Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/151

Rh The exposure is about fifteen miles long, from two to four feet thick, from forty to fifty feet high, rests on a bed of clay, and is overlaid by a bed of yellow marl. At the lowest point the dust is well assorted and stratified; at the higher points it shows signs of having been deposited in shallow water. It is composed chiefly of silica, with small proportions of ferric and aluminum oxides, protoxide of manganese, water, lime, and traces of other substances. The microscope shows it as consisting almost wholly of microscopic, transparent, silicious flakes of various irregular forms.

Geological Society of America.—The seventh summer meeting of the Geological Society of America was held at Springfield, Mass., Prof. N. S. Shaler presiding. A paper was read by C. H. Hitchcock on the Champlain Glacial Epoch, which was regarded as corresponding with Prof. James Geikie's Mecklenbergian Epoch. In a paper on the Glacial Genesee Lakes, H. L. Fairchild exhibited the relations of the Genesee River drainage basin to surrounding river systems, and endeavoured to determine the glacial history of the region. In his paper on the Bearing of Physiography on Uniformitarianism, W. M. Davis maintained that the success in the interpretation of Nature by means of the physiographic study of land forms confirmed the correctness of the postulates of uniformitarianism and brought to its support a series of facts not in the beginning of the study supposed to bear upon it. J. C. Branner described the decomposition of rocks going on in Brazil as being more profound there than in temperate regions. The chief mechanical agency promoting it is the daily change of temperature to which rocks exposed to the sun are subject, which causes exfoliation and the admission of a number of destructive agencies and reactions. Among these agencies are rain, bringing down corroding acids, insects, and plants. Many papers of more special interest were read on subjects of stratigraphical, glacial, and economical geology, and paleontology. A committee which had been appointed in 1898 to secure the expropriation of the region about Mount Rainier as a public park reported that it had presented the case to a committee of the United States Senate, but had failed to have a bill recommended. The committee was continued, to make another effort.

The French Scientific Association.—The French Association for the Advancement of Science met for 1895 in Bordeaux, where its first meeting was held in 1872. The maire, in welcoming the association, referred to the changes which had taken place in the city since then—all for good, and largely for the diffusion of knowledge and the promotion of public comfort. The number of primary schools had been tripled; the Lyceum, in whose halls the sectional meetings were held, had been built, and faculties of law, science, letters, and medicine and pharmacy had been established and an observatory erected; all attracting an attendance of more than two thousand students, and giving the place all the privileges of a university except the name. Museums also and art galleries had been founded, and benevolent institutions brought into existence. All these, the maire intimated, were the results of the scientific activity which began with the meeting of 1872. The president, M. Émile Trélat, took salubrity as the subject of his address, in which he gave a felicitous description of the ideal city of health. The work of the previous meeting of the association, which was held at Caen, and the history of the association during the year, were reviewed by the secretary, M. Livon. The association lost many of its distinguished members during the year, among whom were Baron Adolphe d'Eichthal, one of the founders, a benefactor, and president in 1875 at Nantes; Verneuil, the eminent doctor, president in 1885 at Grenoble; Gustave Cotteau, several times president of the Geological Section; Alphonse Guérin, Ferdinand de Lesseps, Recipen, and Armand Lalande, founders; Victor Duruy, and others; and among the foreign associates the Russian mathematician Tchebichef and Carl Vogt, who had attended a number of the meetings. It appears from the financial reports presented by M. Émile Galante, treasurer, that the year's receipts of the association were 86,244 francs.

Infectiousness of Milk.—The Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture has issued a report of work done under its auspices on the above subject. It being already