Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/733

 hundred to three hundred feet above the present level of the stream. A deserted river-channel, now followed by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, and more than two hundred feet higher than the present river, extends from fifteen miles below Charleston to Huntington, at the mouth of the Guyandotte, through which the Kanawha once flowed to the Ohio. A similar deserted channel, of a similar height, extends from near the mouth of the Big Sandy to Greenupsburg, Kentucky. Mr. G. H, Squier reports evidences of a terrace on the Licking River, near Owingsville, Bath County, Kentucky; and the fact had so impressed him that, before knowing of Professor Wright's discoveries, he had come to the conclusion that some such barrier as is supposed must have existed.

Value of Brain-Weighings.—Recent statements about the weight of Turgenief's brain, which was extraordinarily heavy, have provoked questions as to the value of such data. Mr. Nikiforoff has published an article on the subject. The suggestion is raised that the significance of the weight of the brain is not absolute, but should depend upon the proportion the brain bears to the dimensions of the whole body, and to the weight of the individual. Byron died at the age of thirty-six, and the great geometrician Gauss at seventy-eight years of age. The brains of the two should, therefore not be compared. It is equally important to know what was the cause of death, for protracted disease and old age exhaust the brain. To define the real degree of development of the brain, it is, therefore, necessary to have a knowledge of the condition of the whole body, and, as this is usually lacking, the mere record of weights possesses little significance.

The Boring Power of Mollusks.—Professor F. H. Storer suggests, in a note to Professor Dana, that the shell and rock-boring mollusks owe their excavating power in large part to chemical actions which they induce. Having observed how readily saline compounds are decomposed by way of osmose when put in contact with moistened membranes, and particularly with living membranes, like those in the rootlets of plants, and how plant-roots actually decompose mineral substances, he conceives it probable that mollusks also do their boring by means of chlorhydric acid formed through the decomposition of sea-salt by certain of their tissues. The boring has usually been regarded as a kind of drilling performed by the tooth-like processes attached to the proboscis of the mollusk. Professor Storer does not deny that the teeth may aid in the process of removing the softened shell, but believes that an acid solvent acting upon the shell is primarily operative; and he proposes the question as a fit subject of experimentation.

Sir Bartle Frere.—Sir Henry Bartle Edward Frere, Bart., a distinguished officer in the English colonial service, and a promoter of geographical exploration, died at his home in Wimbledon, England, on the 29th of May. He was born in 1815, and spent his earlier years in the Indian civil service, where he became Governor of Bombay, and member of the Council of India. In 1872 he was deputed on a special mission, connected with the suppression of the slave-trade, to Zanzibar, where he was able to render efficient aid to African exploration. His interest in this work began in 1865, when he helped to raise means to start Livingstone on his last expedition, and gave him an official letter to the Sultan of Zanzibar. At Zanzibar, in 18'72, he superintended the departure of Cameron's expedition for the relief of Livingstone. He was an active member of the Royal Geographical Society from 1867, and furnished many papers to it, and was President of the Geographical Section of the British Association in 1869. In 1877 he was appointed Governor of the Cape of Good Hope, and High Commissioner for South Africa. He was prominent in the transactions that led to the war with the Zooloos. He was, says Sir Richard Temple, "a born geographer."

The Fleuss Breathing Apparatus and Safety-Lamp.—The Fleuss apparatus for breathing under water and in irrespirable gases, which was described in Vol. XVI, page 717 (March, 1880), of "The Popular Science Monthly," has acquired a considerable use and has proved efficient in