Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/295

Rh the disk flowers have been neglected. In the chrysanthemums, by cultivating both, a bewildering variety of forms have been obtained. It may be many years before the disk flowers of the single dahlia can be drawn out to so great a length as in some of the chrysanthemums; "but it can be done, and there is no reason in the nature of things why we should not have a race of dahlias analogous to the anemone-flowered chrysanthemums." The chrysanthemumlike forms are already some of the best we have.

Animals' Stores.—A writer on Animals in Famine observes in the London Spectator that if we examine the stores made by most of the vegetable-eating animals that lay by a "famine fund," we shall find "a rather curious similarity in the food commonly used by them. They nearly all live on vegetable substances in a concentrated form—natural food lozenges, which are very easily stored away. There is a great difference, for example, between the bulk of nutriment eaten in the form of grass by a rabbit and the same amount of substance in the ‘special preparation’ in the kernel of a nut, or the stone of a peach, or the bulb of a crocus, off which a squirrel makes a meal. Nearly all the storing animals eat ‘concentrated food,’ whether it be beans or grain, hoarded by the hamster, or nuts and hard fruits by the squirrel, nuthatch, and possibly some of the jays. But there is one vegetable-eating animal whose food is neither concentrated nor easy to move. On the contrary, it is obtained with great labor in the first instance, and stored with no less toil after it is procured. The beaver lives during the winter on the bark of trees. As it is not safe, and is often impossible, for the animal to leave the water when the ice has formed, it stores these branches under water, cutting them into lengths, dragging them below the surface, and fixing them down to the bottom with stones and mud. This is more difficult work than gathering hay."

Ancient Man in the Delaware Valley.—At a joint session of the Geological and Anthropological Sections of the American Association, held for the discussion of the Evidences of the Antiquity of Man in the Delaware Valley, Professor Putnam gave a general review of the whole subject and of the statements made by Dr. Abbott in 1883 of the finding of supposed palæolithic implements in the gravels near Trenton, N. J. The more important of the facts brought up have already been noticed in the Monthly. During the investigation of the region under Professor Putnam's supervision, in which every foot of the tract{—}half a mile long and one hundred feet wide—was dug over, photographs were taken of the chipped stones as they were found in situ in the sand and clayey deposits. These photographs and the specimens themselves were exhibited to the sections. While himself convinced that the argillite implements found in this site were the work of men anterior to the Indians, he had invited other archæologists and geologists to visit the place and investigate for themselves. Several had done so, and had reached conclusions similar to his and Dr. Abbott's as to the antiquity of the argillite remains. Papers were read by G. N. Knapp, H. B. Kummel, Prof. Thomas Wilson, Dr. H. C. Mercer, and Prof. R. D. Salisbury substantially in agreement with these views. Prof. G. F. Wright held that the formation of the clay indicated the action of water, thus further attesting the great antiquity of the find. Prof. W. H. Holmes held that the implements simply indicated the beginning of the Indian in that region. He thought the sand was piled up by the action of the winds, but did not touch upon the presence of the clay.

Ingenuity in Bow Making.—To establish the point that environment is not the cause but the occasion of industries, and that the true source of all arts must be sought in the ingenious human creature, Prof. O. T. Mason cites the fact that the withholding or the concealment of gifts by Nature acts as a stimulus to ingenuity. "Take, for example, the bow. There are regions where the wood for this implement is perfect, as in South America or the hard-wood forests of the eastern United States. Here the very embarrassment of riches leads men to be satisfied with a very poorly made bow. Now, the characteristics of a good bow are rigidity and elasticity. When our ingenious friend the Indian climbed the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains away from the