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Cincinnati Society of Natural History. 



ground form, but to give some clue to the particular kind of suppression 

 or modification which has taken place. 



The group belongs specially to the Deep Sea Fauna, and seems to thrive 

 best among the elements of nascent limestones. The Euplectella, as we 

 see it in collections, is simply the skeleton of the. sponge, the soft, gelatin- 

 ous coating having been removed. The skeleton is composed of silicia and 

 resembles a delicate fabric woven in spun glass. It is in the form of a 

 slightly curved tube, contracted downward and expanding upward to a 

 wide circular mouth, edged by an elegant frill. The mouth is closed by 

 a wide-meshed, netted lid. The walls of the tube are formed by a number 

 of parallel longitudinal bands of glassy silicious fibers, closely united to- 

 gether by a cement of silica, and a series of like bands running around the 

 tube and thus cutting the longitudinal bands at right angles, and forming 

 a square-meshed net. The corners of the squares are then filled in with a 

 minute irregular fretwork of silicious tubing, and the openings in the wall 

 of the sponge become rounded. Ornamental ridges of the same fine fret- 

 work are arranged in irregular spirals on the outer surface, and round the 

 bottom of the tube a fringe of glistening threads of silica rises four or 

 five inches long. The Glass Sponges have no commercial value, probably, 

 except as curiosities, and were no doubt intended to represent the aesthetic 

 side of Nature. 



Authorities Quoted : Figuier, Hartwig, Gosse, Haeckel, Milne-Edwards, 

 Wyville Thomson, etc. 



A BRIEF SKETCH OF THE FLOODS IN THE OHIO RIVER. 

 By Walter A. Dun, M. D., M. R. C. S. 



Read before the Society, July I, 1884. 



The excessively high water, which we have all recently witnessed in the 

 Ohio River, renders even a brief and necessarily incomplete consideration 

 of the causes which produce it, very interesting. The daily papers, in 

 answer to popular wish, have been filled with accounts of the vastness of 

 the great overflow and sad tales of suffering, havoc and devastation. The 

 editorial pages have not been silent. In almost every issue for a couple 

 of weeks, in February last, they attempted a full and complete explanation, 

 enumerated the causes and suggested a remedy, at least so far as this city 

 is concerned. 



In the multitudinous array of causes thus enumerated or among the 

 numerous theories advanced, it would, indeed, be strange if the true ones 



