Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 17.djvu/584

568 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.

 

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 somewhat 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 south-east end is closed by the short chain of the High Peak; the northwestern by the high swell of plateaus which divide the head-waters 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 surrounding 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 