Natural S«e News. 



VOL. I ALBION, N. Y., DECEMBEK 21, 1895. No. 47 



Natural Science News. 



A Weekly journal Devoted to 

 Natural History. 



FRANK H. LATTIN, Editor and Publisher, 

 ALBION, N. Y. 



Correspondence ana Items of interest to the 

 student of any of the various branches of the 

 Natural Sciences solicited from all. 



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The Ruined Gila Cities. 



( Continued from last week. ) 

 Much of the country is very lit- 

 tle higher than the present bed of 

 the Gila, and at one time a branch 

 of that stream must have flowed 

 into a basin and formed a natural 

 resorvoir. There was a rise of 

 about ten feet greater at one point 

 between the basin and the river, 

 and the sandstone formation shows 

 unmistakable signs of having been 

 cut by artificial means, perhaps 

 with the idea of assisting the en- 

 trance of the water by enlarging 

 the passage. Five canals lead out 

 of the basin, all on the south and 

 west, which confirms the belief 

 that it was once a resorvoir formed 

 chiefly by natural causes, and used 

 to store water against the periods 

 of drought. The prehistoric city 

 is laid out north and south, at 

 least, in a majority of instances 

 the streets run to the cardinal 

 points. The walls seem to vary a 

 little from this rule; in fact, are 

 crooked in places, as if they might 

 have been constructed for the sup- 

 port of bastions or towers. This 

 city and the one containing an old 

 fort further down the river are the 

 only ones in which the writer ever 

 found any evidence of preparation 

 for war. It seems as if the races 

 who lived in this Gila country 

 were either so numerous that they 

 feared no attack or they had no 

 enemies with which to contend. 

 South of Phoenix, on the mesa, 

 are the ruined corrals or stock 

 pens in which their animals were 

 kept. Many finds prove the pur- 



pose for which they were used. 

 What the animals were is not so 

 easily determined. On slats found 

 in ruins south of the Salt River are 

 splendid figures of llamas. In the 

 ruins that have best withstood the 

 exposure of the ages many inter- 

 esting specimens of the creamic 

 art have been found. Ollas of all 

 shapes and sizes, urns containing 

 the ashes of the dead, and jars 

 partly filled with parched corn 

 and beans are found in a remark- 

 able state of preservation. It 

 seems as if the entire city had been 

 swept by a flood and the earthen 

 house melted down, or the}' were 

 shaken by an earthquake and top- 

 pled into a thousand fragments, 

 giving the inhabitants barely time 

 to escape. Few of the skeletons 

 that the amateur diggers in the 

 ruins have taken out show signs of 

 mutilation or have broken bones. 

 The people appear to have died of 

 suffocation or some natural cause 

 that left no mark upon the frame. 

 In working in several spots where 

 bones have been found deeper dig- 

 ging has brought to light large 

 quantities of bone dust as fine and 

 light as gunpowder. In one spot 

 near Tempe. several tons of bone 

 dust have been found recently, ly- 

 ing in what appears to have once 

 been a trench some seventy feet long 

 and two deep, nine feet below the 

 surface of the sun-baked earth. 

 The edges of the deposit of bone 

 dust were broken and uneven, so 

 that it could not mark a place of 

 burial. Does it consist of the re- 

 mains or animals or is the dust 

 that of humau beings? If the lat- 

 ter, was it the result of funeral 

 rites, or were the bodies deposited 

 there by some great Hood that 

 came over the land without a 

 warning? The majority of the 

 skeletons discovered in the Gila 

 Valley are in good condition, and 

 it is therefore not easy to reconcile 

 this fact with the finding of the 

 great deposits of bone dust. — New 

 York Sun. 



The Formation of Coal. 



Carbon is the principal element 

 in the composition >T coal. A 

 good specimen of Lard dry anthra- 

 cite would show from gi to 98 per 

 cent, of carbon. The average an- 

 thracite of commerce, know tech- 

 nically as semi-anthracite, would 

 show from 85 to go per cent., and 

 the bituminous and semi-bitumin- 



ous varieties would range all the 

 way from 50 to 85 per cent. The 

 amount of volatile matter contain- 

 ed increases from three per cent, 

 in the anthracites to 38 per cent, in 

 the bituminous species. The con- 

 duct of these different kinds of coal 

 in combustion gives practical em- 

 phasis to the difference in compo- 

 sition. The anthracites burn with 

 a small blue flame of carbonic oxi- 

 de until thoroughly ignited, give 

 off no smoke, and leave a compar- 

 atively small percentage of ashes. 

 The bituminous classes, on the 

 other hand, burn with a continuous 

 yellowish flame, give off consider- 

 able smoke, and leave a large per- 

 centage of ashes. 



That coal is a vegetable product 

 may be specifically proved. In- 

 deed, ocular demonstration may be 

 had of that fact. For while to the 

 naked eye the structure of a frag- 

 ment of mineral coal is purely 

 amorphous, yet if that fragment be 

 made so thin that it will transmit 

 light, and if it be then examined 

 through a powerful microscope, its 

 vegetable structure will be readily 

 distinguished. Heat, pressure and 

 confinement have produced the 

 transformation. It is simply a 

 process of smothered combustion. 

 The operation may be watched in 

 any peat bog. A peat bed is simp- 

 ly an accumulation of the remains 

 of plants which have grown and 

 decayed, and have been year by 

 year buried more deeply under suc- 

 ceeding growths. Remove the up- 

 per layer, and you find peat with 

 its 52 to 66 per cent, of carbon. 

 The deeper you go, that is, the 

 older and longer buried the pro- 

 duct, the better will be its quality 

 for fuel. If this process of deposi- 

 tion should continue through many 

 geologic ages, the result would 

 doubtless be true coal. 



It is known that during the car- 

 boniferous age the area now cover- 

 ed by the Middle, Southern and 

 Western States was little more 

 than a vast marsh burdened with 

 the most luxuriant vegetation. The 

 conditions were all favorable for 

 the rapid and enormous growth of 

 plants. The soil was rich and 

 moist. The heat was greater than 

 exists to-day at the torrid zone. 

 The humidity of the atmosphere 

 was great and constant. The air 

 was laden with carbon. Plants 

 luxuriated in it. They grew to 

 enormous sizes. Plants which in 

 our day are mere stems, a fraction 



