Abstract
AT a recent meeting of the New York Lyceum of Natural History, Professor D. S. Martin described the remarkable deposit of magnetic iron at Cornwall, Pennsylvania, and exhibited the group of minerals found in connection with the iron. The ore is a soft, often pulverulent magnetite, associated with copper, and often pyrites. It is found in three hills which owe their relief to the erosion of their surroundings, and are composed mainly of iron ore embraced between walls of trap, the whole mass lying at the junction of the Triassic red sandstone and older metamorphic series. The yield of the Cornwall mines is 160,000 tons per annum. Prof. Martin exhibited beautiful specimens of allophane, brochantite, and other minerals collected at Cornwall. —Prof. Newberry, at the same meeting, exhibited a series of lignites from the Far West, with ultimate analyses of each. He said these modern coals were the on1y mineral fuels found west of Omaha. The Los Brances (Sonora) coal is Triassic anthracite. Most of the New Mexico and Arizona coals are Cretaceous, the beds sometimes thirty feet in thickness. The Placer Mountain coal is a Cretaæous anthracite. The coal of Colorado is both Cretaceous and Tertiary; the coal of Mount Diabolo, California, is Cretaceous; and that of Vancouver Island, Coose Bay coal, is Tertiary. Alaska furnishes some of the best Western coal—a Tertiary lignite. A Cretaceous anthracite found in Queen Charlotte's Island is nearly as good as that of Pennsylvania. All these anthracites are caused by volcanic action baking lignites. The calorific power of the Western coals is generally greatly impaired by the large percentage (ten to twenty per cent, each) of oxygen and water they contain. The average Western lignite has about half the heating power of our best coals. The gas and coke made of some of them, however, are excellent furnace fuels, though they are generally worthless.—Prof. Davidson, of the United States Coast Survey, hes lately devised an apparatus for recording the temperature at different depths by means of an electro thermal pile. He proposes to register tlae depth by breaking the circuit of an electrc current passing through two insulated wires in the sounding line at about every one hundread fathoms by means of the wheel-work of the Massey or similar apparatus. In the changes of temperature an electro-thermal pile eighteen inches; long, insulated, surrounded by a non-conductor except at one end, is used in combination with a Thompson's reflecting galvanometer, not liable to derangement on shipboard. At every one hundred fathoms, when the chronograph registers the depth, the observer notices the readings of the galvanometer, which readings are reduced to Fahrenheit degrees.—One of the most original and important contributions to the zoology of the day is that constituting the third number of the Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge, treating upon the mammals and winter birds of East Florida. The author, Mr. J. A. Allen, an assistant of Prof. Agassiz, is well known for the thoroughness of his research into the vertebrata of America, and the critical attention paid by him to the proper limitation of species, both in their relationships to each other, and in their geographical distribution. In the present work he gives a summary of the views to which he has been led within a few years past by his studies of the immense collection in the Cambridge Museum, and makes numerous important generalisations. Among these he corroborates the conclusion previously announced by others, of the diminution in size of the American birds in proportion as their birthplace is more southern, and also that there is a similar difference existing between the animals of the higher and lower altitudes. He also finds that with the more southern locality of summer abode there are corresponding differences in colour and proportion, as well as in habits, notes, and song, the vivacity of the bird decreasing as its size increases, The principal difference in colour with the more southern localities consists in the darker tints and the reduced extent of any white markings, with other features that our space will not permit us to give at the present time. The entire work is one eminently worthy of careful study, and is destined to exercise a very important influence upon the methods of zoological research. —Late advices Iroin Prof. Havden's expedition announced that he was to leave Ogden, Utah, on June 9 for Virginia City and Fort Ellis, in Montana, a distance of about 430 miles. with the special object of proceeding from the last-mentioned place to the exploration of the Yellow Stone Lake and its immediate vicinity. It is an interesting fact that the bead waters of tributaries of the Columbia, the Colorado, the Missouri, and the Yellow Stone rivers rise within a short distance of each other in this mysterious region; which, in addition, is characterised by the extraordinary development of hot springs, spouting geysers, mud volcanoes, extensive beds of sulphur, gypsum, the silicates, &c. The party, as at present organised, embraces thirty-two persons, including specialists in all branches of science, and accompanied by several artists, who take advantage of Dr. Hayden's protection to visit the interesting region referred to. The party carries materials for a boat, which is to be launched on the Yellow Stone Lake, and used in a thorough hydrographical and topographical survey of it. As the expedition will probably remain in that vicinity during the summer, we may hope for a complete solution of all the remaining questions in regard to its physical features and natural history. A competent photographer with the expedition expects to make instantaneous views of the spouting geysers, so as to enable those who cannot visit the locality to have a correct idea of their character. A company of cavalry will escort the expedition into the Yellow Stone Lake region, although no trouble from the Indians is anticipated. In the course of the journey from Ogden to Fort Ellis it is proposed to make an accurate map of a belt fifty miles wide, so as to furnish a basis for reference in subsequent explorations.—In the monthly report of the Department of Agriculture for March and April of the present year, we find a valuable paper upon the cultivation of the Cinchona in Jamaica, by Dr. C. C. Parry, the botanist of the Department, who accompanied the San Domingo Investigating Committee, and in returning spent some time in Jamaica. As the general result of his inquiries in regard to the cultivation of this plant, and the possibility of introducing it into any portion of the United States, he states, first, that the peculiar conditions of soil and climate suitable for the growth of the best varieties of cinchona plants cannot be found within the present limits of the United States, where no suitable elevations possessing an equable, moist, cool climate, free from frost, can be met with; second, that the island of San Domingo, located within the tropics, and traversed by extensive mountain ranges attaining elevations of over 6000 feet above the sea, presents a larger scope of country especially adapted to time growth of cinchonas than any other insular region in the western hemisphere; third, that the existence of successful cinchona plantations in Jamaica within two days' sail from San Domingo, would afford the material for stocking new plantations in the latter island at the least possible expense of time and labour.—In a recent communication to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, by Prof. Leidy, attention was invited to certain teeth of fossil mammals, forwarded to him for examination by Prof. Whitney. One of these was a fragment belonging to the Mastodon americanus, obtained from a depth of eighty feet beneath the basaltic lava of Table Mountain, Tuolumne County, California, where it was found associated with the remains of human art. There was also a molar of a large fossil horse, found sixteen feet below the surface on Gordon Gulch. Two other teeth, somewhat similar in character, were determined as belonging to the species of Protohippus. In other specimens Dr. Leidy found evidences of the existence of a gigantic animal of the camel tribe, allied to the llama.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Scientific Intelligence from America* . Nature 4, 212–213 (1871). https://doi.org/10.1038/004212a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/004212a0