen of this rare squirrel 

 at that place. E. L. Berthoud. 



Golden, Col., July 2. 



Color associations ^with the months. 



A lady whom I had the pleasure of visiting to 

 inform myself concerning some curious planchette- 

 writing in which she had participated, has, she told 

 me in answer to ray inquiries, several interesting 

 arbitrary associations of the class which was discov- 

 ered by Mr. Francis Gallon, and of which the num- 

 ber-form is the most familiar example. She had a 

 curious number-form, — a form for the twenty-foUr 

 hours, and another for the months. A sister had 

 likewise various forms, but different from those of 

 the first-mentioned lady. Both said that music al- 

 ways speaks. ' Why, yes ! it speaks, of course,' they 

 both remarked. 



The one to whom I wish specially to refer asso- 

 ciated colors with the months, and in a way which 

 struck me as particularly curious, as it is a jumble of 

 arbitrary and of obviously natural associations. 



