Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/875

Rh chapters are of four different sorts: family chapters, composed of the parents and children of a single family; chapters in schools in which teachers and pupils may join; chapters organized and conducted entirely by young persons: and chapters of adults. The chapters of single States are brought into harmonious action through confederations, which are called Associations, of which the ones most prominent at present are the Philadelphia Assembly and the State Assembly of Iowa. Until this year the Agassiz Association has found in the "St. Nicholas" a medium of communication between its branches and members and with the public; but finding it needed more space than that journal could afford, it was determined to establish a special organ of its own, and "The Swiss Cross" is the result. The opening number is adorned with a full-page portrait of Professor Agassiz. The editor gives a history of the Agassiz Association, from which we derive the facts we have related; and then the real work of the magazine begins. This consists in the publication of papers in natural history, science, experiment, and observation, contributed by members of the Association or other writers; of a "Children's Hour" (in large type); of miscellaneous matter; and of "Reports from Chapters." With these regular features, the second number gives a sketch and portrait of the late Isaac Lea, "the Nestor of American naturalists." The editor has plans for correspondence schools and for association tables at the biological laboratories, some of which are already begun.

book is described as "an account of the structure, signification, and spiritual lessons of the Mosaic Tabernacle erected in the Wilderness of Sinai." Its design is to give as clear and intelligent a statement as is possible of the literal structure of the tabernacle, and in connection with that to present the spiritual lessons the different parts of the building and its furniture suggest or are designed to teach. The author hopes also that the effect of his work may be to promote the development of the religious faculty of his readers. To make the account more life-like, it is cast in the shape of a narrative of a journey through the wilderness—which the author actually made—and of conversations among the scenes associated with the tabernacle. The account is preceded by a biography of the author, with a portrait.

explorations reported in this volume are a continuation of the "Quaternary Geology of the Great Basin," begun by Mr. G. K. Gilbert when the present geological survey was organized, and have been carried out by the author and his assistants under Mr. Gilbert's direction. The theory of the work is based upon the conclusion to which the geological evidence points, that the valleys of the Great Basin were at one time—which is determined to have been in the Quaternary period—occupied by an extensive series of lakes, of which those to which the names of Lahontan (after Baron La Hontan, one of the early explorers of the head-waters of the Mississippi) and Bonneville have been given. Lake Lahontan filled a valley along the western border of the Great Basin at the base of the Sierra Nevada; Lake Bonneville occupied a corresponding position on the east side of the Great Basin, at the foot of the Wahsatch Mountains. The former was mostly within the limits of the present State of Nevada, the latter in Utah. Lake Bonneville covered 19,750 square miles, and was 1,000 feet in its greatest depth; Lake Lahontan covered 8,422 square miles, and had an extreme depth, where Pyramid Lake now is, of 886 feet. Lake Bonneville overflowed northward; Lake Lahontan did not overflow. Both lakes had two eras of high water, separated by a period of desiccation. As Lake Lahontan did not overflow, it became the receptacle for all the mineral matter supplied by tributary streams and springs; of which that in suspension was deposited as lacustral sediments, and that in solution as calcareous tufa, or appeared as desiccation products after the lake evaporated. The present lakes of the basin are