Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/864

842  honey that has never been in any kind of comb, but is sold in pots. Under the circumstances it seems to be rather gratuitous indignation to resent such a statement as a "slander on an honest and reputable industry."

All specialists are exceedingly sensitive to whatever touches their hobby, and unwilling to admit that they do not know all that is known about it. A few weeks ago a young archæologist called on a distinguished professor of classical archæology in a German university and stated that he was about to publish a work on a certain kind of Grecian vase. "There are no such vases," retorted the old professor. "But I have quite a collection of them which I have myself excavated," urged the young man. "They are all falsifications," was the terse and decisive answer. The simple fact was, that the old professor had never seen any vases of this sort. Rearing bees is not only a useful business, but also a fascinating study. If carried on as a specialty it suffers from the vice of all hobbies; even the practical apiarist, who hangs around hives all his life, is apt to have "a bee in his bonnet." Yours, etc.,

Editor Popular Science Monthly:

Several references to the fine deep glacial groovings in the rocks at Kelley's Island, Ohio, have appeared in The Popular Science Monthly, and there also appear mentions of the commendable efforts of scientifically inclined gentlemen to purchase the land and dedicate it to public uses and preservation.

There are other places where the same action should be had, among them the groovings at Watertown, N. Y., uncovered and seen where an ancient glacial stream crosses Black River. The writer has crossed the continent four times upon different routes, and observed many places where glaciation has done its work, but in no place has he observed more unique and characteristic groovings than at Watertown. Lying in one of these grooves, several feet deep, may be seen immense bowlders weighing fifty tons or more, just where a glacier stranded and dropped its burden, showing as plainly how the grooving has been done as a plow standing in the furrow where some plowman had left it would tell its story.

The field notes of the Geological Survey of New York suggest that the river at some time has deserted its channel and eroded a new one from Watertown to Black River Bay, but this is not the case; the present channel is undoubtedly the original. At the date of the survey, glaciation and its work had not been much studied; the geologist mistook glacial erosion for earlier river erosion.

Another interesting point is the fact that the present river has eroded its channel some three feet deeper since the glacial era in the hard, heavy-bedded, and sometimes flinty bird's-eye limestone.

The glacial groovings at Kelley's Island and at Watertown may both be referred to the Adirondack Glacial period, belonging to the same age and agencies. The St. Lawrence River was then blocked with ice, and turned back upon itself, emptying its floods into the Ohio River.

Visitors may find these groovings both above and below the railroad bridge of the Cape Vincent track.



THING which most certainly no one not supernaturally illuminated would have predicted has come to pass in Germany. A young man of thirty, who considers himself at once the father and the master of the German people, has intimated his good pleasure that every child in the German Empire shall have a theological education. It matters not what the parents of the children think; it matters not what the great body of the teachers think: his Majesty has made up his very mature mind, and all other minds must bow willingly or unwillingly to his decision. It is quite possible that, before the words we are now writing can appear in print, the imperial dictator may have seen the error of his ways, and may have concluded not to try the patience and self-respect of his subjects too far: none the less will it remain a notable fact that the possibility of fettering the German intellect in the most arbitrary manner should have occurred to a ruler of the German people in the very last years of the nineteenth century. We can not but argue ill for the future of a man 