damental reform of the methods of teaching geography. Most of the scientists who were appointed professors were originally not well acquainted with the needs of the Gymnasium and of other higher schools. They were so much engrossed by their subject as to be too exacting in their demands upon the pupil. These excessive demands, however, found their corrective when their students became experienced teachers. Thus the methods of teaching geography, after about twenty years of discussion, have been established on a firm and sound basis.

While material progress was thus being made in Germany, England and America had not even made the slightest attempt to bring about the much-needed improvement in the teaching of geography. A few years ago the attention of the Royal Geographical Society was called to this subject, and a thorough study of the methods used on the continent, particularly in Germany, was published. Here, also, the movement began among scientists, not among teachers; and therefore we observe again that too much was asked for. Since that time the movement has reached the schools, and innumerable attempts have been made to find a royal road' to the knowledge of geography. We may divide these into two classes: the first embracing suggestions of geographers or geologists; the second, those of teachers. While among the first class we find highly suggestive books which show that geography might be made the foundation of teaching natural science, they are deficient in not being written by experienced teachers. The second class shows the sad lack of trained teachers of geography, and the necessity that a reform of the teaching of geography must begin with training teach

ers.

Recently a number of valuable books have been published in England, but in America little has been done. Text-book after text-book and map after map are being published, but the new ones are in no way superior to the preceding ones. Since Guyot imported Ritter's ideas of geography into this country, the study has continued to move on this line, wherever it was more than mere memorizing of names. That geography which has recently developed in Europe has not reached our continent; the tendency here being to cultivate all the sciences contiguous to geography, while the complex geographical phenomenon does not attract the attention of the American scientist.

It seems to us that Parker's book marks a new step in the development of geography in our country. It is the first time that a leading educationist tries to solve the question how to study geography, and gives it its proper place in the course of study. Although not a geographer himself, and although a number of his statements are not in correspondence with the views held by geographers nowadays, he has a true conception of the ultimate aim of geography. "The study of geography, elementary and scientific, cultivates systematically the faculty of imagination, and the products of this faculty arouse and develop at every step emotions of beauty that culminate in the emotion of grandeur. The mentally pictured hill is 'a thing of beauty,' which, in time, towers up into the grand image of the lofty mountain. The lake is the inception of a picture of old ocean's solitary waste.' Gradually, under skilful teaching, hills, mountains, and plains, oceans and continents, are united in one sublime image of the round world. Life-bearing and life-giving, it stands out before the exalted imagination." This view is fundamental in giving geography its proper place in school and in life. It is not the sole object of geography to analyze observations, and thus to train the mental power of the child, although it is well adapted to this purpose: its more important function is to train the imagination and the power of feeling, to bring home the grand truth of the unity of nature.

This being the concept of the book, Parker omits physiography, which is the favorite subject of many writers of school-geographies, altogether, and defines geography as purely and simply a description of the earth's surface; and the primary purpose of teaching geography, to develop in the pupil's mind a concept corresponding to the earth's surface.

The book opens with a general introduction on the aim and scope of teaching geography. This is followed by a chapter intended to aid teachers in laying out their plans for teaching. The third part is an outline of a course of study of elementary geography, which is followed by very interesting directions and suggestions.

The rest of the book is taken up by notes on the course of study. We do not intend to enter into the details of this plan, but confine ourselves to a few remarks. Parker's directions on the use of maps ought to be read and borne in mind by every teacher. There are very few persons who are able to interpret a map; and teachers ought to bear in mind constantly the fact that the map only represents part of the earth's surface, and that its object in teaching is exclusively to convey the concept corresponding to the country it represents. In order to reach this end, Parker strongly advocates moulding and the use of relief-maps, although he is aware of the serious objections raised to this method. Until better school-maps are provided, it will be impossible to dispense with this means of teaching.

The course of study which he recommends begins, of course, with systematic observations of nature, of the surroundings of the child. Thus the concepts of the natural features and elements of land and water are gained; and, these once obtained, he rightly turns at once to considering the widest generalizations, the continents, and works the detail into their general outline. It may seem doubtful whether his widest generalizations, slopes and riverbasins, are the best from a geographical point of view. He considers the continents as formed of a short and long slope, and next subdivides the slopes and adds the necessary detail. This method fails in the case of Africa, and seems undesirable in teaching the geography of North America and Asia and their large plateaus. But Parker himself does not consider the course suggested in his book as final. There will probably be much discussion regarding detail, and on the important question, 'In how far, if the principal generalizations are derived from form, should the origin and development of that form be considered?' But a careful study of this important book will not fail to exert a most wholesome influence upon the progress of geography in our schools, and it may be that it will open the road to that science of geography which has so far hardly any representatives in America.

The History of Protective Tariff Laws. By R. W. THOMPSON. Chicago, R. S. Peale & Co.

trace.

THIS book is not to be taken seriously as a history of the tariff. Of independent or original historical investigation there is hardly a There is nowhere any reference to the author's source of information; nor, indeed, is this necessary for the sort of information he gives. We are told in the volume chiefly about the opinions which various statesmen have held at one time or another on the tariff, - the sort of historical knowledge which can be got readily enough by glancing through files of presidential messages and of the congressional debates. Even this information, whose value is dubious enough at best, is distorted and worthless. One would imagine, from Mr. Thompson's quotations and copious Italics, that all the statesmen we ever had were the stiffest of protectionists. Of other information there is very little. Various tariff acts are described in the vaguest way, so that the reader is unable to guess. what the general range of duties under them was, still less what was the duty on any particular article. There is no pretence of investigation of economic history, of the development of protected industries, of the difficult and perhaps insoluble problem as to the effect of protective duties on general prosperity.

In fact, Mr. Thompson writes, not a history, but a voluminous campaign pamphlet. That he has a strong bias (to put it mildly) for protection, is not inconsistent with his doing good historical work, even though not the best. But he has done no such work, and the student of history will turn over his chapters with a sigh of disappointment. Nor will the book appeal to those who want solid and serious argument on the tariff controversy. The reasoning is of the most watery sort, and consists chiefly of vague paragraphs on industrial independence, the home market, the disastrous effects of importing more than we export, the designs of England, and what not. Only those who want campaign thunder would find any thing to their purpose; and they are not the sort to wade through 526 pages, when they can get their thunder in compact form, and gratis, from campaign committees. Mr. Thompson's history belongs to that class of books by public men which are bought for their title and their large print by respectable philistine families, and repose unread on scanty book-shelves.

History, at its best, cannot help us much in the tariff controversy. The crucial question as to the effect of protective duties on general prosperity eludes a specific answer. The tariff is but one of a thousand factors affecting the country's welfare, and by no means among the most important. Its effects are so covered and hidden by the effects of other causes, that it is practically impossible to follow them out to their end. There is no subject on which so much unwarranted nonsense is talked, on both sides, as on the question of protection. He who approaches it with so cock-sure an air as Mr. Thompson, and tells us glibly about the beneficent effect every high tariff has exercised, and about "the general embarrassment" which followed low duties, is, on the face of it, incompetent to tell us any thing worth listening to.

NOTES AND NEWS.

THE third number of the Internationales Archiv für Ethnologie is full of interesting material. The journal has rapidly become the principal source of information to those whose studies refer to ethnological collections. Each number contains beautifully engraved color-plates showing interesting specimens. The text gives elaborate descriptions of these plates, and reports of numerous museums; descriptions of important accessions, of the organization of the collections, and information regarding smaller collections, which would otherwise be inaccessible to the student. The last number contains a description of the extensive collection made by Adrian Jacobsen among the Golds and Gilyaks, and a description of the native tribes of Liberia. Besides this, it contains interesting reports of current literature, recent explorations, and new collections.

The second annual meeting of the Iowa Association for Scientific Research was held at Des Moines, Io., Sept. 5 and 6. Among the papers presented were, Local Problems in Science' (presidential address), by Herbert Osborn; My Experience in rearing Vanessa antiopa,' by F. M. Witter; 'On the Sedentary Habits of Platyceras,' by Charles R. Keyes; On the Folding of Carboniferous Strata in South-western Iowa,' by J. E. Todd; Descriptions of New Cynipida,' by B. T. Gillette; 'The Pustulate Unionidæ,' by R. Ellsworth Call; The Fauna of the Lower Coal-Measures at Des Moines, Io.,' by Charles R. Keyes; The Cicadida of Iowa,' by Herbert Osborn; The Lineage of Lake Agassiz,' by J. E. Todd; 'From the StamenPetal,' by B. D. Halsted; 'Some Additional Observations on the Loess in and about Muscatine,' by F. M. Witter; 'The Geology of Crowley's Ridge, Arkansas,' by R. Ellsworth Call; 'On the Glacial Drift and Loess of a Portion of the North-Central Basin of Iowa,' by Clement L. Webster; and Descriptions of Two New Fossils from the Devonian of Iowa,' by Charles R. Keyes.

An Italian engineer, M. Bocca, has just finished estimates for a ship-canal to cross Italy. The canal would start from Castro on the Mediterranean Sea, and end at Fano on the Adriatic. The length would be 282 kilometres, the width 100 metres, and the depth 12 metres, allowing large ironclads to pass. The canal would drain Lakes Perugia and Bolsena, and would allow of a systematic irrigation of that whole region. The cost is estimated at $100,000,000. The work would occupy 200,000 men for five years.

- Dr. M. Eschenhagen, in a recent number of Petermann's Mitteilungen, calls attention to an attempt to explain the magnetic polarity of the earth and the situation of the magnetic poles. The theory was first propounded by Dr. Menzzer. He assumes that electrical currents flowing from east to west cause the magnetic polarity of the earth. If the surface of the earth were solid, these currents which depend upon the rotation of the earth would run exactly east by west. This is approximately the case in the strata lying below the average depth of the ocean. In the highest layers, however, the distribution of land and water affects these currents. When entering the ocean, they cause a locomotion of the water, and thus the geographical features of the earth's surface affect the polarity of the globe. Eschenhagen shows by a simple construction what

this effect would be on the southern hemisphere. He assumes that there are no electrical currents whatever in the ocean, and computes the influence of those of the continents according to the size, shape, and position of the latter. The result of this computation shows that the magnetic pole would be situated in latitude 76° 50' south, and longitude 183°48'. According to Ross, its position is latitude 75° 6' south, and longitude 171° 50'. As the influence of the Antarctic continent has not been included in this computation, the result must be considered very satisfactory and encouraging to further work on Menzzer's hypothesis.

- The Political Science Quarterly for September contains three articles on constitutional questions, the most important of them being that by Sydney G. Fisher on the Suspension of Habeas Corpus during the War of the Rebellion.' Mr. Fisher reviews the action of President Lincoln in suspending the habeas corpus by his own fiat, and, after considering the arguments on both sides, comes to the conclusion that such action by the executive authority was wholly unwarranted. The Constitution, in his opinion, gives the power to suspend the writ to Congress, and not to the President, and with this opinion we cordially agree. The subject is one of great importance, and it is unfortunate that the Supreme Court has never had the opportunity of passing judgment upon it, so as to settle the question authoritatively. Mr. William A. Dunning has a somewhat rambling article on the Inequality of the States,' in which he expresses the opinion, that, owing to certain conditions imposed by Congress at the time of reconstruction, some of the Southern States are not on an equality with their sisters. Mr. Dougherty's paper, on the Constitutions of the State of New York,' is the first of a series, and will interest the people of the State, and students of institutions elsewhere. Prof. R. M. Smith concludes his discussion of the immigration question, expressing himself strongly in favor of restriction; yet he has little to propose in the way of restrictive measures beyond the more rigid enforcement of existing laws. The article in the Quarterly that will be likely to attract most attention is the opening one, by George Gunton, on the 'Economic and Social Aspect of Trusts,' in which he takes the ground that these colossal combinations of capital are the natural consequence of modern industrial differentiation, and in their nature are economically wholesome, and politically and socially harmless." He confines himself mainly to the economic aspect of the subject, and overlooks some important facts connected with it; but his essay will be useful as a corrective of extravagant and unintelligent views on the other side of the question. On the whole, this number of the Quarterly is one of the best that has yet appeared.

Harper & Brothers have in preparation Sir J. W. Dawson's 'Modern Science in Bible Lands.' — E. & F. N. Spon have now ready the third edition of Dynamo-Electric Machinery: a Manual for Students of Electrotechnics,' by Silvanus P. Thompson. Most of this treatise has been re-written for this edition, and much new matter has been added. The same firm announces as ready Sept. 1, The Elements of Electric Lighting,' including electric generation, measurement, storage, and distribution, by Philip Atkinson. They also publish Crystal Models,' by John Gorham, and the second edition of 'Short Lectures to Electrical Artisans,' being a course of experimental lectures delivered to a practical audience, by J. A. Fleming. The September issue of the American Magazine opens with an article on 'The American Navy of To-day,' by Lieut. William F. Fullam, U.S.N. A feature of the article is a description of Captain Zalinski's dynamite cruiser, the 'Vesuvius.' The new cruisers are fully described. —— With the issue of Aug. 30, Light, Heat, and Power becomes a weekly journal. ———— The Electric Light Convention, just closed in New York, was the most largely attended meeting yet held by the association, and the papers, reports, discussions, and addresses were of unusual interest and importance. Although the business of the convention only came to a close late Friday afternoon, Aug. 31, The Electrical World was out on Saturday morning with its usual full, carefully prepared stenographic report of the proceedings. Dr. McCook's Tenants of an Old Farm' (New York, Fords, Howard, & Hulbert), published at $2.50, will be sold this season at $1.50.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

Exploration of the Xingu.

THE German explorers, Karl and Wilhelm von den Steinen, embarked in Rio de Janeiro, July 21, for Germany, after nearly a year spent among the Indians of Matto Grosso. The exploration of the Xingu in 1884 by the two Von den Steinens and Claus revealed the fact that in this region exist a number of tribes who are not acquainted with the existence of a white race, and who may literally be said to represent the primitive condition of the Brazilian Indians in the stone age and before the discovery of America. Furthermore, the diversity in the language of these tribes indicates a variety of ethnological groups, and offers a rare opportunity for studying the apparently insoluble riddle of the natural classification of the Brazilian aborigines. The importance of the results of the 1884 expedition, and still more those that might be expected from future work in such a promising field, led Dr. Karl von den Steinen, after the publication of his book, to resolve upon a new exploration, in which he was warmly seconded by European ethnologists. The new expedition, unlike the first, which was organized mainly with a view to geographical work, came prepared to give chief prominence to ethnology. Dr. Karl von den Steinen, who proposed to devote his attention principally to language-work, was accompanied by his cousin Wilhelm, one of the original Xingu party, as artist; Dr. Paul Ehrenreich, who had already made important ethnological studies in Brazil, as assistant ethnologist and photographer; and Dr. Peter Vogel as geographer and geologist.

Leaving Rio de Janeiro in February of last year, the party was delayed in ascending the Paraguay by the existence of cholera along that river, until the beginning of June, the interval being employed in an examination of the shell-heaps of Santa Catharina. The president of Matto Grosso furnished an escort of four soldiers under command of an ensign. Another ensign, who had accompanied in part the 1884 expedition, and had since retired from the service, joined the expedition as a volunteer. A civilized Bakairi Indian, Antonio, also of the 1884 party, was engaged as interpreter, making up, with the necessary camaradas, a party of fourteen. The expedition left Cuyaba July 28, the explorers on foot, and serving as occasion required as peones, trail-cutters, and oarsmen. Proceeding first to the Paranatinga, an affluent of the Tapajos, for whose exploration a party of Brazilian engineers was lately fitted out, several astronomical determinations were made about the head waters of that river. The party then marched to the north-east, passed the Batovy branch of the Xingu, explored in 1884, and on the 7th of September reached the Kuliseu, where a permanent camp was made for a portion of the party, that remained in charge of the animals and baggage, while the explorers descended the river in bark canoes made on the spot, to the confluence of the Kuliseu with the Batovy. The first Indians met with belonged to the Bakairi tribe, with whom, as the language was already known, communication was readily made, and with whom the explorers spent several weeks, accompanying them on their fishing and hunting excursions, in their agricultural labors (performed entirely with stone and wooden implements), in their festivities, and, in fact, in all the phases of their life. The next and most numerous tribe was the Nahuqua, who, like the Bakairi, belong to the Carib family, which is supposed by Dr. von den Steinen to have migrated northward to the Caribbean Sea from some point in Central Brazil. The Nahuqua have a number of villages on the Kuliseu and on the Kuluene, the principal branch of the Xingu, with which the former unites. The sudden arrival of a large party so alarmed these people, that it became very difficult to study them, and in consequence Dr. von den Steinen resolved to make his entry alone, or with only a small number of Indian companions, in the villages of the other tribes, in order to establish friendly relations before the arrival of the full party. This somewhat hazardous experiment was tried first with two completely savage Bakairi companions in a village of Mehinaku Indians, the only weapon carried being a revolver. The traveller was received by a tumultuous crowd of naked savages, shouting, brandishing bows and arrows, and beating their breasts, who seized him by the wrists, and with considerable violence led him to the central feast-house, where he was plumped down on a bench, and made the recipient of a shower of questions and of hos

pitable presents of cakes and porridge. A German speech and sundry recitations from Goethe, delivered with hearty laughter, were accepted as a reply to the unintelligible questions, and friendly relations were soon established.

Other tribes are the Auatihu, Vaura and Kustenau, Yaualapiti, Camaiura, and Trumai. The Camaiura are true Tupi, and manifested great satisfaction on hearing the common names of plants and animals that have been incorporated in Portuguese. The Trumai, by their language and physique, differ markedly from all the other tribes. They had been met with in 1884, but the accidental discharge of a gun so alarmed them that no communication could be established. After that, they suffered greatly from the attacks of the Suya, a Botocudo tribe living lower down the river, and, retreating southward, were naturally greatly alarmed on meeting again the strangers with the thundering arms of the former encounter.

Returning to Cuyaba near the end of December, the travellers had an opportunity for studying the Pareci, and afterwards made an excursion to the river Sao Lourenço to examine the Bororo or Coroado. The Von den Steinens then descended the Paraguay, and spent some time examining the Indian remains in that province. Dr. Ehrenreich proceeded to Goyaz to descend the Araguaya to Para; and Dr. Vogel remained behind to explore geographically the highlands between the Paraguay and Parana, with the especial object of opening a road from the colony of Sao Lourenço to Santa Anna do Paranahiba, on the Parana, which was successfully accomplished.

The scientific results of the expedition far exceeded the most sanguine expectations. In a lecture before the Geographical Society of Rio de Janeiro, Dr. Karl von den Steinen presented the following general observations on the Indians of the upper Xingu.

As a rule, they are of low stature, but well proportioned and agile, of light clay color, with black hair, which is wavy in some individuals. The women wear the hair hanging loose to the shoulders the men cut it in a circle about the base of the skull, and in some tribes shave the crown of the head. All the hairs of the face, including the eyebrows, and of the body, are carefully pulled out. The Trumai are distinguished from the others by a weaker physique and more brutal physiognomy. The only clothing worn is a triangular tanga of palm-leaves, “bigger than the eye, but not so big as the ear," used by the women. The body is smeared with coal-dust or oil colored with annatto. The houses, round or elliptical and high and airy, are generally built in a circle about a central feast-house, which is uninhabited, and into which the women are not permitted to enter. As a better safeguard against feminine curiosity, the entrance to this house is a mere hole less than a metre high. This structure is also used as a guest-house. The usual habitations serve for several families; the hammocks of palm-fibre, or cotton woven by hand between two stakes driven in the ground, being hung from a post in the centre to the sides. Each house has several fireplaces, and care is taken to keep the fire alive during the night to avoid the troublesome process of producing it by stick-rubbing.

Agriculture and fishing furnish the principal means of sustenance. The chase is comparatively unimportant. Dogs are unknown, and domesticated animals are limited to a few birds, principally of the parrot tribe. Corn, cotton, tobacco, sweet-potatoes and other tubers, are cultivated. Rice, cane, mandioca, and the banana are unknown. The plantations are of considerable extent, and compare favorably with those of the whites of Matto Grosso. The forest is cleared by the use of polished stone axes about the size of the fist, fixed in a wooden handle. The teeth of certain fishes serve for knives, and river shells as scrapers for working in wood. For hoes or ploughs, pointed sticks and the claws of the giant armadillo are used. The stones preferred for axes come from stream-beds in the possession of a single tribe. The commercial relations, however, are limited to an exchange of presents without idea of relative values. In the first trade made with the explorers, for an axe, a large canoe, which had to be carried for two leagues on the shoulders of six men, was gladly given in exchange. On another occasion a basket of fruit gathered in the presence of the party was offered for the same coveted instrument.

Another object of Indian barter is pottery, made only by the

women of certain tribes, all of which belong to the Nu-Aruak stock. Tattooing is also limited to the ceramic tribes. The most perfect objects of their industry are the masks used in dancing. The Tupi tribes make them of painted fabrics; the others, of wood, with large noses and small openings for the eyes, ornamented with a symmetrical design of the face.

In general, only the men take part in the dances, ornamented with feathers, and with the body enveloped in cloaks of palm-fibre. The step is marked by the shaking of a rattle, and the dance is accompanied by songs containing ancient words, some of which are evidently unintelligible to the Indians themselves. The only other musical instrument is the flute of one or three tubes, and of all sizes, from very small ones up to those in which the larger tube is as high as a man. In the dances great use is made of bows and arrows, and, in the Tupi tribes, of a peculiar form of arrow, shot, not from a bow, but from a throwing-stick held in the hand. The dances are held within or in front of the feast-house, called the 'flute-house.' It is believed that any woman who should venture to enter this house would die. In other respects, however, the position of the woman is not so inferior as is generally supposed. Although her position may be that of a servant, she knows, like her civilized sisters, how to obtain a fair share in the government. They are devoted mothers, though the children are held to have more intimate relations with the father, from whom they are supposed to derive body and soul, than with the mother. Parentage, however, is traced through the mother. On the occasion of a birth, the father remains for several days in his hammock on a diet of water and porridge. Marriage is monogamous, and is effected by the bridegroom taking his chosen bride to his lodge and hanging his hammock over hers.

The dead are buried in front of the feast-house, with the head to the east, holes or canals being made to facilitate the entrance of ants and other insects. The belief in a continuation of life after death is general. In dreams the soul is believed to leave the body and wander in the places dreamed of; and it is recommended not to awaken a sleeper suddenly, for fear the time may not be given for the return of the soul. They have many legends of their ancestors, which pass from generation to generation, and appear to contain many antiquated words. The idea of a personal God is unknown. The pagés pretend to control the storms, and all cases of illness or death are attributed to them. They are also the physicians, the treatment consisting principally in blowing tobacco-smoke on the patient. The blowing of smoke in the ears of guests is also a sign of friendship, and the latter are invited to moisten the ears of their hearers with spittle in order to be more clearly understood. The pagés appear to enjoy as much respect as the chiefs. The authority of the latter, unless it be in war, is not great. Dissatisfaction with the government is expressed by a migration in a body from the village, leaving the government to itself.

The number of Indians on the Batovy and Kuliseu is estimated at more than three thousand. Before returning, the explorers distributed among them their stores, including over fourteen hundred knives, so that the future traveller in this region will no longer find the stone age. ORVILLE A. DERBY.

Rio de Janeiro, July 26.

Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research.

IN a notice of the Proceedings of the English Society for Psychical Research which appeared in Science for July 20, a sentence occurs which may, I think, mislead your readers on a rather important point. The writer refers to the statement in the Proceedings, that certain girls, from whom experimental evidence of telepathy had been gained, were afterwards detected in the use of a code of signals; and he goes on to say, "If scientific observers can thus be deceived by young girls, . . . ought not this to impress upon every investigator the profound importance of acquainting himself with the possibilities of deception?" Your readers will probably infer from this that the experiments in which signalling was detected were carried on under conditions which the investigators in question had erroneously regarded as excluding the possibility of deception. This inference, however, would be altogether mistaken the view which the investigators took of these experi

ments was that expressed in Phantasms of the living' (chap. ii. p. 22), as regards earlier experiments of the same kind.

"Still such simple objects would not demand an elaborate code for their description; nor were any effective means taken to block the percipient's channels of sense. . . . We could not, therefore, regard the testimony of the investigators present as adding much weight to the experiments in which any members of the family were among the group of agents, unless the percipient was completely isolated from that group."

As is explained in the passage of the Proceedings to which your reviewer refers, the experiments in which signalling was detected were merely interludes among other experiments conducted under more stringent conditions, which were complete failures. Cambridge, Eng., Aug. 24.

FREDERIC W. H. MYERS.

Effigy Mounds in Northern Illinois.

THAT imitative or 'effigy' mounds are to be found in northern and north-western Illinois has been asserted from time to time in works treating of the remains of the mound-builders; but no one seems hitherto to have gone to any great trouble to prove the fact. much less to accurately survey, map, and publish specimens of them at least, not so far as I have been able to find out.

Mr. Lapham, in his well-known work Antiquities of Wisconsin * (1855), mentions mounds of the turtle' form on Rock River as far south as Rockford, and others on Apple River in Illinois, a few miles south of the State line of Wisconsin.

In the fifth volume of the Geological Survey of Illinois,' A. H. Worthen, director (1873), especial mention is made of ancient mounds at Rockford and in its vicinity, particularly the one known as the Turtle Mound.' He says it resembles an alligator with its head cut off more than it does a turtle.

The above is all the information I have been able to find in print on the subject, though possibly there may have been minor articles in newspapers or other periodicals, now as completely lost as the proverbial needle in the haystack.

In a tour I made this spring in the region treated of, I looked for mounds of this class, and found them scattered at intervals along the Rock River valley, and also at points to the westward. I surveyed some of the best preserved of them, and here give succinct descriptions of four, which all differ from each other in shape, with necessary illustrative diagrams exactly drawn to scale from my field-notes.

The so-called 'Rockford Turtle' (1) in Winnebago County is situated between Main Street and Rock River, four blocks north of State Street, in the city of Rockford. It is 184 feet long from the tip of its tail to the centre of the farther end, where a head should be, according to our ideas. It is three feet high at the junction of the hind-legs with the body, at the junction of the fore-legs and body the average height is 4 feet, but from the bottom of a slight swale that passes the head the height is 5 feet. In connection with this effigy there is a bird (with one wing demolished), seven round mounds, and two embankments. These mounds are located on the most beautiful spot in the city, and, with one exception, have been well preserved by the owners of the land.

The bird-effigy (2) is on the east side of Rock River, some five miles below Rockford, on the N.W. of Sec. 14, T. 43, R. 1, E., in Winnebago County also. Its length from top of head to end of tail is 45 feet; and from tip to tip of wings, following the centres, it is 68 feet. The height at the junction of the wings and body is 2 feet. While this is unquestionably intended to represent a bird, yet it is impossible to give it a closer classification. With it there are three embankments and two round mounds. The group is situated on a high bank some 45 feet above the river, and commands a fine view.

The animal (3) is on the N.W. † of Sec. 22, T. 26, R. 2, E., some two miles below the village of Hanover, in Jo Daviess County, and on the east side of Apple River. Its greatest length in an air line is 216 feet, and the average height of the body 5 feet. The body and head are on nearly level ground, while the legs run down the slope. The fore-leg rests on the end of an embankment which is 170 feet long and 1 foot high. From the general appearance at the

A much less bulky animal (4) is on the S.E. of Sec. 13, T. 27, R. 9. E., some ten miles east of Freeport, Stephenson County, and on the north side of Pecatonica River. Its greatest length in an air line is 116 feet, and the average height of the body 1 feet. In the same group with it there is one embankment and seven round mounds, three of which are partially demolished. In one of the latter a fine hematite 'plumb-bob' was unearthed, in connection with a human skeleton which was badly decayed. Hematite relics in this region, and especially plumb-bobs, are exceedingly rare. Near these mounds, but at the foot of the slope, there is a fine boiling spring of pure cold water.

Very few of these Illinois effigy mounds are in a good state of preservation; but I looked around long enough to find ten of them worth surveying, of which the four now given are the best suited for publication as types.

In surveying mounds of this class it has been a special object to get their true outlines as near as possible, without any preconceived ideas or fanciful imaginings as to what animal or other object they were intended to represent. To do this it is necessary to determine where the artificial ground ends on the natural surface. It is hardly possible, however, for the reader, even with the aid of faithful diagrams, to form an adequate idea of the beauty and symmetry of the effigies as they appear to the eye when in their undisturbed state. T. H. LEWIS.

St. Paul, Minn., July 31.

The Coal-Measures of Kansas.

THE drilling of a 2,000-foot well at Emporia, Kan., has furnished an excellent section of the coal-measures of this State. The location of the section, unfortunately, can be given but approximately. Beginning somewhere in the upper half of the upper coal-measures, it ends in the lower third of the lower coal-measures. The section is very interesting, however, independently of its position in the formations.

In the depth of nearly 2,000 feet there are 112 strata with an average thickness of nearly 18 feet. Of these strata, 50 are shale,

50 limestone, and 12 sandstone. The limestone strata average 91 feet in thickness; the shale, 25 feet; and the sandstone, 24 feet. In the upper thousand feet are of the shale strata, of the limestone, and of the sandstone strata; but in the first thousand feet are of the shale, nearly of the limestone, and 4 of the sandstone. The total thickness of the shale is 1,242 feet, limestone 465 feet, and sandstone 286 feet. Mingled with the shale are three beds of coal in the first 500 feet, and one bed in the last 500. The thicknesses average less than one foot.

The section teaches that the conditions under which the coalmeasures were deposited were exceedingly variable, and that the tracing of the strata through eastern Kansas will not be a holiday task.

These deposits, even including the limestone, are mostly shallowwater accumulations, and are quite rich in fossils, especially the limestone. Incrusting corals, crinoid joints, and brachiopod and conchifer shells are especially abundant. Trilobites are rare. L. C. WOOSTER.

As a student at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, before Draper's publication of 1872, I found Melloni's principle not only re-asserted," but accepted. I fail to understand how it could be otherwise in the United States, when Tyndall's lectures and demonstrations in the Royal Institution were published in 1863, a quarter of a century ago; when the Smithsonian Report of 1868, twenty years ago, published Tyndall's Rede Lecture before the University of Cambridge in 1865, with translations of articles by Cazin and Magrini bearing on the same subject. But, more than that, Tyndall's lectures were published in a neat volume of some five or six hundred pages, by D. Appleton & Co. of New York, in 1870, two years before Draper's publication. I thought Professor Langley might have eminent " American physicists" in his mind; but his reference to the English cyclopædia of 1867 immediately before, suggests no such limit to his statement. A. H. MACKAY. Pictou Academy, Nova Scotia, Aug. 22.

[Mr. MacKay's letter may elicit more information on an interesting point, but attention should be drawn to the fact that he offers no evidence (i.e., cites no passages) to show that the lectures he mentions do quote any "physicist of eminence" in plain support of the doctrine in question. A statement as explicit as Melloni's or Draper's is what is wanted. Statements which might mean this (or any thing else) are plenty. ED.]

The Laws of Corrasion.

UPON opening my copy of Science this morning, I am greeted with your note on Major Powell's "first formal announcement of a new law in the hydraulics of rivers " upon the relation between their corrading power and sedimentary load. I think you will find this principle fully stated by Major Powell in his Report on the Geology of the Uinta Mountains' (Government Printing-Office, 1876); but my object in writing is to draw your attention to the recognition of this "new law" in Chapter XVI., and especially p. 226, of the new Physical Geography' of Van Antwerp, Bragg, & Co. The law as enunciated in the first paragraph of Science (No. 290) is only true within certain limits, for the sedimentary load of a stream may become so great that it requires all the energy of the current to simply transport it, and hence there is little or no corrasion. The rivers of the Great Plains, -as Platte, Republican, Arkansas,