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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Proceedings of the Biological Society of Wisconsin. With the Addresses read at the Darwin Memorial Meeting. Vol. I. November 19, 1880, to May 26, 1883. Washington. Pp. 110.

Easy Star Lessons. By Richard A. Proctor. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1882. Pp. 219. $2.50. Illustrated.

The Peak of Darien. An Octave of Essays. By Frances Power Cobbe. Boston: George H. Ellis & Co. 1882. Pp. 303. $1.50.

Constitutional History and Political Development of the United States. By Simon Sterne. New York, London, and Paris: Cassell, Petter & Galpin. 1882. Pp. 383. $1.25.

The Solution of the Pyramid Problem. By Robert Ballard. New York: John Wiley & Sons. 1882. Pp. 109.

Manual of Blowpipe Analysis. By H. B. Cornwall. New York: D. Van Nostrand. 1882 Pp. 308.

Essentials of Vaccination. By W. A. Hardaway, M.D. Chicago: Jansen, McClurg & Co. 1882. Pp. 146. $1.

Practical Life and the Study of Man. By J. Wilson, Ph. D. New York: J. Wilson & Sons, Publishers. 1882. Pp. 390. $1.50.

United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries. Report for 1879. A, Inquiry into the Decrease of Food-Fishes. B, The Propagation of Food-Fishes in the Waters of the United States. Washington: Government Printing-Office. 1882. Pp. 846.

Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1880. Washington: Government Printing-Office. 1882. Pp. 914.


POPULAR MISCELLANY.

The Glacial Moraine in Pennsylvania.—Professor H. C. Lewis read a paper before the American Association concerning the results of his efforts to trace the great terminal moraine marking the southern limit of the North American ice-sheet across Pennsylvania. The moraine had already been traced from Cape Cod across the Elizabeth Islands, Rhode Island, Long Island, and New Jersey, and across Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Dakota, into the Saskatchewan region of the Dominion, but had not been remarked in Pennsylvania. Professor Lewis had found it entering the State near Easton, whence he traced it up and down to Potter County, and thence into New York State. Then it shortly turns to the southwest, enters Pennsylvania again, and passes into Ohio. It was thus traced for four hundred miles. It begins at a height of 240 feet above the sea, reaches 2,480 feet in Potter County at the great divide between the waters that flow into the Atlantic and those that flow into the Gulf of Mexico; is 2,000 feet high at the extreme north point near Olean, New York, and is 800 feet high in Eastern Ohio, at the end of the portion examined. At the Delaware Water-Gap the ice did not pass down the valley, but across it. The Pocono Mountain was a promontory projecting northwardly into the ice-sheet. The glacial covering does not seem to have formed tongues pushing down in river-valleys, as is the case with modern glacier systems. Bowlders of labradorite and other crystalline rocks from the Adirondack and Ontario highlands were found all along the moraine line. In the discussion that followed the reading of his paper, Mr. Lewis asked Principal Dawson, as a leading opponent of the glacial theory, to explain certain facts according to his hypothesis of floating ice-fields. Principal Dawson replied, asserting that a continental ice-field in Northern America large enough to supply food for the alleged glacier was a physical impossibility, because, on account of the distance of this territory from open seas, the climate would be too dry for any such accumulation of snows. It was possible, however, that there might have been a river or a glacier which produced the moraine in that part of the country particularly referred to; but he could account for moraines in another way. Whenever a cold current infringes upon a warm current, it forms a moraine; and this is taking place in the region of the Gulf Stream. He himself owned a piece of land on the coast of the lower St. Lawrence, on which a very good moraine was now in course of formation.

The Gulf Stream.—The work of deep-sea soundings and determination of temperatures has been carried on continuously in the steamer Blake in the Gulf Stream for several years. The paper on the subject read by Commander Bartlett, at the recent meeting of the American Association, describes what was done in 1881 and 1882 under the direction of Professor Hilgard. The Gulf Stream does not run in a basin, nor is it divided into cold and warm alternate layers. The deepest bottom between Florida and the Bahama Banks is 459 fathoms below the surface, and the current runs from three to eight knots an hour, with a temperature of from 80° to 83° Fahr. A wide plateau