May 14, 1886.] 



SCIENCE. 



439 



stand, even now (supposing that Mr. Berlin's copy of 

 my letter is correct), how the incorrect statement 

 that the academy had bought such pipes, and paid 

 such high prices for them, could have occurred un- 

 observed. The boy who wrote the letter for me must 

 have misunderstood me, and from my ignorance of 

 the English language I overlooked this error. It 

 may be, that, not attaching much importance to 

 this letter, I may have sent it without first examin- 

 ing or looking it over. 



In regard to the relics in question, it is impossible 

 at present for me to determine whether those which 

 Mr. Stevens claims to have received from me are 

 actually the objects which I have sent him ; for I 

 have not seen them as yet, and for the present shall 

 have no opportunity, as Mr. Berlin has informed you 

 that he could not send them for my inspection with- 

 out the consent of Mr. Stevens. On the contrary, 

 Mr. Stevens says that they no longer belong to him, 

 but to Mr. Berlin. 



Immediately on receiving your first communication 

 on this matter, I resolved to send back to him the 

 arrow-heads received in exchange, and to request 

 him also to return those which he claimed were not 

 genuine to me. Mr. Stevens returned the package 

 to me, and refused to give me back those which he 

 claimed I had sent to him, with the excuse that they 

 were no longer in his possession, as he had given 

 them to Mr. Berlin. Hence obviously it is impossi- 

 ble for me to determine as to the correctness of the 

 statements made by those gentlemen concerning said 

 relics. Their refusal to allow me to inspect the 

 objects is very strange and perplexing to me. 



As Mr. Stevens informs us that many of the relics 

 I sent him were thrown out in the yard on a pile of 

 other rejected relics, and have been lying there some 

 years exposed to the weather, it is no wonder they 

 became, as he says, considerably changed in appear- 

 ance, and the labels lost. Under these circumstances, 

 and after so long a time, it must have been very diffi- 

 cult for him to select the relics in question, and to 

 distinguish them with certainty from those received 

 from other sources in his extensive exchanges. I 

 have no doubt, if I could see the relics, I should 

 recognize many or most of them, unless they have 

 been so changed by Mr. Stevens as to be no longer 

 recognizable. Until this opportunity is afforded, 

 the present account of the transaction must suffice. 



That the intention or the thought of having any 

 thing to do with doubtful relics, or of deceiving any 

 one with them, was far from my mind, will, to you, 

 scarcely require any special assurance from me. 



J. Gass. 



Postville, Io., April 10. 



The above is a correct translation from the Ger- 

 man of a communication written by Rev. J. Gass to 

 Charles E. Putnam, Esq., bearing date April 10, 1886. 



Carl L. Suksdorf. 



Wm. Kiepe. 



Davenport, Io., May 4. 



What was the rose of Sharon ? 



An interesting question is renewed, in a late num- 

 ber of the Edinburgh review, on ' What was the rose 

 of Sharon V It is very possible that some of the 

 readers of Science may be able to throw further 

 light upon the subject, or at least give trustworthy 

 opinions as to the merits of ' crocus,' ' narcissus,' or 



' reed.' The extract is, I hope, of sufficient interest 

 to merit republication : it is as follows : — 



" The 'rose of Sharon ' has long been a disputed 

 point. The Hebrew word khabatseleth occurs only 

 in Canticles ii. 1, and Isa. xxxv. 1. The Revised 

 version reads 1 rose ' in the text, and ' autumn 

 crocus ' in the margin. We are of opinion that the 

 narcissus (N. tazetta) is intended. The scene of the 

 Canticles is in the spring, when the narcissus would 

 be in blossom : it is very sweet, has long been and 

 still is a plant of which the orientals are passionately 

 fond. Hasselquist noticed it on the plain of Sharon ; 

 Tristram, in cultivated land and lower hills from 

 Gaza to Lebanon ; Mr. H. Chichester Hart, in the 

 districts between Yebdna and Jaffa (plain of Sharon). 

 ' Some low-lying patches,' he says, ' were quite 

 white with it.' The October quarterly statement 

 (Palestine exploration fund) contains a valuable 

 paper by Mr. C. Hart, entitled ' A naturalist's jour- 

 ney to Sinai, Petra, and South Palestine, made in the 

 autumn of 1883.' The autumn crocus has no per- 

 fume, and would not be in bloom till late in the year. 

 The narcissus is a bulbous plant, which is apparently 

 implied in part of its Hebrew name ; i.e., betsel (a 

 ' bulb,' an ' onion ' ). But quite a different plant has 

 very recently appeared as the claimant to the honor 

 of being the ' rose of Sharon : ' an Assyrian plant 

 name is introduced to us by Dr. F. Delitzsch. Among 

 the names of different kinds of kanu ( ' reed ' ) and 

 of objects made of it, occurring on a tablet in the 

 British museum, and published in ' The cuneiform 

 inscriptions of western Asia,' mention is made of 

 one called khabatsillatu, which in sound is identical 

 with the Hebrew name in Canticles and Isaiah ; so 

 that Dr. F. Delitzsch, without a moment's hesitation, 

 upsets all other floral aspirants with one decided 

 blow, and reads 'reed of Sharon,' 'the desert shall 

 rejoice and sprout like the reed.' " C. W. T. 



Thermometer exposure and the contour of the 

 earth's surface. 



Various writers during the last hundred years, and 

 perhaps earlier, have called attention to the marked 

 differences of temperature which are frequently to 

 be found in clear weather between hill-tops and 

 adjacent valleys. Recently Hann and Woeikof in 

 Europe have written numerous papers on the sub- 

 ject ; and in this country instances have been given 

 by J. W. Chickering, jun., and S. Alexander (Ameri- 

 can meteorological journal), Professor Mendenhall 

 (Science), Professor Hazen (Professional paper of the 

 signal service, xviii.), and Prof. W. M. Davis (Ap- 

 palachia). But attention has not generally been at- 

 tracted to the bearing these differences of tempera- 

 ture have on the subject of thermometer exposure. 



My attention was drawn to the subject by the 

 marked differences of temperature which were re- 

 ported by different observers at Ann Arbor, Mich., 

 during the cold period of the winter of 1885 ; and, 

 in order to study the subject, a regular series of 

 observations were begun between the astronomical 

 observatory at Ann Arbor and an adjacent valley 

 through which ran the Huron River. The bottom 

 of the valley was about a hundred and fifty feet 

 lower than the land on each side of it, and was about 

 a quarter of a mile distant from the side on which 

 stood the observatory. The method employed was 

 to obtain the temperature at the observatory by 

 means of a sling thermometer ; then descending the 



