194 



NATUKAL SCIENCE NEWS. 



selves to the rocks. This order 

 comprises the families Spirifer, 

 Athyris, Atrypa, Orthis, and others, 

 most of which we know only by 

 fossil forms. Judging from the 

 numbers found in favorable locali- 

 ties, they must have existed in al- 

 most incredible numbers during 

 the Devonian age. 



The second is almost exclusively 

 represented by the family Lingida 

 now. This order was never very 

 prolific in species though it ante- 

 dates the other and, in fact, is 

 perhaps the oldest form of organic 

 life. They are, with the fucoids, 

 the predominating feature of the 

 Medina Sandstone group of west- 

 ern New York. The valves of the 

 shell are not fastened together at 

 the base and consequently became 

 easily separated, which accounts 

 for the rarity of complete pairs 

 among the fossil remains. The 

 common form of our coast, Lingula 

 pyramidata can be found living in 

 burrows, from North Carolina 

 southward. The ■ representatives 

 of this branch of the animal king- 

 dom have undergone surprisingly 

 little change since the earliest 

 times, Qthe modern forms being 

 quite similar, as far as can be de- 

 termined, to the fossil species. 

 Sometime we will look up another 

 almost extinct order, the Crinoids. 



Ernest H. Short. 



African Volcanoes, 



In 1S91, when Emin Pasha 

 started west from Victoria Nyanza 

 on the journey that ended in his 

 violent death, he and his comrade, 

 Dr. Stuhlmann, were the first 

 white men to see the big mountain 

 Mfombiro, 120 miles from the lake 

 which Capt. Speke, many years 

 before, had placed on his map on 

 native information. They found 

 that Mfumbiro was not an isolate 

 cone, but the most eastern of the 

 hitherto unknown range of volcan- 

 oic origin. Their first purpose 

 was to determine the outlines of 

 Lake Albert Edward, and they did 

 not stop to explode these moun- 

 tains; but Dr. Stublmann sent 

 home an interesting report of the 

 natives that Virunga, the most 

 western summit of the chain, was 

 a fire mountain, from whose top 

 smoke was often seen to issue, and 

 from which noises were heard like 

 the bellowing of cattle. 



On December 8 a cablegram 

 reached Europe from Count von 

 Gotzen, the German Explorer, an- 

 nouncing his arrival on the lower 



Congo, after crossing Africa from 

 east to west. About the same 

 time a letter he had written in 

 central Africa in June last arrived. 

 It contained brief but interesting 

 details of his visit to Mount Virun- 

 ga. There have been reports of 

 plutonic activity among the Rif 

 Mountains, in northwestern Mo- 

 rocco, but the hostile natives have 

 prevented investigation. The sub- 

 terranean forces that formed the 

 great trough and piled up moun- 

 tains of lava and ashes east of the 

 great lakes show, by solfataros. 

 hot springs, and other phenomena, 

 that they are not yet entirely 

 spent. But until the discovery 

 of Mount Virunga no active vol- 

 cano was known to exist in Africa. 



While still far away Count von 

 Gotzen saw a thin column of smoke 

 ascending from the principal cra- 

 ter, and later he found that the 

 rim of this orifice is 11,400 feet 

 above the sea. The volcano, 

 therefore, is not a snow mountain, 

 and is not so tall as its nearest 

 neighbor on the east, which, ac- 

 cording to Stuhlmann, is about 

 13,000 feet high. It took von Got- 

 zen several days to force a passage 

 through the dense forest and to 

 scale the steep mountain side. 

 At last he stood upon the edge of 

 the crater and looking down upon 

 a most interesting spectacle. 



The crater is about a mile in 

 diameter, and the top of the en- 

 circling wall, on which the explor- 

 er stood, is about 160 feet above 

 the crater floor. The inner side 

 of the wall was too steep for com- 

 fortable descent, and in view of 

 what was going on at the bottom, 

 there was absolutely no temptation 

 to make the journey. 



The yellow-hued bottom of the 

 crater floor was as smooth as the 

 surface of a lake, and the explorer 

 believes he was looking down up- 

 on an expanse of molten lava. 

 Above this smooth surface rose 

 the walls of two orifices, as regu- 

 larly formed as though they had 

 been made of masonary. From 

 the more northern of the two ori- 

 fices, which was over 300 feet in 

 diameter, a small volume of smoke 

 was issuing, accompanied by a 

 noise that sounded like the roll of 

 distant thunder. There were un- 

 mistakable indications that outside 

 of this crater another center of 

 eruption exists on the west side of 

 the mountain, but the explorer was 

 unable to push through the woods 

 to reach it. 



For some years a little lake has 

 appeared on the maps some dis- 

 tance south of the place this vol- 



cano has been found to occupy. 

 It is Lake Kivu, seen by no white 

 man until Von Gotzen stood on its 

 shores soon after he had looked 

 down into the smoking crater. 

 He says the lake stretched away 

 before him like a sea, and though 

 it was a clear day, he could not 

 see its southern shores. He be- 

 lieves the lake is almost as large 

 as Lake Albert Edward. Its out- 

 let is supposed to be the Rusisi 

 River, which enters the north end 

 of Lake Tanganyika. 



It is too early to regard the large 

 prizes of African discovery as all 

 won when such interesting and im- 

 portant results reward research as 

 those attained by the latest travel- 

 er across Africa. — N. Y. Sun. 

 - ■ ■» 



The Plymouth Meteorite. 



BY HENRY A. WARD. 



The Plymouth meteorite was 

 found in the year 1893 by Mr. John 

 Jefferson Kyser, while plowing in 

 a field on his farm, about five miles 

 southwest of the town of Plymouth, I 

 Marshall Co., Ind. Mr. Kyser 

 had about the year 1872, found in I 

 the same field another, larger mass I 

 of the same iron. This mass was I 

 pear-shaped, about four feet in I 

 length by three feet in its widest I 

 diameter, narrowing to six or eight I 

 inches at its upper end. It lay for I 

 a year or two so near the surface I 

 of the ground as to be seriously an- I 

 noying in plowing the field. On I 

 that account Mr. Kysey, aided by 

 his son, dug a deep hole by the 

 side of the mass and buried it to 

 the depth of one and one-half to 

 two feet beneath the surface where 

 it should thenceforth do no more 

 damage. 



The account of this I had last 

 June from the son, Mr. John M. 

 Kyser, now city clerk of Plymouth. 

 Mr. Kyser well remembers the cir- 

 cumstance of the finding of a large I 

 piece and assisting his father in I 

 burying the same; and he further I 

 thought that, notwithstanding the I 

 removal of certain landmarks (a I 

 fence and tree) in the field, he I 

 would still be able to locate it very I 

 closely. This he subsequently un- I 

 dertook to do by trenching, but 1 

 was unsuccessful in finding the I 

 mass. I was myself present and I 

 assisted in a further search e -for it 1 

 in September last, using a survey- I 

 or's magnetic needle, with the 1 

 hopes of the same being attracted I 

 to the mass and discovering it, but | 

 all to no purpose. Mr.g Kyser I 

 seems to feel very confident of his I 



