NATURAL SCIENCE NEWS. 



195 



knowledge of the immediate vicini- 

 ty of the mass where he buried it 

 22 years ago, but is unable to prove 

 its presence by rediscovery. Nor 

 has he the aid of another eye-wit- 

 ness, his father having died soon 

 after the original finding and bury- 

 ing as above mentioned. 



The smaller piece, which was, as 

 before said, found in 1883, was pre- 

 sented by Mr. Kyser, Sr., to Mr. 

 W. S. Adams, who, at that time, 

 kept a plow factory in the city of 

 Plymouth. It was retained in 

 their family until last November, 

 when it was brought to Ward's 

 Natural Science escablishment in 

 Rochester, N. Y., by Mrs. Adams, 

 from whom I procured it. 



The mass is a lengthened, tongue- 

 like form, not unlike a rude mound 

 builder's ax. Its greatest length is 

 12^ inches, its width 7^ inches, 

 its thickness in the middle about 

 two inches, from which, in the 

 greater part of its length, it slopes 

 in a somewhat even manner to a 

 thin rounded edge. 



Its surface is deeply eroded by 

 oxidation, so that, although sound 

 and free from scales, it shows no 

 signs of an original crust. The 

 characteristic pittings of meteor- 

 ites are also by the same cause 

 rendered somewhat feeble, although 

 still clearly visible. We have cut 

 a number of thin slices from the 

 mass. These etched in dilute ni- 

 tric acid give very clear Widman- 

 statten figures. There are, further, 

 several small nodules of troilite. 



A careful analysis of this iron 

 has been very kindly made for me 

 by Mr. J. M. Davison, of the Rey- 

 nolds Labratory of the University 

 of Rochester, and I give the same 

 below. 



ANALYSIS OF PLYMOUTH METEORITE. 



Fe 88-67 



Ni 8-55 



Co 0 66 



Cu 0-24 



P.---; 1-25 



Graphite o-n 



S 0-07 



99-55 



This iron, herein briefly noticed, 

 is interesting in many ways, and it 

 is much to be regretted that the 

 large mass, of which the record 

 seems to me to be entirely reliable, 

 cannot be rediscovered. — Amer. 



Jour. , , . , , 



" HAIR UNDER THE "MIUROSCOrif. 



One of the Many Important Factors I» 

 Murder Cases. 



In centuries past the human hair 

 played, an important part in all judicial 

 proceedings. Those that were permitted 



to wear heard and hair nau i. s ..,~ 



could not be claimed by the shorn and 

 shaved. When men made oath, they 

 touched their beard and hair, and wom- 

 en placed the finger tips of the right 

 hand on their tresses. 



Servants were obliged to have their 

 hair cut, and if a freedman went into 

 slavery he had to divest himself of his 

 hirsute adornments. An adult adopted 

 by foster parents was obliged to have 

 his beard shaved and the shaving of 

 beard and hair was a punishment in- 

 flicted on criminals. The jurisprudence 

 of our ancestors dealt with punishment 

 "by skin and hair" for small offenses 

 and "by neck and baud" for greater 

 crimes. 



There has always been more or less 

 superstition about hair. Great strength 

 was implied by it, and wizards and 

 Witches knew of concoctions of hair by 

 which they poisoned enemies. _ Cats' hair 

 was especially named in the category of 

 poisonous hairs," and even at the begin- 

 ning of the seventeenth century Paulus 

 Zacchias, a famous physician, writes of 

 the virulent poison of the hair of cats. 



Among civilized people such supersti- 

 tious beliefs have gone out of existence, 

 and only Malays give their enemies 

 tiger hairs in broth to kill them. 



Hair today, however, is orfe of the 

 important factors in deciding murder 

 cases, and the microscopic examination 

 of hair, where it is found in criminal 

 cases under suspicious circumstances, is 

 invariable. 



The first thing the coroner is called 

 upon to determine is whether the hair 

 is from man or beast. The microscope 

 determines this beyond peradventure. 

 Animal hair differs in construction from 

 that grown on a human head. In human 

 hair the upper ykin is smooth and thin. 

 The circular section is comparatively 

 broad, forming the main part of the 

 hair shaft. It is striped in appearance 

 and carries the color matter. The tubu- 

 lar part is thin, extending to about one- 

 fifth and certainly not more than to 

 one-quarter of the entire width of the 

 hair. 



Animal hair also consists of three 

 parts, but these are differently con- 

 structed, the tube often filling the en- 

 tire hair. The ends of the hair must be 

 closely watched, and especially woman's 

 hair will bo found ragged and torn at 

 the ends. 



The hair from beards is usually the 

 thickest, its diameter being as much as 

 0. 15 millimeters, while hair from female 

 heads can be as fine as a diameter of 0. 0G 

 millimeters would make it.— St. Louis 

 Republic. 



The Most Curious Known Animal, 

 The most peculiar and remarkable 

 animal in the world is the Ornithoryn- 

 chus paradoxus, the famed egg laying 

 mammal of Australia. It is shaped like 

 an otter, ha3 fur like a beaver, is web 

 footed like a swan, has a bill like a 

 duck and a tail like that of a fox. It is 

 the only known fur covered creature 

 that lays eggs. A corresponding oddity 

 among feathered bipeds would be a bird 

 that brought forth its young alive. — St. 

 Louis Republic. 



How a. Tj.ss Grows 



If you with to become thoroughly ac- 

 quainted with the tree's mode of growth 

 the first thing of importance is to keep 

 in view the function of the "cambian 

 layer" — the soft, spongy substance lying 

 between the wood proper and the bark. 

 The pulpy, porous substance is really a 

 tissue of minute cells, visible only un- 

 der the microscope, and apparently all 

 of the same size and shape in any given 

 variety of tree. The cells lying nearest 

 the bark contribute a permanent accre- 

 tion to the tree's covering, while those 

 which lie nearest the wood slowly change 

 from "cambian layer" to real tree fiber. 

 In this way the bark becomes thicker 

 each year, and at the same time the tree 

 itself is permanently enlarged. 



In the spring and early summer the 

 bark on all trees is to a certain extent 

 loosened to permit of the cambian layer 

 exercising its functions, and when this 

 wholly ceases the result is manifest in 

 the "ring" of new wood and the thin 

 layer of newly formed inner bark. The 

 ends of each limb have also grown per- 

 ceptibly — from two inches to two feet, 

 according to the species — but knots, 

 marks, forks, etc. , on tree trunks are no 

 higher from the ground than they were 

 the year before. If some one tells yon 

 that a limb which is now but three or 

 four feet from the ground "will be high 

 enough to walk under when the tree 

 gets its growth," put him or her down 

 as a person knowing but little about the 

 natural history of trees. — St. Louis Re- 

 public. 



Ore Deposits. 



Ingenious theories have from time to 

 time been advanced by scientists relat- 

 ing to ore deposits — the cause, time, 

 manner, etc. — and among the most re- 

 cent and able of these Professor Le 

 Conte may well be ranked. His conclu- 

 sion is that such deposits, using the 

 term in its widest sense, may take place 

 from many kinds of waters, but espe- 

 cially from alkaline solutions, these be- 

 ing the natural solvents of metallic sul- 

 phides, and the latter are usually the 

 original form of such deposits. They 

 may take place from waters at any tem- 

 perature and pressure, but mainly from 

 those at high temperature and under 

 heavy pressure, because, on account of 

 their great solvent power, such waters 

 are heavily freighted with metals, and 

 the depositing waters may be moving in 

 any direction — that is, may be up com- 

 ing, horizontally moving, or even some- 

 times down going, but mainly up com- 

 ing, because, by losing heat and pressure 

 at every step, such waters are sure to 

 deposit abundantly. Furthermore, Pro- 

 fessor Le Conte says that deposits may 

 take place in any kind of waterways, 

 such as open fissures, incipient fissures, 

 joints, cracks and even in porous sand- 

 stone, but especially in large open fis- 

 sures, the latter being the main high- 

 ways of ascending waters from the 

 greatest depths. Deposits may also be 

 found in many regions and in many 

 kinds of rocks, but mainly in mountain 

 regions and igneous rocks. 



