266 
tunnel; and they propose to make a secondary tunnel, 
cutting an angle of the S in the natural tunnel. 
There are enormous quantities of marketable tim- 
ber throughout this whole section; cherry, walnut, 
oak, chestnut, poplar, hickory, etc., growing every- 
where. In the extreme south-west of Virginia, fine 
large poplars are found in great abundance. In Shady 
Valley, Tenn., is an extensive forest of several thou- 
sand acres, in which are to be found most magnifi- 
cent pines, straight as an arrow, and many over a 
hundred and fifty feet high. 
The mineral wealth of the country has just begun 
to receive proper attention. Within the past few years 
the well-known Cranberry iron-mines have been 
opened, the ore from which is of very fine quality; 
RHCENT PROCEEDINGS 
Franklin institute, Philadelphia, 
Feb. 20.—Mr. 8. Lloyd Wiegand presented a fur- 
ther communication respecting the use of cast-iron 
in the construction of steam-boilers; illustrating his 
remarks by bursting, under hydrostatic pressure, a 
model of the exploded Gaffney boiler, which had 
been the cause of a protracted legal controversy in 
Philadelphia. Mr. Wiegand protested against the 
Sweeping condemnation of cast-iron as a material for 
steam-boiler heads, and especially deprecated the 
effort that had been made to commit the institute as 
a scientific body, to suit an expression of opinion 
without experimental verification. On Mr. Washing- 
ton Jones’s motion, a resolution was adopted, in 
which the national Congress is urged to appoint a 
commission of experts for the testing of iron, steel, 
and other materials used for structural purposes, and 
to make a suitable appropriation for the work of the 
commission. —— Mr. David Cooper exhibited a re- 
markably fine suite of specimens of direct life-size 
camera portraits, admirably illustrating the progress 
which has lately been made in dry-plate photography. 
These pictures were taken with dry plates prepared 
by the Eastwick dry-plate company of New York. 
Canadian institute, Toronto, 
Feb. 16. — Prof. J. Playfair McMurrich read a paper 
on the osteology of Amiurus catus, one of a series 
on the morphology and development of that fish. 
The paper treated particularly of the high specializa- 
tion of Amiurus, as instanced by the small amount of 
cartilage in the skull, and by the great modification 
of the maxillae and of the pectoral and dorsal fins. 
Princeton science club, 
Feb. 14. — Professor George Macloskie reported his 
researches on the tracheal organs of insects, by which 
it appears that their spiral filaments are not independ- 
ent structures, but crenulations or inward foldings, 
with thickening of the chitinous wall; that the spi- 
rals are really tubular, fissured at the line of infold- 
ing, and continuous with the enclosing wall. The 
SCIENCE. 
) 
and it is claimed that the same body can be traced, 
almost continuously, far north into Virginia. There 
are several copper-mines in the north-western part of 
North Carolina which await only the influx of capital 
to produce in large quantities. Gold has also been 
found in this section in small amount. 
Throughout that part of south-western Virginia 
lying north-west of Clinch Mountains, coal is found 
in almost every ridge, and, at Pocahontas, is mined in 
large quantities. Copper and iron have also been 
found scattered throughout this section. This region 
needs only railroad facilities to become one of the 
richest districts in the east. It can supply coal and 
timber in enormous quantities; and, from all accounts, 
iron and copper mining would also be profitable. 
OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 
function of aeration is discharged by air passing, not 
through the wall into the blood, but directly to the 
tissues by lung-like terminal cells, long ago described 
by Louis Agassiz, and shown by Max Schultze to be 
especially abundant near the luminous organs of the 
glow-worm. 
Prof. H. F. Osborn reported, that in the opossum, 
unlike the kangaroos, the superior and inferior mes- 
enteric arteries and coeliac axis arise from a common 
trunk above the renal arteries, — a reduction similar 
to that found in the monotremes. 
Prof. W. B. Scott stated that the hind-foot of the 
American miocene Enteledon shows, like the Euro- 
pean, the third and fourth metatarsals greatly en- 
larged, the second and eighth very rudimentary. The 
third is borne entirely by the external cuneiform; 
the middle cuneiform is very small, and coalesced 
with the external cuneiform; and the internal is very 
narrow, and articulates above with the navicular, and 
below with a hook-like process of the third metatar- 
sal. The rudimentary second metatarsal is wedged 
in between the middle and internal cuneiforms. This 
type of foot corresponds to Kovalevsky’s ‘ inadaptive 
type of reduction,’ nearly half of the bearing-surface 
of the tarsus being unemployed. 
Dr. McCay called the attention of the club to a let- 
terin the last number of the Jahrbuch fur mineralogie, 
from Professor Sandberger of Wurzburg. In a pam- 
phlet which appeared recently in Germany, McCay 
had attacked Sandberger respecting his alleged dis- 
covery of the rhombic modification of speiskobalt. 
McCay has proven that the honor of the discovery is 
due to Breithaupt of Freiberg; and Sandberger, con- 
vinced by the ample evidence, has in his letter ad- 
mitted the correctness of the. arguments advanced, 
and signified his readiness to withdraw his name 
‘spathiopyrite,’ and to substitute in its place the Breit- 
haupt term, ‘safflorite.’ Dr. McCay further reported 
upon eight analyses of argillaceous limestones, sev- 
eral of which seemed admirably fitted for making hy- 
draulic cement. 
Prof. C. G. Rockwood and Mr. Fine gave synthetic 
[Vou. IIL, No. 56. 
