Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/874

856 march of the temperatures of both continents is marked by the analogous phenomena of a shifting of the month of the maximum from July to January in going from north to south on the eastern side, and from January to July in returning from south to north on the western side of the continent. The most rational explanation of the difference presented by the eastern and western coasts is to be sought in the differences in their positions in relation to the seas and to the distribution of storms.

The Earthquake of August 10th.—The Northern Atlantic section of the United States was disturbed on Sunday afternoon, August 10th, by a very distinct earthquake-shock, which, taking place in the city of New York, at about seven minutes past two o'clock, lasted for some ten or fifteen seconds. The shock was felt all along the seaboard from North Carolina to Maine, through a district of country about six hundred miles long and two hundred miles wide, the most distant point from the ocean where it was remarked being at Titusville, Pennsylvania. Its greatest force appears to have been along the Long Island and New Jersey coasts. The statements of the time of the observation of the shock vary some seventy-five seconds as between Boston and New York, so as to show that the general direction of its progress was from north to southwest. It was not accompanied or preceded by any observable peculiarities in atmospheric phenomena. No damage appears to have been done by it anywhere, beyond the occasional fall of a brick from a dilapidated chimney or the shaking down of some article that was not securely fastened, although the nervous excitement it occasioned appears to have been fatal to a few persons. At Boston, the signal-officer, taking his ease in the highest building in the city, was shaken off from his lounge. At Seabright, New Jersey, the railway-station was shifted to one side, with a "shaking up of the contents"; and other trifling incidents of no worse character were remarked in various places.

A Destroyer in the Spruce-Forests of Maine.—According to accounts of observations published in the third "Bulletin" of the entomological division of the Department of Agriculture, the ravages of the spruce-bud worm (Tortrix fumiferana) have been extensive and destructive in the coast forests of Maine west of the Penobscot River. The damage appears to have reached only a few miles inland from the coast, but the belt in which it has prevailed is marked by extensive masses of dead woods. The trees are attacked in the terminal buds, which are eaten away, and, when that is done, the case is hopeless. The fatal character of the attack is owing to the fact that the spruce puts forth but few buds, and those mostly at the end of the twigs, and, when these are destroyed, it has nothing on which to sustain the season's life. The attack is made in June, when the growth is most lively, and just at the time when the check upon it can produce the most serious results. The larches are also attacked by a saw-fly, but with results that are not as necessarily fatal as in the case of the spruce. They are more liberally provided with buds, some of which may escape and afford a living provision of foliage. The larch, moreover, sheds its leaves in the fall, and is in full foliage before its enemies attack it. Hence, while the spruce and fir succumb to the first season's assaults, the larch can endure two years of them.

The Greely Arctic Expedition.—The vessels sent out for the relief of Lieutenant Greely and his Arctic Expedition returned to St. John's, Newfoundland, July 17th, with the report that they had, on the 22d of June, rescued from their quarters in Camp Clay, Cape Sabine, near the entrance to Smith Sound, seven of the members of the expedition, the other eighteen members having died during the present year, of starvation and exposure. One of the rescued men. Sergeant Elison, died a few days later, after the amputation of his frozen feet. All the records of the expedition were saved, and are to be published. They show that its work was of the most creditable character, and was fruitful in scientific results. Lieutenant Greely's party was sent out by our Government in 1881, as one of a series of International Arctic Expeditions, on the plan suggested by Lieutenant Weyprecht, of the Austrian service, for establishing permanent stations as far