like a basin, and fitting tightly over the rim of the urn. They took off the covers and emptied the vessels, when they were astonished to find that the surface of the sand in one of them was apparently covered with a deep-black peruke, ornamented with pearls of about the size of a pea. A more careful examination showed them that this curiously discovered "head-dress " was composed of the fibrous roots of the horse-tail rush, which grew abundantly on the top of the hill in which the graves had been made. The roots of the plant having penetrated the soil to the depth of three feet and a half, had made their way through the narrow crevices between the stones of the grave, had found the urns, had then pushed up perpendicularly through the minute space between the rim of the cover and the neck of the urn, and had arranged themselves within the urn into a regular network. After the forma tion had been dried, the course which the principal root had taken could be traced. The fibrous roots had branched out from it,

and covered the whole surface of the sand in such a manner as to deceive the observers for a time with the resemblance to a beautiful head-dress. The knots, which were taken for pearls, were irregularly distributed, and were manifestly thicker in places in the principal root. The formation affords an interesting illustration of the faculty which the roots of plants possess of seeking for and reaching the most suitable nourishment. The operation in the present instance involved a reversal of the common direction of the growth of roots, and that which resembled an effort to reach hidden food. The case furnishes a curious parallel to the one which was described in this country a few years ago, in which the root of an apple-tree, which grew over the grave of Roger Wil

liams, was found to have taken the place and shape of the body buried below.

Artesian Wells on our Western Plains.-A proposition to make an appropriation of fifty thousand dollars for the purpose of sinking experimental artesian wells in the Western Plains, has been advocated in Congress, and has been mentioned favorably in the press. It is urged in behalf of the scheme that of about nine hundred million acres of arid lands in Arizona, Dakota, Ida

| ho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, and Nevada, which must remain practically a desert unless some method is found to supply them with water, about five hundred million acres of plain and valley lands would be susceptible of profitable cultivation if they could be watered. Of this, not more than three per cent. can be irrigated by the use of existing streams and rivers. It has been demonstrated, wherever settlement has been made and irrigation applied, that the lands when watered are as good as any; and the operations of the French in Algeria, which are still continued, give an encouraging promise of what can be accomplished with artesian wells.

African Fetich-Worship and Witchcraft. -Dr. Buchholz, a German entomologist, in his account of his wanderings in west Africa, notices many of the peculiar customs of the negroes of Upper Guinea, particu

larly those relating to fetich-worship and

witchcraft. While among the Akkra tribes of the Gold Coast, he found that fetiches, generally clay dolls representing a man and termite-hills which he was interested in exa woman, had been laid at the foot of the amining, with offerings around them. The fetich-processions are celebrated with considerable pomp, in which the fetich-drum, a stick provided with rings on which a little hollow ball, a gourd-shell, is rapidly struck, plays an important part. At the village of Abreri, farther inland, the ceremonies were held in a large, open place, at one end of which silvered images of the gods, rude figures representing a bird, a turtle, an ear of corn, and a figure holding different vessels, were set up in an orderly manner on a pil

lar, while the priest performed his ritual at

the other end. The music, of drums, bells, and other instruments, including a drum of bronze, was accompanied by the multitude with a rhythmical hand-clapping. At the feast of the new moon, in addition to the music and the singing, each participant had a white streak drawn over his face, and the master of ceremonies, swinging a pe culiar brush and gesticulating frantically, had his face painted all over white. The Bakhniri believe, when any one dies or is sick, that he has been bewitched; or if

death is caused by a snake, or a crocodile, or a leopard, that the animal has been bewitched to cause it. The person accused of witchcraft is compelled to drink a decoction of a poisonous wood called sassha-wood; if he vomits up the drink, he is considered not guilty and let go; otherwise, he is killed if he does not die of the poison. They have a great fear of white people and all that comes from them, and especially regard paper that has been written upon as a fetich and the place or the thing on which it falls as taboo. When Dr. Buchholz on one occasion dressed the wounds of a sick person, he let a little piece of paper fall out of his pocket without noticing it. When he next went to visit the sick man, he found that his patient had been quarantined because the house was considered bewitched, and the piece of paper was ceremoniously handed back to him. One day, when a woman was to be buried, the negroes sent a messenger to him with a special request that he would not leave any pieces of paper anywhere that he went, because, if he did, they would have to keep away from those roads and places. A son of old King William, of Bimbia, having died after a long sickness, an innocent man was accused of having caused his death by witchcraft. He was taken out and hung; immediately the whole population, men, women, and children, ran to the shore, stripped off the little they had on, and went into the water to wash off whatever enchantment might be on them. One of the festivals among the Deialla negroes was diversified by an exhibition of single combat. The champion who achieved the most brilliant victory was hailed with great applause, and his mother sung and danced to his honor; but one of the defeated ones went up to his mother and reproached her because she had not given birth to a stronger son.

A Remarkable Coal-Mine Explosion.M. A. Delesse gives in "La Nature" an account of an explosion of carbonic acid which took place in a coal-mine at Rochebelle, France, on the 28th of July, 1879. Two workmen, who were at the bottom of a shaft about three hundred and seventyfive yards deep, heard a sudden detonation, which was followed in about a minute by

another louder one. Their lamps were instantly put out; they felt a faintness, and were barely able to escape to the hoist-car and be drawn out. Three other miners, who were working in a gallery ninety yards higher, were suffocated. The scene of the disaster was afterward examined, and it was decided that the explosions could not have proceeded from carburetted hydrogen, for they were not accompanied by flames; thin partitions in the shaft and upper galleries were not broken; the bodies and clothes of the dead men showed no signs of having been burned; and powder which lay in the gallery and in cartridges had not taken fire. No signs of carburetted hydrogen had ever been observed about the mine, but carbonic acid had always been present, sometimes in such quantities as to compel the men to cease work, and a ventilating apparatus had been put up to discharge it. The explosion was found to have taken place in front of the excavations in one of the upper galleries (two hundred and sixty-six yards below the surface), which was obstructed for a considerable distance by the broken coal. Small particles and dust were thrown out to a much greater distance, and the man who was working in front had been thrown back and buried under the fragments. About seventy-six tons of coal appear to have been displaced by the explosion. Carbonic acid continued to escape from the coal after the accident, and even the pieces that had been thrown into the gallery gave it out when they were disturbed. No satisfactory explanation has been offered of the manner in which the gas could have accumulated, and have gained so high a pressure as to cause a detonating explosion. The gas, it is suggested, may have been formed by the action of the sulphuric acid which escapes from a vein of rapidly oxidizing iron pyrites in the neighborhood upon an adjoining bed of limestone, but this leaves the question of a violent explosion still unsolved.

A Systematic Investigation of Earthquakes.-The Swiss Natural History Society has appointed a special commission of seven members for the systematic observation of earthquakes. Recognizing that a large number of observations at as many

places as possible is necessary for the sufficient investigation of every earthquake, the commission has taken measures to enlist those persons generally in its own country who are interested in investigations of this kind in coöperation with its work, and is perfecting a special organization for the collection of observations with the aid of such assistants. A special field is assigned to each member of the commission, and he is expected to put himself in communication with persons who may be disposed and competent to aid him in different parts of his district. A tract for distribution has been published under the direction of the commission, which contains a summary of the most recent facts that have been ascertained about earthquakes, and points out the directions in which an increase of knowledge on the subject can be promoted. A number of stations, selected by the commission, are provided with instruments for special observations. The observers are furnished with a schedule of questions respecting the different phases of the earthquakes they may witness, which they are expected to answer as fully as they are able to do. They are also requested to represent the phases of the shock graphically on a chart, where it is possible, to assist in comprehending and reviewing the character of the phenomena. The collected accounts of observations are arranged and preserved in an archive of earthquakes. As the questions concern a subject of general interest, and are useful aids to investigation everywhere, we repeat them entire. They are seventeen in number, as follows: 1. On what day was the earthquake noticed? 2. At what hour? 3. How did your clock agree on the day, or, better, on the hour, of the earthquake, with the nearest telegraph clock? 4. Endeavor to furnish an exact description of the place of observation, the canton, town, situation, whether in the open or among buildings, in what story of the house; state in what position and what occupation the observer was when the shock was perceived? 5. On what kind of soil does the place of observation stand? Whether the surface be of rock, soil, or peat; depth of the ground to bed-rock, etc.? 6. How many shocks were felt, and during what interval of time? 7. In what direction was the motion? Did it come from be

low, was it short and in a direction from side to side, or broad, surging in the form of waves, or only a trembling? In case there were more than one shock, was there a difference in the character of the different shocks? With what could the motion be compared, and how did it affect the observer? 8. In what direction was the trembling of the earth felt? 9. How long did the shocks and the subsequent trembling seem to last? 10. What effects did the shaking produce? 11. How might this earthquake be distinguished from others which have previously been noticed by the same observers? 12. Was any noise heard, and, if so, what kind of a noise was it— like thunder, a clinking, a rattling, a clap, or a continuous noise, etc.? 13. Did the noise precede the shaking or follow it, and how long did it last in comparison with the duration of the shocks and of the intervals between them? 14. What particular minor phenomena were observed? Were there, for instance, anything peculiar in the behavior of animals; any drying up, or troubling, or breaking out again of springs; any peculiar rustling in the woods, any gusts of wind simultaneous with the shocks, or abnormal features of the weather? 15. What was noticed with regard to the lakes? 16. Were lighter shocks felt before or after the main shocks, and at what time? 17. Can you mention any other observations made by your acquaintances or in your neighborhood, or can you give the addresses of persons who are able to answer all of these questions, or a part of them?

Precocity a Sign of Inferiority.-M. G. Delaunay, in a communication to the French Société de Biologie, has advanced the opinion that precocity is a sign of biological inferiority. In support of his position he adduces the fact that the lower species develop more rapidly, and are at the same time more precocious, than those higher in the scale. Man is the longest of all in arriving at maturity; and the inferior races of men are more precocious than the superior, as is seen in the children of the Esquimaux, negroes, Cochin-Chinese, Japanese, Arabs, etc., who are, up to a certain age, more vigorous and more intellectual than

small Europeans. Precociousness becomes less and less in proportion to the advance made by any race in civilization-a fact which is illustrated by the lowering of the standard for recruits, which has been made necessary in France twice during the present century, by the decreasing rapidity of growth of the youth of the country. Women are more precocious than men, and in all domestic animals the female is formed sooner than the male. From eight to twelve years of age, a girl gains one pound a year on a boy, and in mixed schools girls obtain the first places up to the age of twelve. The inferior tissues and organs develop before the higher ones, and the brain is the slowest of all organs to develop. M. Delaunay concludes his paper by stating that the precocity of organs and organisms is in an inverse ratio to the extent of their evolution.

NOTES.

ACCORDING to Dr. Abercrombie, a gentleman who had been a soldier dreamed that he heard a signal-gun, saw the proceedings for displaying the signals, heard the bustle of the streets, the assembling of troops, etc. Just then he was roused by his wife, who had dreamed precisely the same dream with this addition, that she saw the enemy land and a friend of her husband's killed; and she awoke in a fright. This occurred at Edinburgh, at the time when a French invasion was feared, and it had been decided to fire a signal-gun at the first approach of the foe. The dream was caused, it appears, by the fall of a pair of tongs in the room above; and the excited state of the public mind was quite sufficient to account for both dreams turning on the same subject.

THE French forestry department, according to the "Polybiblion," have arrived at the conclusion that forests directly increase the supply of water in their neighborhood. From observations at Senlis and Nancy, they have decided that it rains more abundantly in wooded tracts, and that, while the leaves and branches give back the water quickly to the air, they prevent rapid evaporation from the ground, and are thus favorable to the formation of springs.

DR. LUDWIG MOSER, Professor of Physies in the University of Königsberg, died in the latter part of February, aged seventyfive years. "Long," says "Nature," "before photography had become a practical art, Dr.

Moser had acquired considerable reputation by his systematic and successful experiments in this department."

SPECIMENS of the volcanic ashes which rained down upon Dominica have been analyzed by M. L. Best. The lye was found to be rich in chloride of potassium. The predominant constituents of the solid part were silicates (feldspar and pyroxene), and pyrites in perfectly defined cubic crystals.

ANOTHER Severe outbreak of scarlet fever, which occurred near Manchester, England, last summer, and in which thirty-five persons belonging to eighteen different famsix hours, has been traced by the health auilies were attacked, twenty-five within thirtythorities to the distribution of the infection through the milk-supply.

HERR BAUMGARTNER, a German, has invented a balloon for navigation, having three cars attached, each with ten or twelve rings, to be set in motion by a crank. He recently attempted an ascension with his machine at Leipsic. When the balloon was rising very slowly and skimming the house-tops his two assistants, in their alarm, jumped out. Upon this the balloon shot up to a great height, then burst and fell. The inventor was not seriously hurt, and is resolved to make a second experiment.

REV. JAMES CLIFTON WARD, F. G. S., from 1865 to 1878 an active working member of the English Geological Survey, and a popular writer on geological subjects, died April 13th, at the early age of thirty-seven.

"NATURE" quotes from the "Bombay Gazette" an account of a remarkable thunderstorm that occurred at Dharwar, in March last, during which "hailstones fell measuring no less than nine or ten inches in circumference." The thunder and lightning were terrific, and, after the fall of hail, there was a heavy down-pour of rain. We thought the hailstones mentioned above were the largest ever heard of, but it turns out, as usual, that the West is ahead in hailstones as well as meteors and other celestial commodities. The "Bulletin" of the Iowa Weather Service, for April, 1880, received since the above was written, tells of thunderstorms during the month, in that State, where hailstones fell measuring twelve inches in circumference.

THE death is announced of Karl von Seebach, the distinguished Professor of Geology at Gottingen. Although still a young man at the time of his death, he had done a large amount of valuable work, especially in the investigation of volcanic phenomena.

A SCIENTIFIC association has been formed in Algeria on the plan of the British and