Page:Science vol. 5.djvu/510

 8CIENCE.

��president ©r the United States ouglit to make inquiry, and relieve the country of the discreiiit which must come from the challenged veracity of an oltjcial l)ody whose aets and snyinga are being closely foUowed abroad and at home.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

•,■ Cbrr^»po»drnt» ar^ r^QHrsUiI tobeat brirfatpofiltU. Tht vriler'n namr « in ait lavto rrquirril an pro^f nf good faith.

ProfeEBOT Haatinga's theory of the corona.

I BBOULD be glad, with your permlssiun, to make a few remnrks wtth reference tn a pnsaage In Profea- sor Ha-Htlngs's loiter in your issue of April 24. Pro- fessor Hastings states that he shows, In bis n^port of the eclipse expedition to Caroline Island, that all the character! stilus of the corona may be explain«d natu- rally and easily by bis diffraction tbeory, with the exoeptlan of thf oeeaitonal Jilammitcua ttraetwe. The words which I have italicized convince me that Professor Haslin);s cannot have paid sufficient atten- tion to the abundant and irrefragable evideucti as to the Bolar corona which is affuriled by pliot'>grapbs taken dudng total aolar eclipses. These photograplis prore that what Profeesor Uasihigg sumuiarlly char- acterizes as ' occasional filameiituus structure.' con- stitutes the greater portion of the corona. In the pbotographa of the eclipse of 1S71, there were more than a hundred distinct details of Ibis kind, which I measui'ed and drew, when assisting Mr. Ranjard in describlngandcatalogning the details of the structure of the corona {Mem. roy. t^tvn. *)<•., xli. 8G7-6Stl). These deUils were, of course, not all visible on a cur- sory inspection of the negatives; many of tbem were not perceived till after long study: but, once seen, there was no mistake as to their existence, and none were described that were not visible on at least three of the plates.

Moreover, since the coronal rays are very various In direction, and are seen In the negatives one beblud the other, and at all angles of projection, It is evident that the corona miut in reality be far more ' Glamen' tons' than it appears in the pholograpbs. To a greater or less extent, the same cliaracter Is shown in natives of other eclipses, though somewhat less of it is visible in some of the more recent photographs, probably on account of the greater density of the film in the case of those taken un the extremely sensitive dry plates.

I cannot enter into the optical points connected with Professor Hastings's theory, but simply wish to point out, that. If It wiU account for every thing except the 'SlamentouB structure,' it accounts, after all, for very Utile. W, H. Wbslbt.

BarllOKtun lloni.', I.oDrlQu.

��The natural gae-wellB of north-weatem Ohio. The gas-wells that have been drilled within the last year in Hancock and Wood counties, O,, have fur- nished some interesting, and to some degree unex- pected, Informalion as to the geological foundations of the stale. They allow the jjresence of several formations that nowbere appear in outcrop within the limits of Ohio. The section furnished by them agrees quite closely, us to its elements and its general litbology, with (be New-Y'ork scale.

��1 have lately examined the carefully kept records and drillings of six of these wells. They agree en- tirely in their main features. All begin iu upper Silurian limestone, and all find their main supply of gas In the Trenton limestone. The section furnished by them Is as follows; —

KiiKUv llmntsne, gut; and bluo, dolomltlc VM

NlJighrm dJsy, a flhamatarivtlc bod In oentTBl Obio - -. . 1-4

CIlBlon llmcatonc and (hale, blghestond Tt

UedtiuihnlB, red and bine M-lOa

Hudion RtTcrihnle, gray uid blue -ICO-SOQ

UIlcsahsle.du-kiiiJnitMtbluik, Id places >••' ^

Trt^ntaa llmMtAne Mufl

Blrd'..ey«tlmc..to,ie *^H

The Trenton limestone was drilled through In but iSJH single well. V

The Niagara clay contains characteristic fossils, as does also the Hudson-River shale and the Utlca shale. Tbe former shows chaeletold corals, and tragmenta of Zygoapira and Orthls. Tbe Utica shale contain* Leptulolus Insignia Hall, and fragments of the Kjiinea of Echinognatbusof Walcott apparently. The Tren- ton limestone is crystalline and hard, but it ahowa the presence of fossils in abundance.

The gas obtained from the wells is delivered with moderate pressure. It contains a notable guaniity of sulphuretted hydrogen. It is used so far mainly for heating and for steam- production. Judicious estimates put the amount yielded each day by throe wells in FIndlay, the county-seat of Hancock county, at five hundred thousand feet. Edward Obtor. k|

Columbm, O., Juns I. ^1

A tropical Amerloan turtle on AntlcostL

Professor Jobn Macoun, botanist to the Canadian geological and natural-history survey, has sbown me « turtle which was given him by the light-keeper at West Point, Anticosli, in August, 1883. It was found living near the lighthouse, and was the only one seen by the keeper during his twenty years' residence on the island. Mr. F. W. True, to whom I sent the specimen for identification, pronounces it to be a half-grown Cbelanoidea tabulata (Walbaum) AgaaalSt The habitat of the species is tropical South AmerloKH and the West Indies, whence it was probably bron^Ul to Antlcosti on some vessel. C. Habt MebriaM.

��AberVa aquineL

Uu the lOlli of April last, on my return from | live-days' vl'lt to the pueblo of the Zutlis In N«f Mexico, I dri>v<4 through an extensive pine-fdi which the rotid enters a few miles from Fort V gate, my deslinatlon.

There were hi Ihe ambulance with me, hestdei G driver, Prof. J. W. P. Jenks of Brown uuiveraily, ralor of its museum, and a fellow-traveller, & m^_ from Philadelphia. Professor Jenks was eagerlj <x the lookout for rare Ibincs in south-western bird and mammals for his college museum, while I friend was enjoying himself iu examining two ape. mens we had taken along the road, and joining li the conversation as best a Invman may, when tin eiitliuslastlc naturalists formed the odds against U

Suddenly the driver slopped the conveyance, ■ directed my attention to a large gray squirrel U. bad just scampered up the trunk of one of the lof pines, and was now sitting, partly hiding, ou t lower limb, dose to the body of the tree.

In a moment this magnificent creature waa deiid at my feet.

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