Personal and Scientific News. 63 
pended in boring to this depth amounted to six years, at a 
cost of $52,500. A peculiar experience encountered in connec- 
tion with this and other deep holes in diflerent parts of Ger- 
many is, according to Uriland'S Wochenshrifty that the 
observed temperatures, while steadily increasing with the 
depths, show a smaller ratio of increase in the lower strata. 
The Testimony of Professor Orton, the State Geologist 
OF Ohio, given in a natural-gas case at Toledo, is not calcula- 
ted to pull natural gas very far out of the slump in which it is. 
Natural gas, he said, is now a fixed quantity, its manufacture 
having ceased long ago. Hence the more that is taken out of 
the earth the less that remains to be taken out. With care 
and economy the northwestern Ohio field with the present 
draft upon it will last for from five to eight years, but not for 
ten, he thinks. Three years he gives as the average life of a 
gas well. — Pittshurgh Commercial Gazette. 
Dr. C. E. Bessey,a well known Botanist, is acting chancel- 
lor of Nebraska State University, Lincoln ; Dr. S. H. Peabody a 
zoologist, is chancellor of Illinois Industrial University, Cham- 
paign. These should be added to the list of scientists at the 
head of state universities given on p. 320 vol. iv of the Geolo- 
gist. 
Prof. Franklin R. Carpenter Resigned the Position of 
Dean of the Dakota School of Mines, at Rapid City, in Novem- 
ber, and is engaged in some experiments in pyritic smelting, 
with an iron matte, which are said to promise important ad- 
vantages to the mines in the Black Hills. The position vaca- 
ted bv Prof. Carpenter was filled bv the appointment of Mr. 
Geo. F. Duck M. E., of Bethlehem, Pa. 
Mr'. W. p. Blake, Describes in the Eng. and Min. Jour. 
Dec. 21, another new bituminous mineral, and names it (from 
Dr. Henry Wurtz of New York) Wurtzilite It is from 
Wasatch county, Utah, not far from the source oftheUintah- 
ite, now an article of commerce. 
"The new substance differs essentially from any hitherto 
described. It is a firm, black solid, a little heavier than water, 
and breaks with a brilliant conchoidal fracture, and has a gen- 
eral resemblance to jet or some of the cannel coals. It is scc- 
tile, cutting like horn or whalebone. The shavings and thin 
flakes, or fragments, have a degree of elasticity. These char- 
acters led, at first, in Salt Lake to the supposition and the re- 
port that the substance was allied to caoutchouc, or vulcanized 
rubber. But it was soon found to be without the essential 
qualities of rubber, not having tensile elasticity, and being very 
difficult of solution. It was then for a time referred to the 
species elaterite, the only elastic bitumen described in Dana's 
mineralogy. But a comparison of the subtance with the des- 
cription of the assemblage of dissimilar substances classed 
under the name elaterite shows that it differs from either of 
