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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. PROGRESS IN SANITARY SCIENCE IN MASSACHU SETTS. BY GEORGE W. FULLER, LAWRENCE, MASS. THE State Board of Health of Massachusetts, in addition to the ordinary duties devolving upon such a Board, have made much progress during the past six years in the study of many important problems in sanitary science. In 1886 the Legislature made provisions (Chap. 274 of the Acts of 1886) that "the State Board of Health shall have the general oversight and care of all inland waters. Said Board shall, from time to time, as it may deem expedient, cause examinations of the said waters to be made for the purpose of ascertaining whether the same are adapted for use as sources of domestic water supplies or are in a condition likely to impair the interests of the public or persons lawfully using the same, or imperil the public health. It shall recommend measures for prevention of the pollution of such waters, and for removal of substances and causes of every kind which may be liable to cause pollution thereof, in order to protect and develop the rights and property of the Commonwealth therein and to protect the public health. It shall have authority to conduct experiments to determine the best practicable methods of purification of drainage or disposal of refuse arising from manufacturing and other industrial establishments. For the purposes aforesaid it may employ such expert assistance as may be necessary. "It shall from time to time consult with and advise the authorities of cities and towns, or with corporations, firms or individuals either already having or intending to introduce systems of water supply or sewerage, as to the most appropriate source of supply, the best practicable method of assuring purity thereof or of disposing of their sewage, having regard to the present and prospective needs and interests of other cities, towns, corporations, firms or individuals which may be affected thereby. All such authorities, corporations, firms and individuals are hereby required to give notice to said Board of their intentions in the premises, and to submit for its advice outlines of their proposed plans or schemes in relation to water supply and disposal of drainage or refuse." The Legislature in 1888 made further provisions (Chapter 375 of the Acts of 1888) that "all petitions to the Legislature for authority to introduce a system of water sup ply, drainage or sewerage, shall be accompanied by a copy of the recommendation and advice of the said Board thereon." In compliance with these provisions there was established by the Board an engineering department, whose main work may be divided into two classes: (1) The examination of proposed plans or schemes of water supply or sewerage submitted by the various cities and towns; (2) the examination of existing water supplies and inland waters of the State with reference to their purity. With regard to the work of the first class it is to be noted that from July, 1886, when the act relating to water supply and sewerage first went into operation, up to January 1, 1893, there have been received 228 applications for advice. In the course of the investigations, instituted to develop the facts required as a basis for sound advice to the cities and towns, many valuable data have been obtained. The capacity, when fully developed, of sources of water supply drawn from ponds, lakes and streams, has been studied individually and in relation to the future needs of the great centres of population. Probable and comparative costs of different systems have been made; drainage areas have been surveyed, records of rainfall, temperatures, rates of increase of population and of consumption of water per capita have been kept and studied. All of these data have not only been of aid in the past but are also of great value for future reference. Beginning in June, 1887, monthly analyses have been made of water from all the water supplies of the State, and of the more important rivers and other inland waters. At the outset every public water supply was visited by the engineers of the Board; a description and history of the different works were obtained; places for taking samples of water were chosen, and methods to be followed were explained to local officials. Much information was also gathered with regard to the physical characteristics of the water supplies, such as the density of population on drainage areas, amount of polluting matter entering the streams, volume of water flowing, and temperatures of water. In addition to the chemical analyses which are made in the laboratories of the Board in Boston, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, examinations are made of the grosser forms of microscopic life, with the view to establish the relation between the micro-organisms and odors present in certain drinking waters. Bacterial analyses are also made from time to time. Carefully prepared reports have been made of the results of these investigations. An idea of the nature of the work done can perhaps be best learned by looking at the following list of subjects, which are among those discussed in the annual and special reports: A Summary of Water Supply Statistics. Pollution and Self-Purification of Streams. Dissolved Oxygen in Waters of Ponds and Reservoirs at Different Depths. Effect of Aeration of Natural Waters. The Relation of Organisms and Odors in Natural Waters. The Seasonal Distribution of Organisms. In 1887 the Board established an Experiment Station at Lawrence. The object of this was to learn how to purify sewage and water. The Station was designed and its work planned by Mr. Hiram F. Mills, A. M., C. E., chairman of the Committtee of the Board on Water Supply and Sewerage. Experimental filters were constructed of different mate rials, such as would be found in suitable filtration areas throughout the State. Each filter, however, consists of a single material. The experiments were so conducted as to throw as much light as possible upon the laws of filtration. The degree of purification of sewage and of water by the sands of different coarseness, the quantities,which the different materials are able to purify, the best method of operation of filters of different construction, and the treatment necessary under varying conditions arising from different lengths of service of the filters and from the effects of weather have been investigated. Much attention has been given to the physical characteristics of materials which govern their action as filters. The open space between the sand grains, the capillarity and the frictional resistance to the passage of water, etc., have been determined for many materials. Knowing, from the results of these experimental filters, the degree of purification of sewage and of water effected by each of a series of materials ranging from fine loam to coarse gravel, and having formulated the physical characteristics of these materials which govern their action as filters, it is now possible, by studying the physical characteristics of materials sent to Lawrence by cities and towns desiring to adopt filtration, to predict with reasonable accuracy what their efficiency will be as filters. From this it will be readily seen that these investigations do away, in a large measure, with the experimental nature which would otherwise be attached to the operation of large and expensive filter plants. The object of the Lawrence Experiment Station, in short, is to study the laws of filtration with a view to economy. In regard to the efficiency of filtration, it may be stated, in passing, that sewage can be applied to areas of coarse (mortar) sand 5 feet deep, at a rate of 120,000 gallons per acre daily, with a removal of 95 per cent of the organic matter and germs in the applied sewage. With finer sand the purification is still more complete, but the quantity which can be successfully treated is less. By means of chemical precipitation it is possible, under the most favorable conditions, to remove only from one-half to twothirds of the organic matter from sewage. One of the most important points in water purification is the removal of disease-producing germs, since it has become clearly established that high death-rates from diseases, caused by germs which can live in water, result largely from drinking polluted water. The results of the Lawrence experiments show that it is possible to construct filters which will purify at least 2,000,000 gallons of water per acre daily and remove more than 99 per cent of the bacteria in the unfiltered water. The theory of filtration and a large amount of information upon the actual operation of filters have been presented in the annual reports of the Board and in the special report upon Purification of Sewage and Water, -a volume of 881 pages. 1890 Large sewage filters are in successful operation at Framingham, Marlborough and Gardner, in this State, and others are in the process of construction. A large filter, also, to purify the water supply for the city of Lawrence, is nearly completed. It is interesting to note the increasing confidence with which this work of the Board is regarded by sanitarians and engineers, not only in this State but throughout the United States and in foreign lands. The advance in methods of analysis is worthy of note, and more especially in the interpretation of the results of analysis. Old methods have been improved and new ones devised, as well as some pieces of apparatus, which it is believed are not to be found outside the laboratories of the Board-except at their exhibit in the Anthropological Building at the World's Fair. ASEPSIS PREVENTION BETTER THAN CURE. BY ALBERT S. ASHMEAD, M. D., NEW YORK. THERE is a singular agreement of precept between some of our new philosophical schools and the doctrine of the Orientals as to our duty to the race in case of disease. The doctrine of our philosophers, teaching the survival of the fittest, and our duty to the race, not to interfere with the eliminating operations of nature, is not put into practice, and considering that Christianity is our religion and is not looking forward at present to any imminent decline, it is not likely to pass into practice for some time to come. The Orientals criticize Christianity because it seems unduly and undutifully occupied in counteracting the decrees of nature, by saving, with fostering care, individuals of the race, preserving in hospitals all that ought to perish, and heaping up, so to speak, the sweepings of nature, to perpetuate moral and physical uncleanness. True, they also are anxious to build hospitals; but if they were let alone perhaps they might build them only for animals, whose races are not important enough to make it a pity that disease and vice should be allowed to be transmitted among them from generation to generation. Wherever the Oriental spirit has developed on its own lines, it has endeavored to eradicate the human weed, to sweep away all human influences detrimental to mankind, whether they be represented by disease or by crime, always ready to sacrifice any man to the interest of men. The leper was cast out to die with his disease in unpitied misery and solitude; the beggar, unable to earn his bread or support his family, was excluded from help and intercourse of any kind; what could the race expect from his seed? What is the use of amputating a limb which tuberculosis or syphilis or leprosy is gnawing at? Why should his seed be preserved to perpetuate his rottenness? Why should we so tenderly humor the madman, use infinite care and infinite treasures of knowledge, and miracles of skill, to bring the diseased brain into a condition which makes the man innocuous, tolerable, while yet he can never be normal, rational, useful; his brain fibre is degenerated and should not be transmitted to future gen erations. When we Westerners discovered the bacterium we thought that here we had the cursed cause of all disease, and forthwith began to give her chase or to lay siege to her citadel. The Oriental may have thought dimly: Wherever you are, O, Microbe, you are in the state where Providence has placed you and must do her behests. Yours is the empire of the abnormous, the morbid, the destructive. Whatever part of creation you establish yourself upon is by your very presence stamped as bad, unhealthy, undeserving of existence. Therefore stay in your domain, we do not envy it to you. Eat up what belongs to you, it can do us only harm. These Eastern populations believe in fate; they are the true Stoics. What is written, is written, Kismet. If we are doomed to be cut off by cholera we shall not escape it, and the fear of the inevitable shall not prevent us from plunging our limbs into the lethal waters of the Ganges, or quenching our thirst in the Mecca pools. And what does it mean, that our own people, not very long ago, considered the use of vaccine as being an interference with the will of Providence. They called Providence what in the Orient we call fate. It would seem that medicine in general is just the opposite of this magnificent supineness: the physician tries to save his individual, let what may become of the race; there is another kind of recklessness, not supine like the Oriental, but busy and officious. would be a much higher task, if, instead of waging war against the bacillus, who has invaded an individual, medicine should find means to obviate and suppress the bacil lus, or its development, or its culture, before it invades the race by the individual, that is, should create in the organism such conditions, should produce such constitutions, as would not allow of the existence of these microscopical pestilences. That would be asepsis instead of antisepsis. Here is what asepsis has to do. It stands at the fountain head, its mission is to keep the spring of life free from impurity. Let a commission, or whatever body of scientific information and action, go to Russia, to the original habitat of the typhus germ, oppose the development of its colonies before they begin their trip around the world. The first thing to do will probably be to improve the condition of the Russian Jew. Prevent the Hindoos from poisoning themselves with their holy water, with which they drink the blessing of cholera. Enact laws to isolate the syphilitic and the tuberculous. Prohibit the marriage of such. Let the congenitally incurable die before puberty: it is better that the offending limb should be lost than that tuberculosis, syphilis, leprosy, etc., should spread through the whole body. Let the healthy, the temperate, the moral, alone have the inheritance. A correct life is the most perfect asepsis, and insures an immunity with which the burnt infant's immunity, known as such, cannot compare. THE "GOPHER FROG." BY FREDERICK CLEVELAND TEST, U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM, WASHINGTON, D. C. THROUGH the kindness of Mr. H. G. Hubbard, of Crescent City, Florida, I am enabled to make a note on the habits of the "gopher frog," Rana areolata œsopus, Cope. This form seems to be so rare in collections that so far the only specimen reported as having been identified with this sub-species is the type in the National Museum, from Micanopy, Florida, and described by Professor Cope in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society for 1886. I have been unable to find any published mention of its habits, which are peculiar. It appears to be almost entirely subterranean in its habits, living in the holes and burrows of the "gopher" turtle, Gopherus polyphemus, in conjunction with it, and apparently on the best of terms. Roughly described, it is grayish green, with thirty-five or forty ragged black spots arranged in four or five irregular longitudinal rows on the back, and grading off into smaller spots on the flanks, while the legs are barred with about fifteen half-rings of black. from the thighs to the toes. Beneath it is white, with the throat marbled with very dark brown. The body is rather flat, with wide head and sharp-pointed snout, and the two dorso-lateral ridges, together with indicated folds between them, are greenish brown. The size is about that of a small "leopard frog," Rana pipilus, or the "swamp frog," Rana palustris, to which last it is closely related, although individuals are said to have been seen weighing two or three pounds. But those must have been huge toads, noticed by persons unable to distinguish between them and the frogs, or too unobserving to make the distinction. Its food has not been ascertained, from dissection of the stomachs of freshly captured specimens, but as these frogs are rarely seen away from the burrows, it is probable that they feed on the insects living in the burrows, for the holes possess a flourishing insect fauna, to a great extent peculiar to them. On cloudy and rainy days the frogs sit at the mouths of the burrows-as many as three have been found in a single burrow-but on the approach of a human being dive down out of sight, and as the holes are from 12 to 20 feet in length, and 7 or 8 in vertical depth at the end, digging the frogs out is no easy matter, especially as the sandy soil has a tendency to cave in on the excavator. But the frogs may be successfully angled for with a fishing line and small hook baited with a grasshopper. In the fact that the burrows usually or always go down to water, may be found an explanation of the frogs inhabiting them, and the facility of procuring insect food therein may be an additional inducement, as well as their being safe hiding places. Nothing seems to be known of the habits of the other varieties of the species, of which also but few specimens are known, Rana areolata areolata, from Texas and Georgia, Rana areolata capito, from Georgia, and Rana areolata circulosa, the "Hoosier frog," found in Indiana and Illinois. It is to be hoped that further observations will be made upon this interesting species, and additional specimens collected. ALTITUDE AS THE CAUSE OF THE GLACIAL PERIOD. BY WARREN UPHAM, SOMERVILLE, MASS. Among the numerous difficult questions which are now being investigated and discussed by glacialists, none seems more important or worthy of attention than the cause, or the causes and conditions, which produced the Glacial period, with its very exceptional accumulation of ice-sheets upon large continental areas in the north and south temperate zones. Climatic conditions like those to-day prevailing in Greenland and on the Antarctic continent, both now covered by ice-sheets whose central portions are several thousands of feet thick, then prevailed in North America as far south as to Long Island, New York, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Bismarck and Seattle, reaching to a more southern latitude in the moist eastern half of the United States than in its mostly arid western half. Likewise Scandinavia, Great Britain south to London, Germany south to Berlin, and the northwestern half of Russia, were enveloped by ice. The glaciers of the Alps, too, of other European and Asiatic mountain ranges, of the Rocky Mountains, and of the mountains of New Zealand, were far more extensive than now; and in South America a broad ice-sheet covered Patagonia. Three chief theories have been proposed to account for the great climatic changes made known to us by the extent of these areas of glacial drift. During the past twenty years all glacialists have been greatly interested in the astronomic theory of Dr. James Croll, so ably advocated by him in his volume, "Climate and Time," and by Prof. James Geikie in "The Great Ice Age," attributing the ice accumulation to climatic conditions attendant upon an epoch of maximum eccentricity of the earth's orbit. American glacialists, like those of Great Britain and continental Europe, were several years ago very generally inclined to think that this was a true and sufficient explanation. At the present time, however, a majority of the advanced students of this subject, at least in America, doubt that this theory is applicable to the observed facts of glaciation. For, in accordance with Dr. Croll's view, glacial periods should be recognizable with geologic frequency through the earlier Tertiary and Mesozoic eras, where, on the contrary, evidence of glacial conditions is wholly absent or exceedingly scanty, being wherever it is known probably referable to Alpine rather than continental glaciers. Besides, it seems within the past ten years to be fully ascertained that the time since the disappearance of the ice-sheets of North America and Europe has been only 6,000 to 10,000 years, whereas if they had depended on the astronomic causes mentioned their departure must have occurred some 80,000 years ago. A second theory, accounting for the Glacial period by changes in the position of the earth's poles, and consequently in the latitude of the countries glaciated, which was first proposed by Sir John Evans in 1866, has therefore lately attracted the favorable consideration of some American glacialists, and in Europe has been championed by Nansen in his very interesting work, "The First Crossing of Greenland." This theory supposes that within so late a part of the earth's history as the Ice age, the north pole may have moved to the region of southern Greenland and returned, giving in the period of its digression glacial conditions for all the lands adjoining the North Atlantic Ocean, and the same for the antipodal, then south polar, portion of the globe. A small observed variation of latitude, discovered several years ago by German and Russian astronomers, seemed to give a foundation for this view, but within the past two years the brilliant investigations of Dr. S. C. Chandler, showing that these variations are of very small amount and in two short periods, one of fourteen and another of twelve months, while no appreciable secular change of latitude can be recognized, leave to us no basis for this theory of the cause of accumulation and disappearance of ice-sheets. The third theory, which the writer believes to be applicable, sufficient and acceptable for all the observed facts of the Glacial period, attributing the ice-sheets to high altitude of the drift-bearing countries, has also been long under consideration, having been first suggested in 1855 by Dana, but failed until recently to receive adequate appreciation on account of the supposed geologic improbability of sufficiently high uplifts of so extensive portions of the earth's surface. During the past few years, however, this neglected theory has received full attestation by independent evidence, apart from the facts of glaciation, that these countries, and also other parts of the terrestrial coast, have been, in the same late geologic era which includes the Ice age, raised thousands of feet above their present height, to altitudes doubtless having so cool climate as to bring snowfall during nearly the entire year, the most favorable condition for the formation of ice-sheets. This evidence consists chiefly in the very great depth found by soundings in fjords and the submarine continuations of river valleys, where streams flowed formerly and eroded their valleys, showing these lands to have then stood far higher than now. The Hudson River channel is traced somewhat more than a hundred miles out to sea, to a maximum depth of 2,844 feet. Similar depths are known by the United States Coast Survey and British Admiralty soundings, as Prof. J. W. Spencer has pointed out, for the former continuation of the Mississippi and St. Lawrence rivers and in the entrance of the Gulf of Maine, between Cape Cod and Nova Scotia. All about our northern and Arctic shores, from Maine around to Puget Sound, abundant fjords prove the land to have been formerly much elevated. On the coast of California, submarine valleys discovered by Professor George Davidson, of the U. S. Coast Survey, reach to depths of 2,000 to 3,120 feet; and Professor LeConte has shown that they are of late Tertiary and Quaternary age, probably contemporaneous with the submerged valleys of our Atlantic coast, and closely associated with the Glacial period. In the fluvial deposits of the Mississippi River, laid down while the icesheet was being formed, Professor E. W. Hilgard finds evidence that the interior of our continent northward, about the sources of the Mississippi, was then uplifted not less than 3,000 feet above its present height. Likewise the fjords of Scotland and its adjacent island groups, and especially the much deeper fjords of Scandinavia, prove for that glaciated region an altitude thousands of feet higher than now, the maximum depth of the Sogne fjord, the longest in Norway, being stated by Jamieson as 4,080 feet. In the same way, New Zealand and Patagonia, formerly glaciated, are remarkable for their abundant, long and branching fjords. But the most surprising known submerged continuation of any river valley is that of the Congo, which, according to Mr. J. Y. Buchanan, is determined, by soundings for a cable to connect commercial stations on the west African coast, to be about eighty miles long, descending to the profound depth of 6,000 feet below the sea level. The Congo valley, only about four hundred miles south of the equator, proves that the epeirogenic uplifts, causing glaciation, were not limited to drift-bearing regions. Where the uplifted areas were in so high latitudes, both north and south, that their precipitation of moisture gave snowfall during all, or nearly all, the year, they began to be covered by snow, which became consolidated below into ice and grew in depth to hundreds and thousands of feet. Why the earth during the Glacial period was extraordinarily deformed for comparatively short periods by great epeirogenic movements of elevation and correlative depression of other tracts, is a more fundamental and not less difficult question, for which I have attempted an answer in an appendix of Wright's "Ice Age in North America," ascribing these movements to stress stored up previous to its relief by the folding, overthrust and upheaval of mountain ranges. This explanation, although diverging widely from formerly assumed conditions of continental stability, seems yet well consistent with Dana's doctrine of the general permanence of the continents and oceanic basins. NOTES ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF SOME OF THE CONIFERS OF NORTH-WESTERN CANADA. BY J. B. TYRRELL, OF THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. THE following observations on the limits of some forest trees were made while conducting geological surveys in the interior of northwestern Canada, in the country extending from Lake Winnipeg northwestward to the Athabasca River. White Spruce (Picea alba) is the most important timber tree of this whole region. It occurs throughout the heavily wooded districts from Riding and Duck Mountains, in northern Manitoba, northwestward to the great forest region between the Saskatchewan and Churchill rivers, and thence westward beyond the Athabasca. North of the upper part of Churchill River it extends into the rocky granite country for a short distance and then disappears, so that its general northern limit is here reached at, or south of, the height of land; but while the writer was travelling across Little Hatchet Lake, in north latitude 58°40 and west longitude 103°45, a high sandy island was found on which was a small grove of tall white spruce, some trees with a diameter of fifteen inches. None others were seen anywhere in the vicinity. This grove, therefore, forms a little outlier in the surrounding scattered forest of small black spruce and Banksian pine, the hill of warm dry sand furnishing it with a sufficently congenial home. Extending in from the west the white spruce occurs on and around the shores of Lake Athabasca, but it does not appear to grow at any great distance back from the lake. Black Spruce (Picea nigra) is usually a smaller tree than the last, and is scattered on the low lands everywhere thoughout the forest regions of the Province of Manitoba, and the District of Saskatchewan, but north of the Churchill River, and southeast of Lake Athabasca it often ascends to the higher lands. Its northern limit for this region has not yet been traced. Balsam Fir (Abies balsamea) grows to a large size among the white spruce on the top and sides of the Duck Mountain in Manitoba, and between the Saskatchewan and Churchill rivers in the District of Saskatchewan. It extends for a short distance north of the Chuchill River, where it appears to reach its northern limit. Tamarac (Larix Americana) is found growing on the low wet land from the northern edge of the prairie region, northward as far as Lake Athabasca, but its northern limit has not yet been reached. Cedar (Thuya occidentalis) has its general northwestern limit east of Lake Winnipeg, but an isolated colony occurs on the high ridge between Winnipegosis and Cedar lakes, two hundred miles distant from the general limit. No 'trace of cedar could be found in the intermediate country. Red Pine (Pinus resinosa) also has its general northwestern limit some distance east of Lake Winnipeg, but an outlying grove is said to occur on Black Island, a large sandy island in the lake. Cones collected from trees on this island, and undoubtedly belonging to this species, were sent to the writer by Mr. A. Neison, of Badthroat River. Scrub Pine (Pinus banksiana) grows on the high stony morainic hills on the northeastern portion of Duck Mountain, and on the sandy ridges to the north. From here it extends northward and northwestward, keeping north of the heavy white spruce forest. It is the principal tree in the rocky and sandy region from the Churchill River northward to Black River, where it grows to a height of from twenty to forty feet, and to a diameter of from eight to twelve inches. On the more level sandy plains it here forms typical pine barrens, the trees being thinly scattered over the surface, while the land beneath them is quite devoid of undergrowth and there is little or no fallen timber, so that the whole country has a park-like aspect. On the rocky slopes it has taken root in the niches and crevices, and is usually stunted and very irregular. It extends north of Black River and Lake Athabasca, and its northern limit has not yet been traced. THE AFFINITIES OF BASQUE AND BERGER. BY CANON ISAAC TAYLOR, M. A., LL. D., LITT. D., YORK, ENGLAND. IN the Transactions of the Berlin Academy for June, 1893, Professor Von der Gabelentz has published a paper in which he endeavors to establish a connection between Basque and the languages belonging to the Berber family of speech, such as Kabyle and Tuareg. He admits that the results of his comparison are small, the languages differing in structure of speech, in gender, and in most of the formatives. But he urges that they had certain analogous laws of phonetic change, and that there is a resemblance in a few culture words, mainly the names of animals and of articles of dress. The paper is one of the numerous examples of the way in which pure philologists may be led astray by want of an adequate acquaintance with anthropology. The author bases his attempt on a recent paper in Ausland on the craniological resemblance between the Berbers and the ancient Iberians. He then assumes that Basque represents the ancient Iberian speech, whereas Van Eys and Vinson, the two highest authorities, consider that it is impossible to explain such remains as we possess of the ancient Iberian by means of Basque. Broca, moreover, has proved that while the skulls of the Spanish Basques resemble, to some extent, those of the Iberians, the skulls of the French Basques belong to a different type. It is now believed that the race to which the French Basques belong imposed its language on the Spanish Basques, a feebler people of the Iberian type. If this is the case, the results obtained by Von der Gabelentz would be easy of explanation. A conquered people acquiring the language of their conquerors would retain their own phonetic tendencies, and at the same time would incorporate into the acquired language certain classes of words such as those which agree in Basque and Iberian, notably the names of articles of dress and of domesticated animals. In short, the ancient Iberian may have affected Basque much in the same way that Celtic has affected English and French. It has introduced sundry phonetic tendencies, and some loan words belonging to certain classes. Hence we may still hold fast to the old conclusion that the nearest affinities of Basque are with Accadian and the languages of the Ural-Altaic type. ** LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. The *Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. writer's name is in all cases required as a proof of good faith. On request in advance, one hundred copies of the number containing his communication will be furnished free to any correspondent. The editor will be glad to publish any queries consonant with the character of the journal. THE SO-CALLED SAND OF GREAT SALT LAKE. THE white deposit which covers Garfield Beach and the adjacent shore of Great Salt Lake, Utah, although commonly called sand, does not consist of true sand. An examination under a low magnifying power, such as that afforded by a common pocket lens, shows that all the particles or grains composing this so-called sand are very smooth and shiny, many being globular, others ovoid, and others dumb-bell and club-like in form. None of them present angular or irregular surfaces, and none have sharp edges or points. When treated with hydrochloric or nitric acid this oölitic "sand" rapidly dissolves with energetic effervescence, leaving but tiny little specks of silicious matter behind, which latter form nuclei in the centre of the oölitic grains. The solution thus obtained contains lime. A very careful scrutiny under high microscopic powers shows the most of each grain to consist of a white, fibrous or somewhat crystallized mineral, with a central enclosed bit of dark gray mineral, that which is left as silicious undissolved matter after the acid treatment aforesaid. In fact I have found a few grains containing nuclei so large that they could be readily seen by the unaided eye. appears, therefore, that each grain of this deposit is a nodule or concretion, consisting of white crystalline calcite, containing a minute bit of silica or silicious matter as a central nucleus around which the calcite has collected. Some months ago Professor Rompletz reported traces of what he regarded as an alga in oölitic sand from the shores of Great Salt Lake. But Dr. George Jennings Hinde, F. G. S., of London, who has made recent examinations of samples of this oölitic "sand," writes me that he has not discovered any evidence of organic orgin in it. In all other respects Dr. Hinde's observations seem to agree with those made by me during the past year. HENRY MONTGOMERY. University of Utah, Salt Lake City, July 31. NATURE'S ROTATION OF CROPS. It An open sandy field which the writer has passed several times a week, for the past ten years, has illustrated well this fact. No record has been kept, but for the past five years, my recollection is accurate, and for a longer period, I am sure that the "crops" have been of the character stated, though the order of succession may not be strictly correct. Seven or eight years ago there was a yield of Enothera biennis which was phenomenal. The following year there was scarcely a plant of this species to be noticed, but a fine crop of mullein succeeded. Daisies followed the mullein, the next year daisies and golden rod (S. nemoralis). The year after the solidago took full possession and was a most magnificent crop. The year following but little golden rod could be seen, and very few daisies. Last year was the most magnificent crop of Hypericum perforatum I have ever seen. When in blossom, the field was one mass of solid color; it seemed the petals must touch |