When Darwin brought us out of the difficulty it was largely by a study of the experience of breeders. This was analogous to the establishing of a new and vast biological laboratory for scientific experimentation and never before was such a profound change brought about in a dogma of science by a study of an economic art.

All the earlier stud books and herd books were prepared and published by private individuals as any other book might be produced by a compiler and author. Now they are mostly published by associations clothed with authority and having wider aims. They record and publish pedigree, define methods and conditions for establishing their authenticity, and fix the standards which dictate what the essential characters of the breeds shall be. Nearly every useful breed has now some such association, publishing an authorized stud book, herd book, flock book, or register of some kind; the total number of such works aggregates hundreds if not thousands of volumes.

It is in fancy breeding that the most wonderful results are produced and some of the most instructive facts are found. The economic factor is here often entirely eliminated, and mere whim or fancy guides the experiments. Fanciers had their associations and set their standards long before the breeders of the more useful farm animals did, and to that Darwin turned his attention. He joined He joined various pigeon societies, put up his cotes, became a practical and experimental fancier and mingled with his fellow fanciers, drawing on their rich stock of knowledge and experience.

A result of all this has been a better knowledge of the laws of heredity and of the causes which promote variation. A science of breeding now underlies the practical art. A pure science is relatively exact in the proportion in which it enables us to predict events, its economic applications are valuable in the proportion in which it enables us to control results. The breeder of to-day controls results with a success his ancestors never dreamed of.

The practical result is that the economic production of animals is now placed on a very much surer foundation, excellence is made more uniform, the chances for failure are enormously lessened and the methods of improvement placed on a philosophical basis.

The gain to science has been correspondingly great and numerous unsolved problems in biological science find here their material for use. Economical and social science, also, here find a field for experiment and deduction. Science will therefore be the gainer in the future as truly as in the past.

NOTE ON THE BURIED DRAINAGE SYSTEM OF THE UPPER OHIO.

BY RICHARD R. HICE, BEAVER, PA.

In reading the discussion of the buried river channels in western Pennsylvania, by Professor J. C. White,* the impression is left with the reader that none of the tributaries of the Ohio and Big Beaver rivers have buried channels, but that all are flowing over undoubted rock bottoms, at, or within a short distance of, their mouths.

At the time Professor White examined this district, (1876) there was, in some cases, apparently ground for this belief, though a careful examination of other streams would have thrown much doubt on the correctness of this conclusion. Recent developments, however, have demonstrated in some cases that buried channels exist, and the nature of the surroundings in other cases, render the conclusion that the apparent rock bottom is real, a mistake. Passing up the Ohio and Beaver from the Ohio State *Second Geol. Survey Penna. Vols. 2, 22.

line, we first reach the Little Beaver. A short distance from its mouth we apparently find a rock bottom as described by Professor White,† but in building the abutments of a bridge near this same point, a depth of fifty feet was reached without finding rock. A depth that closely corresponds with that of the Ohio, which here lies on the southern side of the present valley. Near Cannelton, also, a number of miles up the valley of the Little Beaver, a well has been recently driven fifty feet through gravel without finding rock and abandoned.

Raccoon Creek, coming into the Ohio from the south, flows at its mouth through a narrow rock gorge, but below the present mouth there is a gravel terrace for about a half mile, and there is ample room for a buried channel. Passing up this stream there does not seem to be a rock bottom, except at its mouth, for several miles. The pres

ent channel makes a sharp turn up the Ohio at its mouth, while the gravel terrace, reaching on its river front at least to low water, lies in the direct course of the creek, and reaches back to the point where the course of the creek changes.

Two Mile Run, a comparatively small stream, flows through a narrow gorge in the ferriferous limestone, for about a quarter of a mile above its mouth, but passing above this gorge, it flows over a gravel bottom, parallel with the Ohio, for about a mile, at which point it leaves the valley, and enters a narrow gorge, in which no rock is found in the bed of the run for about two miles. The direct course from the narrow gorge to the Ohio, is blocked by a gravel terrace, which reaches below the present river level.

Passing up the Beaver, we first reach Brady's Run. This stream, at its mouth, also runs over a rock bottom; but, in the erection of a bridge at its mouth, it was discovered that the present channel lies immediately beside a buried one, the rock dropping off precipitously, and a well one-half mile up the stream has been driven fifty feet to rock, in a location that does not seem to be the middle of the buried channel. This well is at a point where the bounding bills rise 100 feet plus and 350 feet plus, respectively.

Connoquenessing Creek, for the four lower miles of its course, flows in a narrow rock gorge, and at one point, about one-fourth mile from its mouth, it is now flowing over a rock bottom. Above this gorge, the stream flows in a much older valley, with no indication of a rock bottom. As yet no outlet has been found for this stream into the buried channel of the Beaver, but the thick covering of morainic material makes any examination very uncertain in its negative results.

These are the principal streams, and the evidence, though not yet conclusive in all cases, clearly shows that no reliance can be placed on an apparent rock bottom at or near the mouth of the stream; indeed the Beaver itself flows over a rock bottom within two hundred yards of its mouth, as well as at three other points within less than five miles of its mouth, yet no stream has a better defined buried channel; and also shows that the time of the erosion of the buried channel was not so short as some have claimed on the supposed evidence of the absence of buried channels of the tributary streams, but was long enough to admit of the erosion not only of the main lines of drainage, but of many of the tributary channels as well.

MESSRS. P. BLAKISTON, SON & Co. announce that Dr. George M. Gould, already well known as the editor of two small medical dictionaries, has now about ready an unabridged, exhaustive work of the same class, upon which he and a corps of assistants have been engaged for several years.

†2, page 16.

SCIENCE:

PUBLISHED BY N. D. C. HODGES, 874 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.

SUBSCRIPTIONS TO ANY PART OF THE WORLD, $3.50 A YEAR.

To any contributor, on request in advance, one hundred copies of the issue containing his article will be sent without charge. More copies will be supplied at about cost, also if ordered in advance. Reprints are not supplied, as for obvious reasons we desire to circulate as many copies of SCIENCE as pussible. Authors are, however, at perfect liberty to have their articles reprinted elsewere. For illustrations, drawings in black and white suitable for photo-engraving should be supplied by the contributor. Rejected manuscripts will be returned to the authors only when the requisite amount of postage accompanies the manuscript. Whatever is intended for insertion must be authenticated by the name and address of the writer; not necessarily for publication, but as a guaranty of good faith. We do not hold ourselves responsible for any view or opinions expressed in the communications of our correspondents.

Attention is called to the "Wants" column.

It is invaluable to those who use it in soliciting information or seeking new positions. The name and address of applicants should be given in full, so that answers will go direct to them. The "Exchange" column is likewise open.

CORN CANE.*

BY F. L. STEWART, MURRYSVILLE, PA.

THE numerous varieties of maize now grown throughout the United States may conveniently be divided into a few general groups, easily distinguishable by the form and qualities of the grain.t

The most prominent of these are the Dents (white and yellow). Flint, Popcorn and the so-called sweet varieties. Since all sorts, however unlike otherwise, conform to the principle that the arrested development of the seed at the period above indicated, produces sugar accumulation in the cells of the stalk, and since it has been found that the sugar percentage is about the same in all at corresponding periods, it follows that the choice of the sugar planter, among the different kinds, must rest upon the most vigorous and well developed of the large-stemmed varieties that will mature their juice in any given locality. The people of our more northern States make a mistake in regarding the hard-glazed or "Flint" varieties of field corn, which are largely grown in that climate, as the best types of the species, naturally, and as bearing the best commercial type of the grain. Our western growers have already established a different standard, one which obtains now for American corn throughout the world and comes almost exclusively from the "Dent" group.

The best representatives of the species, both as regards vigorous growth and the nutritive qualities of the grain, are undoubtedly the large southern varieties, white and yellow. Maize is naturally a sub-tropical plant, but being an annual, ripening within a single season, our peculiar summer climate enables us to grow it to perfection under directly sub-tropical conditions; and in proportion as the Dent corn of the west and southwest approaches the southern type more closely in luxuriance of growth and the softer quality of the grain, does it increase in productiveness and nutritive value.

Among the different races of corn now existing the matured grain varies wonderfully, both in external qualities and composition, ranging from the "sweet" corn, with its permanently soft grain, richly charged with readily soluble food materials, on the one hand, to the "Flint" corn of New England on the other, yet the ear of the latter, in its immature stage, is but slightly different in com

position and quality from that of the immature sweet

corn.

It is not a little remarkable that this period of arrested development is the only period when the grain of all varieties may be said to have a common character. Experiments in stock feeding, as well as analytical results, show that it is then also in its most availably nutritious condition.

This stage now proves, also, to be a turning point in the life and economic use of the individual plant, when an alternative is significantly presented to the choice of the grower. The prompt separation of the ear at this stage conditions the full development of the sugar and the prolonged existence of the plant. But if the grain be allowed to glaze nothing can avert the almost immediate death of the plant and, excepting the seed, the destruction of the whole organized structure.

In the former case the result is equally certain and absolute. The saccharine development may be depended upon to go on until it has reached its limit, and it is as fixed and constant an attribute of the whole species as it is in the maturing joints of the sugar cane itself.

It remains for me only to indicate, in the briefest way possible, what is necessary now, practically, to make sugar manufacture a success from this new source.

First in importance is the answer to the question what varieties to plant that are best for this use. No one sort can be named which is equally well adapted for all localities, even in the main central corn belt of the United States. Everywhere in that region the period of juiceripening is naturally brought to an end only by the frosts. Corn cane is nearly as sensitive to severe cold as the sugar cane, and throughout that region generally the aim should be to plant such varieties as will develop the milky condition of the grain by the 20th of August, so as to insure a period of two weeks for sugar accumulation by the first week in September, when the manufacturing season for the main crop would regularly begin. The following well-known sorts sufficiently matured their juice last season early in September, and most of them can be recommended for this use from Ohio westward and southward, ranking them in that region in the order named:

1. Large Southern White or Virginia fodder corn. 2. Burpee's Golden Beauty, a highly improved and well established variety of the yellow Dent.

3. Chester County Mammoth. 4. Kansas Yellow Dent.

5. Early Mastodon Dent.

The first named is the best ensilage corn grown, and wherever it will mature its ears to the roasting ear condition in August it will have the preference in sugar manufacture on account of its great productiveness and the richness of its juice. Golden Beauty has been tested from the outset of these experiments in 1884, and with the very best results. Like all the rest named, its stems are very robust, well developed stalks when trimmed weighing three pounds.

After these, but not ranking with them at all in productiveness, Stowell's Evergreen-Egyptian and Mammoth Sugar, among the sweet corn group, may be named. Their juice is not superior to that of field corn in any quality. I have no question that by selection and inter-crossing a variety of sweet corn will yet be produced which will be as productive of grain for canners' use as any that we now have and equal to the field varieties in robust stemgrowth. For the sugar crop, no special preparation of the soil is needed other than is commonly required to produce a heavy crop of field corn. The seed should be sown in drills three and a half or four feet apart, and thickly enough for the plants to stand about ten inches apart in the row.

Experiment has proved that a yield of fifteen tons per acre of trimmed cane from the large southern corn is, under these circumstances, an average result.†

The use of bone phosphate, and especially nitrate of potash, applied in the hill as fertilizers, is strongly to be recommended. Also, the best labor-saving implements should be employed in the cultivation of the crop. These have so far proved their value as to have reduced the cost of corn-growing within the past twenty years by about fifty per cent.

The ear should be allowed to develop until the grain has reached the "milky" stage, but never in the least beyond it, and when field corn is grown, first the ears in the husk, and subsequently when the stalk is cut, the tops, leaves and other offal should be passed through an ensilage cutter and treated precisely as ordinary ensilage. Or, when special facilities have been provided for it, the grain on the cob, with the husk removed or not, may be kept apart by itself, and after being coarsely crushed, or cut into small pieces, may be fed in that condition or dried and ground as feed for stock. In this form it is much superior for cattle food to the ordinary corn and

cob meal.

To facilitate the removal of the ears the corn field, when planted, may be laid out in lands or sections of about eight rows in each, with an interval of about five feet between the outside rows of adjoining sections, so as to admit of the passage of a short-axled cart drawn by a single horse or two in tandem to carry off the grain. This will be done, and the ears in the husk properly cut and stored in the silo, or dried and ground, before the sugar season has properly begun.

At this time it is important that every vestige of an ear should be removed from the stalk; and, thenceforward until they are cut to avoid injury from frost, every day adds to the accumulation of sugar in the cells of the standing canes. But in climates where the growing season is short, or, as sometimes occurs further south, unusual cold sets in early in the fall, it is better to avoid the risk of injury to the crop by harvesting it about two weeks after the removal of the ears, when the juice will have attained a density of about 8° Beaumé, containing about thirteen per cent of cane sugar.

Trustworthy evidence that this yield of corn cane per acre from the large-stemmed sorts is below the average is furnished in the reports from the different State Agricultural Experiment stations of the yield for ensilage when accurately weighed. Up to the period at which it is usually cut for that purpose, the conditions of growth are essentially the same as when sugar-growing is the ultimate object.

At that stage an average of about twenty-five per cent must be deducted from the gross weight of green ensilage for the weight of the immature ears, blades and tips. The remainder is to be estimated as trimmed cane.

Some examples are given below of the yield in districts well known to be less favorable for the growth of the large, late sorts than the more central parts of the corn belt.

Yield per acre:

43,700 lbs. (21.85 tons) southern "Ensilage" corn, 42,060 lbs. (21 tons) southern "Horse Tooth."-Prof. W. A. Henry, Wisconsin Ex. Sta. Report, 1891.

50-60 tons "Southern Fodder Corn," 32 tons "Mammoth," 30 tons "Southern Horse Tooth," Native Yellow Flint, only 15-20 tons.-New Jersey State Expt. Sta. Rep., 1881.

27.37 tons "Orange Flint."-N. Y. Ex. St. Rep., 1885.

40 tons "Southern" corn and "Blount's Prolific."—J. J. H. Gregory, Marblehead, Mass.

29 tons "Southern" corn.-T. S. Peer, Palmyra, N. Y. J. J. Chaffie, Passaic, N. Y.

30

44

27.5 tons "Blount's Prolific."-F. E. Loud, Weymouth, Mass. 46 tons or 600 tons on 13 acres. -Clark W. Mills, Pompton, N. J.

50 tons "Kentucky White."-Geo. L. Clemence, Southbridge, Mass. ; quot. H. J. Stevens on ensilage.

25 tons per acre on 15 acres.-F. R. Coit, Mantua Sta., O. 20 to 25 tons "Penna. Dent."-Ralston Bros., Elderton, Pa.

If properly stored so as to be screened from the sun and rain in a cool place, the canes can be worked up within about ten days after cutting without appreciable loss. But if warm weather prevails, the interval should be as short as possible between the time of cutting and working up.

The internal structure of the corn stem is peculiar, so much so as to make the extraction of the juice from the canes by the ordinary sugar mill practically impossible. These structural peculiarities, as disclosed by the microscope and as evidenced by numerous practical tests for the extraction of the juice, make it plain that other means must be resorted to than pressure between revolving rolls to extract the cell sap.

Corn cane yields to pressure much more readily than the sugar cane or sorghum, but the elasticity of its tissues is such and the recovery so sudden after passing the line of pressure that fully one-half of the expressed juice is mopped up before it can leave the roll or the guide plate and is re-absorbed.

No other plant is capable of being exhausted of its cell contents more rapidly or thoroughly by diffusion; but the expense of that process is very considerable and its inconvenience very great. It was seen that the economy and efficiency of any system of sugar making from this plant must depend largely upon the construction of a machine which would separate the juice expeditiously and without waste. It was at last found that a sufficiently simple apparatus could be constructed by which the benefits of both milling and diffusion could be secured without any of the prominent defects of either system when separate. Special mention is made here of these facts for the reason that the only practical difficulty peculiar to this plant, in the extraction of its sugar, is thus easily overcome.

Sugar making from this or any other plant is both a science and an art, and the general principles upon which it depends are now well understood. The composition of the juice of corn cane is somewhat peculiar,‡ but not sufficiently so as to require any considerable deviation from the best systems of sugar manufacture now in vogue for the treatment of the raw juice of the tropical cane.

I conclude this sketch with a brief summary of the results reached, leaving the intelligent reader to draw his own conclusions. But it must be said, that if we would now reach any just estimate of the saccharine value of maize, in this new role, we must remember that all previous attempts to determine it were made without any knowledge of the important physiological principle upon which that value solely depends and which this investigation has now disclosed.

From a system of treatment which takes advantage of this in a practical way it follows:

1. That the highest normal of sucrose or true cane sugar in the juice, seven to eight per cent, is raised to thirteen to sixteen per cent, or almost doubled.

2. This is accomplished by a true juice-ripening process, analogous in all respects to that which marks the maturing sugar cane. It is natural to the plant under the changed conditions and is constant in all varieties of the species.

3. Its rank as a sugar-producing plant, under these circumstances, having thus been accurately determined, and a wide range of experiments undertaken to test the practicability of sugar extraction having proved that no hindrances thereto exist that are at all comparable to those met with in the case either of the sugar beet or of

Corn cane juice contains an organic acid previously detected only in corn silk (maizenic acid). A peculiar protein body Zein long ago found in the grain, is also found in the juice, together with several others not thoroughly investigated.

sorghum, the chemical constitution of its juice approaching more closely that of the tropical sugar cane than any other, the term corn cane here used to distinguish the plant when in this condition of development will, I trust, not seem to be misapplied.

4. The utilization of the plant in this way is the most thorough and perfect possible, because it takes advantage of the fact that the development may be so controlled as to secure from the same individual plant at two different periods of its existence: first, the grain product, when in its most nutritive and assimilative condition to serve as feed for animals, or as bread food, and second, and conditioned upon the first, a matured condition of the highly organized substances in the cells of the living stalk, and their safe storage there for an indefinite time, a full crop of sugar being thus easily attainable as the result.

5. No risk is run by the grower in producing corn cane, because it is at his option, up to an advanced stage of its growth, to choose whether he shall harvest it as a grain and sugar crop combined, or as ensilage simply, or as the ordinary product, the hard ripe grain.

6. To secure a healthy and luxuriant growth and a full crop of any of these products the requirements as to climate, soil, tillage, the use of fertilizers, etc., during the true growTable:-Relative composition of the juice of "corn cane"

for ensilage alone, or for use as dried fodder, secured by the timely removal of the ears and the curing of that part of the crop separately, is of scarcely less general importance than when sugar-growing is the main object.

9. It is evident, also, that the full limit of this enrichment has not yet been reached. The capacity of Indian corn, for rapid improvement through judicious selection and hybridization, gives promise of securing new races possessing still more valuable qualities for sugar production than are found in any now existing.

10. Among the benefits which the establishment of the sugar industry from maize will confer upon American agriculture, a prominent one will be to check over production of the hard-ripened grain. When it is known that from the same plant equally valuable products in other forms are regularly attainable, which, being substituted for the ordinary staple, will secure the benefits of a wholesome limitation to the production of the latter, the area devoted to the growing of the plant will profitably be enlarged to any extent to meet the enormous capacity of our western soils to produce it.

In giving to the public these conclusions it is, perhaps, scarcely necessary to add that the motive of this investigation was simply to fix the value of maize, under the new conditions, as a sugar-producing plant.

and sugar cane.

*Gill's analysis, quoted from Allen's Organic Analysis, Vol. 1, p. 261. (1885.) +U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bulletin 18.-Wiley. (1888.) ing period, are almost precisely the same in all cases. No new system of agriculture. is necessary to be inaugurated to make sugar-growing at a profit a success, no new plant is to be acclimatized before its merits can be tested, but following a system of culture with which we are familiar, making one simple but radical change only in the routine, we have practically a new plant in the new uses that it serves. 7. It follows from this that the cost of sugar-growing from this new source, ought to fall much below the average cost of producing it from any other plant. This is still more evident if we consider that the sugar crop from corn is capable of being brought to full maturity in a relatively short period, as compared with either that from the sugar cane or the beet; that a ton of trimmed corncane, bearing at least as high a sugar percentage as the sugar beet, can be grown here at about one-half the cost of a ton of beets, not counting the immature grain and fodder ensilage produced along with it. The latter represents an added value almost equal to that of the sugar for which the sugar cane furnishes no equivalent whatever, and neither the beet nor sorghum any that will bear favorable comparison with it.

8. The enrichment of the juice of the corn plant grown

82.70 83.10 83.08 84.80 82.60 83.00 83.46 84.20 83.80

Disparagement of the earnest efforts that have for many years been made, and are still being made, to make beet sugar growing in this country successful, has not been thought of. But it must be remembered that every industry dependent upon plant growth and development for its existence must have due respect to the peculiar conditions of climate and soil prevailing in the country where it is proposed to establish it. It is now well known that the climatic limits of successful maize-growing on this continent are very wide, and those restricting the beet for employment in sugar manufacture are quite narrow. Here, as elsewhere, the foundations of success are laid in natural laws. And one thing seems clear: the typical sugar plant for America must be one possessing the robust health and all the qualities which are supposed to spring from being "native and to the manor born," and which, while meriting and needing, perhaps, the fostering care of the home government as the basis of a new industry, at the start, yet must prove its ability to stand alone, unsupported by a bounty or any other merely adventitious aid.

THE METEOROLOGICAL CONGRESS.* MONDAY, August 21st, at ten A. M. the congresses of the Department of Science and Philosophy of the Congress Auxiliary of the Columbian Exposition were formally opened at the Memorial Art Institute of Chicago with an address of welcome by the President, Mr. C. C. Bonney, followed by responses from representatives of the various 'special congresses. At the close of this general session the different divisions met in rooms assigned to them, the Division of Meteorology, Climatology and Terrestrial Magnetism meeting in room XXXI, in which the regular sessions were held daily from 10 A. M. to 2 P. M. from August 21st to August 24th.

The chairman of the Congress not being able to be present in person the first day, Prof. F. H. Bigelow, representing Prof. Mark W. Harrington, opened the session at eleven A. M. of the 21st with a few words of welcome and a statement of the objects of the Congress.

The Congress had no legislative authority. The main purpose, as previously announced, was to collect together a series of memoirs "outlining the progress and summarizing the present state of our knowledge of the subjects treated," and to print them in full in the English language.

The meetings, while thus making the reading and discussion of papers a matter of secondary importance, were by no means lacking in interest or profit to those who were present. But few of the papers could be read in full, owing to their great number and the absence of many of the authors. In all about 130 papers were read by title, in abstract or in full, forming a most valuable collection of memoirs prepared by writers of authority in their respective lines of research.

Among so many papers of merit, a simple list of which would occupy several pages, individual mention cannot be fairly attempted.

While the papers were read in general session, they were assigned, in the program, to various sections, according to the subject, each section being placed in charge of a responsible chairman.

Section A. Prof. C. A. Schott, U. S. Coast Survey, and Mr. H. H. Clayton, U. S. Weather Bureau, Chairmen. The papers of this section are devoted to instruments, their history and relative merits, and to methods of observation, especially to methods of observing in the upper air. Section B. Prof. Cleveland Abbe, U. S. Weather Bureau, Chairman. This section is the most extensive in its scope, dealing mostly with questions in dynamic meteorology; much attention is given to the study of thunderstorm phenomena in various countries.

Section C. Prof. F. E. Nipher, Washington University, Chairman, comprises a series of sketches of the climate of different portions of the globe.

Section D. Major H. H. C. Dunwoody, U. S. Army, Chairman, is devoted to the discussion of the relation of the various climatic elements to plant and animal life.

Section E. Lieut. W. H. Beehler, U. S. Hydrographic Office, Chairman, deals with questions relating to marine meteorology, particularly to ocean storms and their prediction, methods of observation at sea, and international co-operation. During the reading of a paper on the work of the Hydrographic Office of the Navy, Lieut. Beehler had on exhibition a fine bust of Lieut. Maury by the sculptor Valentine, of Richmond, Va.

Section F. Prof. Charles Carpmael, Director of the Canadian Meteorological Service, and Mr. A. Lawrence Rotch, Director of the Blue Hill Observatory, Chairmen, comprises papers relating to the improvement of weather

*Held at Chicago, August 21st to August 24th, 1993.

services and especially to the progress of weather forecasting.

Section G. Prof. F. H. Bigelow, U. S. Weather Bureau, Chairman, deals with problems of atmospheric electricity and terrestrial magnetism and their cosmical relations. Section H. Prof. Thomas Russell, of the U. S. Lake Survey, Chairman, has to do with rivers and the prediction of floods.

Section I. Oliver L. Fassig, Librarian U. S. Weather Bureau, Chairman, is devoted to historical papers and to bibliography, with special reference to the history of meteorology in the United States.

Prof. Mark W. Harrington, Prof. F. H. Bigelow, Capt. P. Pinheiro, of Rio Janeiro, and Lieut. W. H. Beehler successively presided over the meetings. The printed program distributed at sessions of the Congress contains a list of all papers presented; copies of this may be obtained from the Secretary upon application.

At the close of the last session a resolution was offered calling for recommendations by the Congress relating to (a) international co-operation in observations of auroras, (b) simultaneous Greenwich noon observations daily at all stations on land and sea, in addition to observations at other times, (c) investigation of the earth's magnetic polar current and the exact determination of the solar rotation. As the Congress had no legislative authority, it was agreed to hold a special session for the consideration of these questions after adjournment, on the following day. Preparations have been begun for the printing of the papers and an effort will be made to complete the work at an early date. Oliver L. Fassig, U. S. Weather Bureau, Washington, D. C., is the Secretary.

SALT TIDE MARSHES OF SOUTH JERSEY.

BY JOHN GIFFORD, SWARTHMORE COLLEGE, PA.

THE mainland of the peninsula of South Jersey is fringed by many miles of marsh meadow. At times this level plain is completely covered by water. It consists of a mass of soft blue-black, bad-smelling mud, covered with a thick sod of grasses, rushes and sedges, and intersected by many winding, reed-fringed creeks, shallow bays, salt ponds and thoroughfares.

These marshes are separated from the ocean by a long line of low, sandy sea-islands, between which there are inlets through which the tides flow swiftly.

This stretch of marshland is of very recent origin. During Indian times it was probably a shallow sea. This accounts, perhaps, for the enormous quantities of clams and oysters which then existed. The majority of the bays in the marshes are very shallow and may, also, in the course of time, become unfit for oysters.

The rivers of South Jersey holding fine sand in suspension flowed into an ocean where there was practically no current. This material was then, in consequence, deposited, and there was thus formed a long sub-marine bank. This tripped the waves into breakers, which lifted the sand into a long line of low sea-islands.

The combined estuaries of these rivers formed a long, shallow inland sea, in which, owing to the slackening and meeting of currents, enormous quantities of silt were deposited. Wild water-fowl and winds disseminated the seeds of grasses and sedges on the mud bars, which were soon formed. The decay of each year's vegetation and the scum of mud left by every tide caused a gradual thickening of the sod. Three hundred thousand acres of marsh region have thus been recently formed.

Being an estuary, the scouring force of the tides prevents the formation of extensive beaches on the bay side of Jersey. The sand is held in suspension until the cur