Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 19.djvu/589

Rh and prove to be identical with the pebbles with which the earth is interspersed. The pebbles, then, originate from the veins, which have been broken up by the same agency that has caused the decomposition of the stratified rock. This agency Professor Kerr believes to have been the action of the frost of the glacial period, which, as we infer from observations made in northern latitudes, may readily have penetrated the rocks to the depth indicated by the character of the beds, and, constituting what might be called an earth-glacier, would have produced the same movements of the mass and of the particles among themselves as are seen to occur in the true glacier, differing only in amount. The deposits might then be called frost-drift, as distinguished from proper glacial drift. Instances of veins in course of actual disintegration are mentioned in the paper. In cutting a hill for the extension of Market Street in Philadelphia, in 18*76, bands of hornblende and chlorite were found decomposed, drawn out, and bent over, as if in course of being carried down the slope, and a similar appearance is observable in a mica-mine in Yancey County, North Carolina. The gold-bearing gravels or placers of North Carolina belong to this class of frost-drifts, the gold and quartz pebbles being derived from the veins which have been broken down in the course of their formation.

Burying the Souls of the Drowned.—Whenever an Abchasian is drowned, his friends search carefully for the body; but, if this is not found, they proceed to capture the soul of the deceased, a measure which has then become a matter of importance. A goat-skin bag is sprinkled with water and placed with its mouth, which is stretched open over a hoop, looking toward the river, near to the place where the man is supposed to have been drowned. Two cords are stretched from the spot across the river, as a bridge on which the soul can come over. Vessels containing food and drink are set around the skin, and the friends of the deceased come and eat quietly, while a song is sung with instrumental accompaniments. The soul, it is believed, is attracted by the ceremonies, comes over on the bridge that is laid for it, and goes into the trap. As soon as it has entered—that is, when the bag is inflated by the breeze—the opening is quickly closed, and the bag is taken to the burial-place, where a grave has already been prepared. The bag is held with the opening to the grave, the strings are untied, and the soul—that is, the wind in the bag—is squeezed into the grave, and the burial is afterward completed. This rite is considered of equivalent value with the burial of the body, and the grave is treated with the same honor as if the body were really within it.

Alkaline Deposits from Waters of Irrigation.—Professor E. W. Hilgard, in his report as Professor of Agriculture in the University of California, observing that ordinary surface irrigation on alkaline lands tends to concentrate the alkali at the surface, proposes as a remedy underdraining, "which may so far lower the water-table from which the saline matters are derived, and may so far favor the washing out of the salts during the rainy season, that the latter will thereafter fail to reach the surface so as to accumulate to an injurious extent with reasonable tillage." The waters of Kern and Tulare Lakes contain an excess of solid matter, the quantity in the former lake being twenty-six times as much as in average river-water, and consisting mostly of carbonate of soda, common and Glauber's salts. The evaporation from such water when it is used in irrigation adds annually to the deposit of alkali in the soil, the effect of which must be counteracted by the cultivavationcultivation [sic] of deep-rooted crops, the use of gypsum, sub-irrigation, and the leaching out of the alkali from time to time by long-continued flooding and underdrainage. Professor Hilgard concludes, after an examination of the facts, that "there are, probably, few river-waters in the world of such composition or natural purity that continued irrigation without correlative underdrainage can be practiced without in the end causing an injurious accumulation of soluble salts in the soil." The Indian Government, after having spent enormous sums to bring water upon the fields, now has to face the problem of its economical removal by drainage, so as to relieve the soil of the accumulated alkali which has rendered it unfit for cultivation.