VOL. I 



No. 49 



Natural Science News. 



A Weekly Journal Devoted to 

 Natural History. 



FRANK H. LATTIN, Editor and Publisher, 

 ALBION, N. Y. 



Correspondence and Items of interest to tut 

 student of any of the various branches of. tht 

 Natural Sciences solicited from all. 



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Tree Ages. 



Gericke, the great German fores- 

 ter, writes that the greatest ages to 

 which trees in Germany are posi- 

 tively known to have lived are 

 from 500 to 570 years. For in- 

 stance the pine in Bohemia and the 

 pine in Norway and Sweden have 

 lived to the latter age. Next comes 

 the silver fir, which in the Bohem- 

 ian forests has stood and thrived 

 for upward of 400 years. In Ba- 

 varia the larch has reached the age 

 of 275 years. Of foliage trees, the 

 oak appears to have survived the 

 longest. The best example is the 

 evergreen oak at Aschoffenburg, 

 which reached the age of 410 years. 

 Other oaks in Germany have lived 

 to be from 315 to 320 years old. 

 At Aschoffenburg the red beech 

 has lived to the age of 245 years, 

 and at other points to the age of 

 225 .years. Of other trees, the 

 highest known are ash 170 years, 

 birch 160 to 200 years, aspen 220 

 years, mountain maple 225 years, 

 elm 130 years and red alder 145 

 years. 



The Lava of Idaho. 



Ages ago a vast river of fire 

 poured down the center of the 

 State of Idaho. This river consist- 

 ed of molten lava, was 400 miles 

 long, 100 miles wide, and from 300 

 to 900 feet thick. Across the cor- 

 pse of this mighty river of fire a 

 river of water has slowly cut a 

 channel in several places. Born 

 in the melting snow of the majestic 

 Tetons, this river has cut its way 



for hundreds of miles through lava 

 beds, in its course tumbling over 

 numerous precipices until the great 

 climax is reached at Shoshone 

 Falls, where this mighty river 

 makes an awful leap of 210 feet, a 

 magnificent spectacle, in marked 

 contrast to the desolate country on 

 either side. 



Plants of the Alpine Region. 



The peculiar forms assumed by 

 plants of the Alpine region, offer- 

 ing excellent material for truly geo- 

 graphical study, are described en- 

 tertainingly by G. Bonnier (Les 

 plantes de la region alpine, et leurs 

 rapports avec le climat, Ann. de 

 geogr., Paris, iv. 1895, 393— 413). 

 The plants are dwarfed, the stalks 

 are low, the leaves are close to 'the 

 ground in rosettes or tufts, the 

 roots are large in proportion to the 

 stalks and leaves; new individuals 

 are often propogated from runners, 

 so that the ripening of seeds need 

 not be depended on. Growth be- 

 gins before the snow of winter en- 

 tirely disappears, and during the 

 short summer advance is made 

 rapidly to maturityjdifferent phases 

 of growth being abbreviated and 

 their succession accelerated. 

 While accounts of these peculiar 

 features are used to intensify the 

 appreciation of the average temper- 

 ature of the Alpine region, of the 

 long-continued presence of its snow 

 cover and of the brevity of its open 

 summer, they property belong un- 

 deri geography; but when they are 

 followed by experiments on plants 

 of the same species grown at high 

 and low levels, and on minute ob- 

 servations of modifications of 

 structure at high levels, the sub- 

 ject assumes a decidedly botanical 

 flavor. Botanists as well as geo- 

 graphers will therefore find inte- 

 resting matter in Bonnier's account 

 of his gardens in the Alps and the 

 Pyrenees, where for some years 

 past he has cultivated plants taken 

 from lower lands. The figures il- 

 lustrating the difLA.nce between 

 plants grown fr^m two parts of a 

 single rootstock, one in the Alps, 

 the other in the lowlands, are par- 

 ticularly instructive from the re- 

 markable modifications of the nor- 

 mal form produced by the Alpine 

 habitat. — M. W. Davis in Science. 



The Brachiopods. 



Like the crinoids, the Brachio- 

 pods of today are but the remnant 

 of what was once (notably in the 

 Silurian age) a vast family. 



Cosmopolitan in the extreme, 

 they once swarmed in the waters 

 of both hemispheres, nearly 2,000 

 fossil species having been discov- 

 ered. While many families have 

 entirely disappeared, still, in Fere- 

 fratulina and Lingula we have rep- 

 resentatives of the two great sub- 

 divisions or orders of this class. 

 First those with hinged and tooth- 

 ed shells and second those with 

 valves of shell entirely separate 

 and not toothed. 



Now, before we go any further, 

 what is a Brachiopod? You pick 

 up one of the common fossil spe- 

 cies of Spirifcr Orthis or Arthyris, 

 found in the quarries; especially at 

 Penn Yan, N. Y. and certain local- 

 ities in Ohio and Indiana: and say, 

 "Look at the shell turned into 

 stone!" and then probably ninety- 

 nine people out of every one hun- 

 dred would connect it in their 

 minds with the common clam and 

 similar bivalves. But Science 

 will not agree with you here. Care- 

 ful investigation on living speci- 

 mens of modern forms has shown 

 a closer affinity with the common 

 earth worm than with our true 

 shells or molluscs. Therefore 

 they have been placed in the fifth 

 branch of the animal kingdom, 

 Vermes or worms. Worms with a 

 shell, truly they would seem enti- 

 tled to a place of their own, be- 

 tween the worms and true mol- 

 luscs. However, for that matter 

 there are molluscs (notably the 

 Octopus) which have no shell, and 

 for convenience, if nothing else, 

 we must draw the line somewhere. 

 So we leave our Brachiopod where 

 we found him — viz: — A highly spe- 

 cialized type of worm living in a 

 shell. 



The first order of this class — i.e. 

 ■ — those with hinged shells, has 

 given us the greater number of 

 species. In most cases the shells 

 are inequivalve — one valve being 

 larger than the other. The com- 

 monest species with us is Terebra- 

 tulina septentrionalis, which means 

 "Little borer of the north." It is 

 found commonly from Cape Cod 

 to the Bay of Fundy. The base 

 of the larger valve is perforated 

 for the passage of the peduncle or 

 "stem" by which they fasten them- 



