United States Department of Agriculture aims to define and map the
agricultural belts of the country in order to ascertain what products
of the soil can and what can not be grown successfully in each, to
guide the farmer in the intelligent introduction of foreign crops, and
to point out his friends and his enemies among the native birds and
animals. For information on these subjects so important to him the
farmer has had to rely on his own experiments or those of his
neighbors, often carried on at enormous cost to persons little able to
bear it. The Survey and its predecessor, the division of ornithology
and mammology, have had small parties in the field traversing the
public domain for the purpose of studying the geographic distribution
of our native land animals and plants and mapping the boundaries of
the areas they inhabit. It was early learned that North America is
divisible into seven transcontinental belts or life zones and a much
larger number of minor areas or _faunas_, each characterized by
particular associations of animals and plants. The inference was
natural and has been verified that these same zones and areas, up to
the northern limit of profitable agriculture, are adapted to the needs
of particular kinds or varieties of cultivated crops. The Survey is
engaged in tracing as precisely as possible the actual boundaries of
these belts and areas, and in finding out and designating the
varieties of crops best adapted to each. In this undertaking it aims
to point out such exotic products as, from their importance in other
lands, are likely to prove of value if introduced on fit soils and
under proper climatic conditions. The importance of this work will be
realized when it is recollected that all the climatic life zones of
the world, except the hottest tropical, are represented in our
country. The colored maps prepared by the Survey furnish the best
guide the farmer can have for judging what crops will be best adapted
for his particular region; and in connection with the work of the
entomologist, show the belts along which noxious insects are likely to
spread. The report of the Survey, prepared under the direction of its
chief, C. Hart Merriam, though full of valuable information not before
presented consecutively, is preliminary and only touches the edge of a
subject which is susceptible of copious elaboration, and is destined
to be worked up with immense profit.
=A Neolithic Lake Dwelling.=--A crannog, or lake dwelling, discovered
in the summer of 1898 on the banks of the Clyde, has received much
attention from English archæologists because of its unique situation
on a tidal stream, and of its being apparently neolithic or far more
ancient than any other crannog yet examined, in all others the relics
being of the bronze age. Careful excavations have been made in it and
are still in progress, and the refuse mound of the former settlement
has been sifted, with results that have made it plain that there were
design and execution in the building, and that it was occupied and
inhabited for a long period. Positive evidence of fire is afforded in
the shape of numerous firestones and calcined embers, and indications
of the condition of life at the period are given by the implements,
ornaments, and tools recovered. The crannog is about sixteen hundred
yards east of the Castle Rock of Dumbarton, and about fifty yards from
the river at low tide, but is submerged when the tide is in to a depth
of from three to twelve feet, and is one hundred and eighty-four feet
in circuit. The piles in the outer circle are of oak, which below the
mud surface is still quite fresh. The transverse beams and pavement
inside are of wood of the consistence of cheese--willow, alder, and
oak--while the smaller branches are of fir, birch, and hazel, with
bracken, moss, and chips. The stones in the outer circle and along the
causeway leading to the dwelling place seem to have been set in a
methodical order, most of the bowlders being about a lift for a man.
The refuse mound extends for about twelve feet outside for the
greater part of the circuit, and here most of the bone and flint
implements have been discovered. The largest article found in the site
was a very fine canoe, thirty-seven feet long and forty inches beam,
dug out of a single oak tree, which lay in what has proved to have
been a dock. A curious ladder was also found here, the rungs of which
were cut out of the solid wood, and which has somewhat the general
appearance of a post of a post-and-rail fence. The exploration of the
site is much interfered with by the rising of the tide, which covers
the crannog for a considerable time every day. All the relics
found--consisting chiefly of objects of bone, staghorn, jet, chert,
and cannel coal, with some querns, the canoe, ladder, etc.--have been
placed in the museum at Glasgow.
=Portland Cement.=--The following facts are taken from an address
delivered before the Franklin Institute by Mr. Robert W. Lesley: "It
was not until the end of the last century that the true principles of
hydraulic cement were discovered by Smeaton, who, in the construction
of the Eddystone Lighthouse, made a number of experiments with the
English limestones, and laid down, as a result, the principle that a
limestone yielding from fifteen to twenty-five per cent of residue
when dissolved in hydrochloric acid will set under water. These
limestones he denominated hydraulic limestones, and from the principle
so laid down by him come the two great definitions of what we now know
as cement, namely, the natural and artificial cements of commerce. The
natural variety, such as the Rosendale, Lehigh, and Cumberland
cements, was first made by Joseph Parker in 1796, who discovered what
he called 'Roman cement,' based upon the calcination at low
temperatures of the nodules found in the septaria geological formation
in England. This was practically the first cement of commerce, and
gave excellent results. Joseph Aspdin, a bricklayer or plasterer, took
out a patent in England in 1824 on a high-grade artificial cement,
and, at great personal deprivation, succeeded in manufacturing it on a
commercial scale by combining English chalks with clay from the river
beds, drying the mixed paste, and after calcining at high heat the
material thus produced, grinding it to powder. This cement, which was
the first Portland cement in the market, obtained its name from its
resemblance when it became stone to the celebrated Portland stone, one
of the leading building materials in England. The rocks used in the
manufacture of Portland cement are very similar to those from which
natural cement is made. The various layers in the natural rock may
vary in size or stratification, so that the lime, alumina, and silica
may not be in position to combine under heat, or there may be too much
of one ingredient, or not enough of the others in close proximity to
each other. In making Portland cement, these rocks, properly
proportioned, are accordingly ground to an impalpable powder, the
natural rock being broken down and the laminæ distributed in many
small grains. This powder is then mixed with water, and is made into a
new stone in the shape of the brick, or block, in which all the small
grains formerly composing the laminæ of the original rock are
distributed and brought into a close mechanical juxtaposition to each
other. The new rock thus made is put into kilns with layers of coke,
and is then calcined at temperatures from 1,600° to 1,800°. The
clinker, as it comes from the kiln, is then crushed and ground to an
impalpable powder, which is the Portland cement of commerce. Portland
cement may be made from other materials, such as chalk and clay,
limestone and clay, cement rock and limestone, and marls and clays. In
every case the principle is the same, the breaking down and the
redistributing of the materials so that the fine particles may be in
close mechanical union when subjected to the heat of the kiln."
=The French Nontoxic Matches.=--It is believed, by Frenchmen at least,
that the problem long sought, of finding a composition for a match
head in which all the advantages of white phosphorus shall be
preserved while its deleterious qualities are eliminated or greatly
reduced, has been solved in the new matches which the French
Government has placed upon the market. These matches are marked S. C.,
by the initials of the inventors, MM. Sévène and Cahen, are made in
the factories at Trélazé, Begles, and Samtines, and have been well
received by the public. In preparing the composition, the chlorate of
potash of the old flashing and safety matches has been retained, and
the sesquisulphide of phosphorus is used instead of the white or red
phosphorus of the old matches. The latter substance, besides the
indispensable qualities of fixity and resistance to atmospheric
influences, has the two important properties of inflaming at 95° C.,
much nearer the igniting point of white phosphorus (60° C.) than of
red (260° C.), and being therefore easier to light; and of having a
low latent or specific heat. With these properties embodied in the
inflammable composition of the head, the new match is expected to be
comparatively free from accidental explosions during manufacture and
export, to take fire by friction, and to burn steadily and regularly.
The expectation has so far been fulfilled. The phosphorus compound has
a special odor, in which the sulphur characteristic predominates, but,
not boiling under 380° C., does not become offensive in the shops; and
the match heads made with it do not emit the phosphorescence which is
often exhibited by matches made with white phosphorus. It is only
feebly toxic by direct absorption, experiments on guinea pigs
indicating that it is only about one tenth as much so as white
phosphorus.
=Trees as Land Formers.=--John Gifford, in a paper presented to the
Franklin Institute on Forestry in Relation to Physical Geography and
Engineering, mentions as illustrating the way forests counteract
certain destructive forces, the mangrove tree as "the great land
former which, supplementing the work of the coral polyp, has added to
the warm seashore regions of the globe immense areas of land." The
trees grow in salt water several feet deep, where their labyrinth of
roots and branches collect and hold sediment and flotage. Thus the
shore line advances. The seeds, germinating on the plant, the
plantlets fall into the water, float away till their roots touch the
bottom, and there form the nucleus of new islands and life. The forest
constantly improves the soil, provided the latter is not removed or
allowed to burn. The roots of trees penetrate to its deeper layers and
absorb great quantities of mineral matters, a large percentage of
which goes to the leaves, and is ultimately deposited on the surface.
"The surface soil is both enriched by these mineral substances and
protected by a mulch of humus in varying stages of decomposition. As
the lower layers rot, new layers of leaves and twigs are being
constantly deposited, so that the forest soil, in the course of time,
fairly reeks with nourishing plant food, which seeps out more or less
to enrich neighboring soils." The forest is also a soil former. "Even
the most tender rootlet, because of its acidity, is able to dissolve
its way through certain kinds of rock. This, together with the acids
formed in the decomposition of humus, is a potent and speedy agent in
the production of soil. The roots of many species of trees have no
difficulty whatever in penetrating limestone and in disintegrating
rocks of the granitic series. As the rock crumbles, solid inorganic
materials are released, which enrich neighboring soils, especially
those of the valleys in regions where the forest is relegated to the
mountain sides and top, as should be the case in all mountainous
regions. In view of the destruction caused by mankind, it is a
consoling fact that Nature, although slowly, is gradually improving
her waste lands. If not interrupted, the barest rock and the fallowest
field, under conditions which may be called unfavorable, will become,
in course of time, forest-clad and fertile. The most important
function of the forest in relation to the soil, however, is in holding
it in place and protecting it from the erosive action of wind and
rain."
=The Atlantic Slope.=--The Atlantic slope of the United States is
described in the New Jersey State Geological Survey's report on the
Physical Geography of the State as "a fairly distinct geographical
province. Its eastern boundary is the sea; its western boundary on the
north is the divide between the drainage flowing southeast to the sea
and that flowing northeast to the St. Lawrence. Farther south its
western limit is the divide between the streams flowing east to the
Atlantic and those flowing west to the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers."
The line between it and the geographical province next west follows
the watershed of the Appalachian system of mountains. It is divided,
according to elevations, into several subprovinces, all of which
elongate in a direction roughly parallel to the shore. Next to the
coast there is usually a belt of lowland, few or many miles wide,
called the _Coastal Plain_. Inland from the Coastal Plain is an
intermediate height, between the Coastal Plain to the east and the
mountains to the west, known in the South as the _Piedmont Plateau_.
The mountainous part of the slope constitutes the third province,
known as the _Appalachian Zone_. The Atlantic slope may be divided
into two sections--a northern and a southern--in which the Coastal
Plain is narrow and wide respectively. These two sections meet in New
Jersey, where the division runs from the Raritan River, just below New
Brunswick, to Trenton. South of this line the Coastal Plain expands,
and all considerable elevations recede correspondingly from the shore.
These three subprovinces are especially well shown in the southern
section of the Atlantic slope. They are less well developed in the
northern section, and even where the topography is comparable the
underlying rock structure is different. In New Jersey a fourth belt,
the Triassic formation, is interposed between the Coastal Plain and
the Highlands corresponding to the Piedmont Plateau. North of New
Jersey the Coastal Plain has little development, though Long Island
and some small areas farther east and northeast are to be looked upon
as parts of it.
=American Fresh-water Pearls.=--The facts cited by Mr. George F. Kunz
in his paper, published in the Report of the United States Fish
Commission, on the Fresh-water Pearls and Pearl Fisheries of the
United States, give considerable importance to this feature of our
natural history. The mound explorations attest that fresh-water pearls
were gathered and used by the prehistoric peoples of the country "to
an extent that is astonishing. On the hearths of some of these mounds
in Ohio the pearls have been found, not by hundreds, but by thousands
and even by bushels--now, of course, damaged and half decomposed by
centuries of burial and by the heat of superficial fires." The
narratives of the early Spanish explorers make several mentions of
pearls in the possession of the Indians. For a considerable period
after the first explorations, however, American pearls attracted but
little attention, and "for some two centuries the Unios [or
'fresh-water mussels'] lived and multiplied in the rivers and streams,
unmolested by either the native tribes that had used them for food, or
by the pioneers of the new race that had not yet learned of their
hidden treasures." Within recent years the gathering of Unio pearls
has attained such importance as to start economical problems
warranting and even demanding careful and detailed inquiry. The first
really important discovery of Unio pearls was made near Paterson, N.
J., in 1857, in the form of the "queen pearl" of fine luster, weighing
ninety-three grains, which was sold to Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III,
for twenty-five hundred dollars, and is now worth four times that
amount. As a result the Unios at Notch Brook, where it was found, were
gathered by the million and destroyed. Within a year fully fifteen
thousand dollars' worth of pearls were sent to the New York market.
Then the shipments gradually fell off. Some of the best American
pearls that were next found were at Waynesville, Ohio, where Mr.
Israel H. Harris formed an exceedingly fine collection. It contained
more than two thousand specimens, weighing more than as many grains.
Among them were one button-shaped on the back and weighing
thirty-eight grains, several almost transparent pink ones, and one
showing where the pearl had grown almost entirely through the Unio. In
1889 a number of magnificently colored pearls were found at different
places in the creeks and rivers of Wisconsin, of which more than ten
thousand dollars' worth were sent to New York within three months.
These discoveries led to immense activity in pearl hunting through all
the streams of the region, and in three or four seasons the shells
were nearly exhausted. The pearl fisheries of this State have produced
at least two hundred and fifty thousand dollars' worth of pearls since
1889. Another outbreak of the "pearl mania" occurred in Arkansas in
1897, and extended into the Indian Territory, Missouri, Georgia, and
other States.
=Distribution of Cereals in the United States.=--To inquiries made
preparatory to drawing up a report on the Distribution of Cereals in
North America (Department of Agriculture, Biological Survey), Mr. C.
S. Plumb received one thousand and thirty-three answers, eight
hundred and ninety-seven of which came from the United States and the
rest from the Canadian provinces. These reports showed that in many
localities, particularly in the East and South, but little attention
is paid to keeping varieties pure, and many farmers use mixed,
unknown, or local varieties of ordinary merit for seed. In New England
but little grain is grown from sowing, owing to the cheapness of
Western grain, and wheat is rarely reported. Oats are now mostly sown
from Western seed, and the resulting crop is mown for hay, while most
of the corn is cut for green fodder or silage. On certain fine
lowlands--as, for example, in the Connecticut Valley--oats, and more
especially corn, are often grown for grain. While reports on most of
the cereals were rendered from the lower austral zone, or the region
south of the Appalachians and the old Missouri Compromise line, this
region, except where it merges with the upper austral or the one north
of it, is apparently outside the area of profitable cultivation of
wheat and oats. In Louisiana and most of the other parts of the lower
austral, except in northern Texas and Oklahoma, wheat is almost an
unknown crop. The warm, moist climatic conditions here favor the
development of fungous diseases to such a degree that the plants are
usually ruined or greatly injured at an early stage of growth. In
Florida, as a rule, cereals are rarely cultivated except on the
uplands at the northern end of the State. In a general way, corn and
wheat are most successfully grown in the upper austral zone, or
central States, while oats are best and most productive in the
transition zone (or northern and Lake States and the Dakotas), or
along the border of the upper austral and transition. The gradual
acclimation of varieties of cereals, through years of selection and
cultivation, has gone so far, however, that some varieties are now
much better adapted to one zone than to another.
=Spanish Silkworm Gut.=--The business of manufacturing silkworm gut in
Spain is a considerable industry. The method of preparation is thus
described in the Journal of the Society of Arts: After the silkworm
grub has eaten enough mulberry leaves, and before it begins to spin,
which is during the months of May and June, it is thrown into vinegar
for several hours. The insect is killed and the substance which the
grub, if alive, would have spun into a cocoon is drawn out from the
dead worm into a much thicker and shorter silken thread, in which
operation considerable dexterity and experience are required. Two
thick threads from each grub are placed for about four hours in clear
cold water, after which they are put for ten or fifteen minutes in a
solution of some caustic. This loosens a fine outer skin on the
threads, which is removed by the hands, the workman holding the
threads in his teeth. The silk is then hung up to dry in a shady
place, the sun rendering it brittle. In some parts of the country
these silk guts are bleached with sulphur vapor, which makes them
beautifully glossy and snow-white, while those naturally dried have a
yellowish tint. The quality of the gut is decided according to the
healthy condition of the worm, round indicating a good quality and
flat an inferior one.
=The Nests of Burrowing Bees.=--Prof. John B. Smith, having explained
to his section of the American Association a method which has been
successfully applied, of taking casts in plaster of Paris of the homes
of burrowing insects, with their branchings, to the depth of six feet,
described some of the results of its application. Bees, of the genus
_Calletes_, dig vertically to the depth of eighteen inches or more,
then burrow horizontally from two to five inches farther, and
construct a thin, parchmentlike cell of saliva, in which the egg is
deposited, with pollen and honey for the food of the larva. They then
start a new horizontal burrow a little distance from the first, and
perhaps a third, but no more. The vertical tubes are then filled up,
so that when the bees come to life they must burrow from six to
twenty-four inches before they can reach the surface. Another genus
makes a twisted burrow; another makes a vertical burrow that may be
six feet deep. About a foot below the surface it sends off a lateral
branch, and in this it excavates a chamber from one to two and a half
inches in diameter. Tubes are sent down from this chamber, as many
perhaps as from six to twenty together, and these are lined with clay
to make them water-tight. This bee, when it begins its burrow, makes
an oblique gallery from four to six inches long before it starts in
the vertical direction, and all the dirt is carried through this
oblique gallery. Then the insect continues the tube vertically upward
to just below the surface, and makes a small concealed opening to it
here, taking care to pile no sand near it. This is the regular
entrance to the burrow.
MINOR PARAGRAPHS.
In a report of an inspection of three French match factories,
published as a British Parliamentary paper, Dr. T. Oliver records as
his impressions and deductions that while until recently the match
makers suffered severely from phosphorus poisoning, there is now
apparently a reduction in the severe forms of the illness; that this
reduction is attributable to greater care in the selection of the work
people, to raising the age of admission into the factory, to medical
examination on entrance, subsequent close supervision, and repeated
dental examination; to personal cleanliness on the part of the
workers; to early suspension on the appearance of symptoms of ill
health; and to improved methods of manufacture. The French Government
is furthering by all possible means new methods of manufacture in the
hope of finding a safer one; and a match free from white phosphorus
and still capable of striking anywhere is already manufactured.