ANNUAL REPORT OF THE WISCONSIN GEOLOGICAL SURVEY for 1879. By J. C. CHAMBERLIN, Chief Geologist. Madison, Wisconsin State Printer, 1880.

We learn from this brief report that the work of the survey is approaching completion. Two volumes of the reports are now in the printer's hands; and a third, which, however, will be Vol. I. of the series, will shortly follow, and will be devoted to the general geology of the State.

DEUTSCH-AMERIKANISCHE APOTHEKER - ZEITUNG. Edited by Dr. GEORGE W. RACHEL, and published by the Pharmaceutical Publishing Company, 5 Gold Street, New York. Pp. 16. Illustrated. Price, $2.50 a year.

"THE Deutsch - Amerikanische Apotheker Zeitung" (German-American Druggists' Gazette) is a semi-monthly journal which has been started in the interest and as the organ of the German apothecaries, chemists, and physicians, of the United States. It promises original articles and correspondence from writers of recognized standing in their respective fields, notices and reviews of all that is new in the branches of science to which it is devoted, for which the American and European press will be consulted, market reports of drugs and chemicals, and free discussions. The numbers before us are filled with articles and paragraphs of scientific merit, comprehensive in scope, varied in character, and abreast with the times.

for twenty-two years, has been incorporated as the Natural History Society of Wiscon sin, for the purpose of investigating the facts pertaining to the natural history and ethnology of the State. Its first year's report, in the German language, contains notices of the papers read at the several meetings of the Society, and an essay on "Life on the Prairie," by Dr. Emil Ulrici. also sends us a paper (in German), of which he is the author, on the settlements of the Normans in Iceland, Greenland, and North America, in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries."

Dr. Ulrici

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Diagram of the Progress of the Anthracite Coal Trade of Pennsylvania. With Statistical Tables, etc. By the Messrs. Sheafer. Pottsville, Pa. 1879.

On Fluid Extracts as prepared for the Coming Pharmacopoeia. Detroit. 1880. Pp. 7.

Photometric Researches. By William H. Pickering. Cambridge: John Wilson & Son. 1880. Pp. 14.

Therapeutic Action of Mercury, pp. 27, and Mechanical Therapeutics, Chemistry, and Toxicology of Mercury, pp. 19. By S. V. Clevenger, M. D. Chicago. 1880.

The Felsites and their Associated Rocks north of Boston. By J. S. Diller. Pp. 13.

High Schools. By B. G. Northrop. Syracuse: Davis, Bardeen & Co. 1880. Pp. 26. 25 cents.

The School Bulletin Year-Book for 1880. An Educational Directory of the State of New York. Compiled by C. W. Bardeen. Syracuse: Davis, Bardeen & Co. 1880. Pp. 36, with Map. $1.

Memoirs of the Science Department, Univer sity of Tokio, Japan. Vol. II. On Mining and Mines in Japan. By C. Netto, M. E. Tokio: Published by the University. 1879. Pp. 54. Il

lustrated.

On the Ethers of Uric Acid. Second Paper. Dimethyluric Acid. By H. B. Hill and C. F. Mabery. From "Proceedings of the American Academy." Pp. 11.

The "American Journal of Philology." Edited by Basil L. Gildersleeve. Vol. I., No 2. Baltimore: The Editor, May, 1880. Pp. 126. Quar

terly, $1 per number, or $3 a year.

Bromide of Ethyl as an Anesthetic. By J. Marion Sims, M. D., LL. D. Read before the New York Academy of Medicine, March 19, 1880. Pp. 22.

A Defense of Free Thought, together with a Theory of the Origin of Morals and Religion, and some Speculations on Immortality. By an Agnostic. Galveston, Texas. 1880. Pp. 52.

Annual Report upon the Surveys of the Northern and Northwestern Lakes, and the Mississippi River, in charge of C. B. Comstock. Washington: Government Printing-Office. 1879. Pp. 180.

The Fifty-sixth Annual Report of the Officers of the Retreat for the Insane at Hartford, Conn. Hartford. 1880. Pp. 36.

Hearing by the Aid of Tissue Conduction. The Month-Trumpet and the Audiphone. By Samuel Sexton, M. D. New York. 1880. Pp. 8. Researches on Hearing through the Medium

of the Teeth and Cranial Bones. Reprinted from the "Philadelphia Medical Times." Pp. 4. And The Perimetric Dimension System. A General System of Measurement for Urethral, Uterine, Rectal, and other Instruments, and an Adaptable Metric Gauge. By Charles H. Thomas, M. D. Philadelphia. Pp. 4.

Percy's Pocket Dictionary of Coney Island. With Map and Illustrations. New York: F. Leypoldt. 1880. Pp. 120. 10 cents.

Graded Selections for Memorizing. By John B. Peaslee, A. M., Ph. D. Cincinnati and New York: Van Antwerp, Bragg & Co. Pp. 192. 50

cents.

The Liberal Hymn-Book. Edited by Eliza Boardman Burnz. New York: Burnz & Co. 1880. 25 cents.

University of Tokio. The Calendar of the Departments of Law, Science, and Literature. 1879-'80. Tokio: Z. P. Maruya & Co. Pp. 163.

Some Thoughts concerning Education. By John Locke. With Introduction and Notes. By the Rev. R. H. Quick, M. D. London: Cambridge Warehouse. 1880. Pp. 140. 90 cents.

Annual Report of the Chief Engineer of the Water Department of the City of Philadelphia for the Year 1879. Philadelphia. 1880. Pp. 100.

The Principles of Nature, etc. Also an Exposition of the Spiritual Universe. Given inspirationally. By Mrs. Maria M. King. Vols. II. and III. Hammonton, N. J.: A. J. King. 1880. Pp. 261 and 268. $1.75 per vol.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

The Catskill Mountains.-Professor A. Guyot gives, in the "American Journal of Science" for June, the results and a map of the first scientific survey of the Catskill Mountains, which he has undertaken, and with the aid of interested assistants has so far successfully carried out. These mountains, though situated in the most populous and civilized part of the United States, and visited every year by thousands, are among the least known in our country. Yet several features of the group are well calculated to excite the curiosity of the scientific investigator, and to call for a thorough study of its plastic forms. Though a part of the Appalachian system, the range appears in it as an anomaly; for, while the other Appalachian ranges trend from the southwest to the northeast, the Catskills run at right angles to them, or from the southeast to the northwest. The Catskills also surpass all the neighboring ranges of mountains by two thousand feet of height. Professor Guyot has devoted the summer vacations of seventeen years to their examination. His map represents a surface of about four thousand square miles, of which the mountainous part proper occupies some

what more than one half, or about twenty-four hundred square miles. The distances and bearings are computed from the points of the triangulation of the Coast Survey along the Hudson River as a base. The mountain region is divided by the Esopus Creek into two groups, differing considerably in their physical structure, the northern, or Catskills proper, and the southern Catskills or Shandaken Mountains. "The northern group, or Catskills proper, between the Esopus and Catskill Creeks, form a massive plateau having the shape of an irregular parallelogram, extending from southeast to northwest, and shut up between two high border chains, ten or fifteen miles distant from each other, running about in the same direction. The southwest border is formed by what may be called the central chain of all the Catskills, the other by the northeast border chain. The southeast end is closed by the short chain of the High Peak; the northwestern by the high swell of plateaus which divide the headwaters of the Delaware and Susquehanna from those of the Schoharie Creek and the Hudson. Inside of this highland, three secondary ranges, starting from the northeast border chain and running nearly west, almost to the foot of the central chain, fill the inner space, inclosing deep valleys in which flow the waters of the Schoharie Creek and its tributaries. . . . A striking peculiarity of the plastic forms of the northern Catskill group is, that while its western end is, as it were, buried in the general plateaus of western New York, its mountains rising but moderately above their sur rounding base, its eastern end stands isolated on three sides by deep and broadly open valleys, projecting, in all its height, as a mighty promontory, to within ten miles of tide-water in the Hudson River." The very base of its mountains rarely exceeds six hundred feet above tide. "No wonder, then," says Professor Guyot, "that the aspect of the Catskills is nowhere more imposing than from the Hudson River and the surrounding lowlands, from which their whole height is seized at a glance, and that it has been thus far believed that the highest points were found among the mountains of the eastern end." The panorama of the mountains, as seen from Catskill village, is

not a view of a single chain, but takes the eastern end of the border chains and the short range bearing the High Peak, which rises between the two. The Catskills do not present prominent examples of anticlinal and synclinal folds or arches, or fragments of arches, as in ordinary mountain-chains, but are masses of piled-up strata, seldom deviating notably from their original horizontal position. On account of this disposition of the strata, and their tendency to break at right angles to the planes of stratification, they are marked by the frequent abrupt ledges which are peculiar to them. For the same reason, the tops of the mountains are not pointed peaks, but are mostly flat surfaces, often of considerable extent. The central chain is the longest and most massive of the series, and is the backbone of the whole Catskill region. From Overlook Mountain to the Utsyantha, near Stamford, it is a little more than thirty-five miles long, and is divided into four almost equal parts by three deep gorges or cloves. The heights increase regularly from the Overlook to Hunter Mountain, one quarter of the way back, which, 4,038 feet high, is the highest point of the northern Catskills, overtopping High Peak, which has borne that name, by nearly four hundred feet. From this point the heights diminish to the Utsyantha, at the western end of the chain, whose height, 3,205 feet, is not greatly different from that of Overlook, 3,150 feet. The High Peak range, which is sandwiched between this range and the northern range, is only six miles long, and is distinguished by its High Peak, 3,664 feet high. The northeast border chain begins at South Mountain, near the Catskill Mountain House, which is 2,497 feet high, culminates at Black Dome, 4,003 feet high, and ends at Leonard Hill, 2,649 feet high, showing a similar rapid rise for a quarter of the distance, and a gradual fall toward the western end with the central range. The highland between these two chains, an irregular parallelogram twenty-seven miles long and from six to fifteen miles wide, is filled by three ranges, which are separated by valleys in which flow the tributaries of Schoharie Creek. This stream and its tributaries furnish the entire drainage for the interior highlands of the Catskills proper. The streams that

run directly to the Hudson draw no water from the interior, but belong properly to the outside slopes. "This drainage, which sends the waters of the Catskills all the way around to the Mohawk to come back by the Hudson, after a course of one hundred and seventy-five miles, to within ten miles of their starting-point, is certainly remarkable, and betokens a very peculiar physical structure. This is made more striking by the fact that on both sides of these highlands the waters of the valleys of the Catskill and Esopus Creeks flow, as we might have expected, from the western plateaus directly to the Hudson River. The nearly horizontal position of the strata, which is common to the mountains and the surrounding plateau, and the peculiar features of the drainage, lead to the inference that the plastic forms of the Catskill region are the work of erosive forces, and are not due to the ordinary dynamic process which has folded and shaped the other parts of the Appalachian system. "We may, therefore, conceive the original form of the Catskills to have been that of a high plateau, a mass of elevations forming a part of the Appalachian plateau region which extends west of the Alleghanies from south Virginia, and fills nearly all the western portion of the State of New York south of Lake Ontario and the Mohawk River. The lowest altitude of the primitive plateau is marked by the ideal plane which would pass through the mountain-tops, and its superior elevation on the east would account for the flow of the waters, the gradual scooping out and the sloping of the valleys in the direction they now have." The southern Catskills have not the regular features which characterize the northern group; the boundaries are not well defined, except along the Esopus Valley; and, instead of their having an interior plateau inclosed by high border chains, the massive central chain, which bears the highest summit, is accessible from all the surrounding valleys without crossing any high pass. Their general direction is about the same as that of the northern Catskills, but several important ridges run at right angles to this direction, and impart considerable physical irregularity to their structure. The Slide Mountain, the culminating point of this group, is the highest of

all the Catskills, measuring 4,205 feet, and is the hydrographic center of the region, whence the waters run to the northwest by the Esopus, to the northeast by Woodland Creek, to the south by the Rondout to the Hudson, and to the southwest by the Nevisink to the Delaware. The geological structure of the group is similar to that of the northern Catskills. Professor James Hall has announced that, after four years of observation, he has detected the existence of four lines of anticlinals, nearly parallel to each other, and running from southwest to northeast, in conformity with the ordinary trend of the Appalachian range. Professor Guyot is willing to acknowledge the fact, but calls attention to the other fact that these axes cross the chains and valleys almost at right angles, "and were probably posterior to the scooping out of the valleys and mountain-chains, on the conformation of which they had so little effect. . . . A hypsometric feature, which may refer to this order of facts, is that the three maxima of altitudes above four thousand feet, the Slide Mountain, Hunter Mountain, and Black | Dome, are situated in a straight line, trending from southwest to northeast."

Silicified Forests of the Yellowstone Park.-In Bulletin No. 1 of Vol. V. of the "Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories," Mr. W. H. Holmes gives an account of a most wonderful geological formation, which attains its greatest development in the valley of the east fork of the Yellowstone River. It occurs in horizontal layers, having an aggregate thickness of fifty-five hundred feet, that is, the whole formation at this point is a little more than a mile in depth. This is filled throughout with the silicified remains of a multitude of forests, many of the trunks of trees that are still to be seen being of very large size. Some of them are prostrate, and from fifty to sixty feet long; others are upright where they grew, and some of the stumps measure from five to six feet in diameter. One gigantic trunk is described that stands twelve feet above the eroded strata about it, and is ten feet in diameter. This trunk is hollow, but the woody structure of what remains is well preserved, the rings of growth being clearly defined. The bark on this stump is

four inches thick, and on its outer surface deeply lined. Scattered through the formations among the trunks is a great variety of vegetable remains, consisting of branches, rootlets, fruit, and leaves. Specimens submitted to Professor Leo Lesquereaux have been identified as follows: Aralia Whitneyi, Magnolia lanceolata, Laurus Canariensis, also new species of Fraxinus, Cornus Alnus, Tilia, Diospyros, Pteris, and Fern. The wood is in many cases completely agatized, and cavities which existed in the decayed trunks are filled with crystals of calcite and quartz. The formations are of the "Volcanic Tertiary," and composed of fragmentary volcanic products, breccias, conglomerates, and sandstones, the two former consisting chiefly of basalt. Many are of great size, and are cemented together in enormous masses or heavy beds by tufaceous and other finegrained material. These beds or layers represent successive formations, arising from the subsidence of the land, during the intermissions of which the forests grew. The beds have evidently been changed by the action of water; and the conclusion is that the formation represents the shore or margin of a great Tertiary lake. It is believed that the beds cover or have covered an area of over ten thousand square miles.

Germs of Disease in Water.-Professor Huxley, in a recent discussion of a paper by Dr. Tidy on water for dietetic purposes, said that diseases caused by what people not wisely call germs are produced invariably by bodies of the nature of bacteria. These bodies could be cultivated through twenty or thirty generations, and then, when given under the requisite conditions, would invariably cause their characteristic disease. Bacteria are plants, and we know under what conditions they can live and what they will do. They can be sown and will thrive in Pasteur's solution, just as cress or mustard in the soil; and, if a drop of this solu tion were placed in a gallon of water, Professor Roscoe thinks it doubtful if there is any known method by which its constituents could be estimated. Every cubic inch of such water would contain fifty thousand to one hundred thousand bacteria, and one drop of it would be capable of exciting a putrefactive fermentation in any substance

capable of undergoing that fermentation. The human body may be considered as such a substance, and we may conceive of a water containing such organisms which may be as pure as can be as regards chemical analysis, and yet be, as regards the human body, as deadly as prussic acid. This is a terrible conclusion, but it is true; and, if the public are guided by percentages alone, they may often be led astray. The real value of a determination of the quantity of organic impurity in a water is that by it a shrewd notion can be obtained as to what has had access to that water. If it be proved that sewage has been mixed with it, there is a very great chance that the excreta of some diseased person may be there also. On the other hand, water may be chemically gross, and yet do harm to no one, the great danger being in the disease-germs.

Man in America.-Professor Flower, in a recent lecture on the "Anatomy of Man," before the Royal College of Surgeons, London, discussed at some length the question of his origin on the American Continent. Till recently, opinions on the early peopling of America had been divided between the views that the inhabitants of this continent were a distinct indigenous people, and therefore not related to those of any other land; and that they were descended from an Asiatic people who, in comparatively recent times, passed into America by the way of Behring Strait, and thence spread gradually over the whole Continent. These theories have had to undergo considerable modifications in consequence of the discovery of the great antiquity of the human race in America, as well as in the Old World. The proof of this antiquity rests upon the high and independent state of civilization which had been attained by the Mexicans and Peruvians at the time of the Spanish conquest, and the evidence that that civilization had been preceded by several other stages of culture, following in succession through a great stretch of time. The antiquity of this quasi-historical period is, however, entirely thrown into the shade by the evidence now accumulating from various parts of North and South America, that man existed on the Western Continent, and under much the same conditions of life, using precisely similar weapons

and tools, as in Europe during the Pleistocene or Quaternary period, and perhaps even farther back in time. Recent paleontological investigations show that an immense number of forms of terrestrial animals, that were formerly supposed to be peculiar to the Old World, are abundant in the New. Taking all circumstances into consideration, it is quite as likely that Asiatic man may have been derived from America as the reverse, or both may have had their source in a common center, in some region of the earth now covered with sea.

Illusions and Apparitions.-All illusive visions and apparitions are susceptible of a scientific explanation. They originate in some derangement of the brain and nervous system, and are for that reason most likely to occur to persons who are out of health. The apparent reality of some of these illusions is often wonderful, and might well prompt those who are not acquainted with nervous physiology, or who have not devoted careful attention to the subject, to refer them to something out of the common. Even while we are in perfect possession of our faculties, we imagine that we see objects before us as clearly as though they were actually present, or hear, with equal distinctness, sounds which have no real existence outside of ourselves. The explanation may be found in a simple study of the physiology of the nervous system, and shows that the illusions have a material basis. Our sensations are transmitted from the organ that receiyes them to the brain, and it is the brain, not the organ, that experiences them and is their seat. In the case of sight, it is the function of the eye to receive and adjust the rays of light coming from the object that we see, so that they shall produce an impression on the brain. The eye represents the lenses of the photographer's camera; but the brain corresponds to the sensitive plate which receives the image, and on which all subsequent alterations of the image are effected. Similar relative parts are played by the organs and the brain in the case of the other senses. Now, if a similar impression to that which is transmitted to the brain from the organ of sense is produced upon it by any other cause, the same kind of a sensation will result. This may happen when the brain