Box 6, Folder 2: Julia Alcott Lapham Biographical Scrapbook V

[Scrap Book] Am. Jour. Science No. 53—May—1875 see page 400

Chemistry and Physics.

desired until the length becomes small compared with the diameter. The law for changes in the diameter and the effect of a fracture parallel to the axis were also studied. Finally, on the ground of the peculiar facts examined in this memoir, as well as the whole of the known facts, he concludes that the present theories of magnetism are insufficient to explain the peculiarities of the temporary magnetization of steel, and suggests that in regard to the magnetic properties of its elements this substance must be considered a heterogeneous mass.—Phil. Mag. xlix, 81, 186.

9. Frictional Electricity.—M. Rossetti has made a careful study of the current developed by a Holtz machine and shown that it follows the laws of a galvanic battery. The machine was turned by a weight, and the work done measured when charged and discharged. The current was determined by a galvanometer and the resistance by four long fine tubes filled with distilled water. The current is nearly proportional to the speed, but increases a little more rapidly than the latter. The ratio of the two alters with the amount of moisture in the air, so that to produce a given current the machine must be driven faster in wet weather, although the work required is less than when the air is dry. The economy, therefore, is greater on wet than on dry days. A Holtz machine resembles a galvanic battery, having an electromotive force and interior resistance which are constant as long as the velocity and moisture are constant. The electromotive force is invariable for a given degree of moisture whatever the velocity, while with a given velocity it diminishes as the moisture increases. The interior resistance on the other hand is independent of the moisture and diminishes more rapidly than the velocity increases. In the actual instrument employed, when the moisture was 69 the electromotive force equaled 41,000 volts, while with the moisture 35 it equaled 57,000 volts. The resistance with a velocity of eight turns per second was 540,000 ohms, and with a velocity of two turns 2,680,000,000 ohms. The current follows the law of Ohm, consequently if very large exterior resistances are employed, the strength of the current gives the mechanical equivalent of heat. The mean of seventeen experiments gave as a result the number 428, which agrees very closely with the commonly received value.—Ann de Chim et Phys. iv, 214. E.C.P.

10. Chemical Sub-section in the American Association for the Advancement of Science,—This sub-section of the American Association was organized at the Hartford meeting in August last. It is called the "Sub-section of Chemistry, Chemical Physics, Chemical Technology, Mineralogy and Metallurgy," and all persons interested in applied as well as in pure chemistry will be welcome at Detroit, where the next session to be held, in August of this year. We make this statement very willingly at the request of Prof. F.W. Clarke, of Cincinnati University, who is the secretary of this section, and who is making active exertions to secure a large gathering of chemists on that occasion. Prof. S.W. Johnson, of Yale College, is chairman-elect of this section.

Scientific Intelligence

II. Geology and Natural History.

1. Supplement to the Article on Dr. Koch's evidence with regard to the contemporaneity of Man and the Mastodon; by the Author.—Since the article on pages 335 to 346 was printed, I have come across another of Dr. Koch's pamphlets. It is a "second edition" of the New York pamphlet of 1843. In the main it is the same with the earlier one of that year. The most important difference is in the first half of the title page, which reads as follows:

"Description of the HYDRARCHOS HARLANI (Koch). (The name SILLIMANI is changed to HARLANI by the particular desire of Professor Silliman.) A gigantic FOSSIL REPTILE, lately discovered by the author, in the State of Alabama, March, 1845."

A second difference is in the appended matter of nearly 10 pages, which extends the pamphlet to 24 pages. This matter consists of (1) an extravagant article from "The New York Dissector;" (2) the article from the "New York Evangelist" about the Hydrarchos and Leviathan, alluded to on page 344, as occupying the inside pages of the pamphlet of 1853; and (3) a puff from the "New York Morning News."

A third novelty is a large wood-cut of the "Hydrarchos Harlani," covering the last page of the cover. The body of the pamphlet contains only some verbal changes.

These New York pamphlets of 1845 contain one significant discovery of Dr. Koch's, made during his "geological tour," which is worth citing. He says: When at Golconda, Illinois, "I discovered a large deposit of old red Sandstone or Devonian system, in which I found a great variety of non-described fossil fish of most wonderful forms, the spiral columns of many of them bearing a striking resemblance to a screw, so that they are called by the inhabitants of the country petrified screws."

The Doctor's "spiral columns" of "fossil fish" are the common Bryozoan corals of the genus Archimedipora, found there, and elsewhere, only in Subcarboniferous rocks.

2. Cold of the Glacial and other Geological epochs.—The idea that a high-latitude elevation making a partial barrier across the shallower part of the Atlantic Ocean from Scandinavia to Greenland, would produce a change of temperature in the North Atlantic, is brought out by Mr. Prestwitch [Prestwich] in his Presidential Address before the Geological Society of London, in 1871, to account for changes in the life of the ocean, during the latter part and close of the Cretaceous period; and the principle is recognized by Dr. W.B. Carpenter in his elaborate paper on Ocean Currents in connection with his Researches on board the "Shearwater" in 1871, read before the Royal Society in June, 1872, and published in No. 138 of the Society's Proceedings, xx 535-644. J.D.D.

3. Geological Survey of Wisconsin.—The present geological survey of Wisconsin was organized in the spring of 1873, with Dr. I.A. LAPHAM as chief geologist, and Professor R.D. IRVING,

of the State University, Professor T.C. CHAMBERLIN of Beloit College, and Mr. MOSES STRONG, Mining Engineer, as assistant geologists; and Professor W.W. DANIELS, of the State University, as chemist. The appropriation was $13,000 annually for four years.

The name of the Chief Geologist was a guarantee that the work would be faithful and exact.

Two seasons have been occupied in office and field work. During the first season there were three parties in the field, and during the second, four, a special contract having been made for a survey, during the latter season, of the Menominee River Huronian region, with Major T.B. Brooks, of the Michigan Survey, the work being really but an extension across the State line of his various labors in Michigan. By the close of the last season one-third of the State had been examined in detail, and very many interesting facts developed. Reports have been made sufficient to fill a large quatro volume, accompanied by hundreds of illustrations and over a hundred detailed maps. These maps embrace all the results possible to place upon them; it having been the aim of the corps to put as much of the work as possible in this permanent form. They are complete for all portions of the State examined, and include geological, topographical, agricultural and other maps, accompanied by large general sections, all drawn on a scale of two inches to the mile.

The entire lead region has been topographically surveyed and mapped with contour lines at a distance of fifty feet vertical, as recommended by Whitney in his report on the same region. Careful determinations of dips were made at the same time, so that the exact position of the mining ground—confined to certain strata—is made known at each locality.

Northern Wisconsin, bordering on Lake Superior, has been examined in detail, and some interesting facts bearing on the ages of the Lake Superior sandstone and of the copper rocks ascertained. The main work in northern Wisconsin consisted in an investigation of the Huronian rocks and ores of the Penokie [Penokee] Iron Range of Ashland County. The range is thirty miles in length in Wisconsin and about a mile in width at base. Several streams break through it from the southward, affording magnificent sections of its rocks, and on its flanks the siliceous ores that form its mass everywhere outcrop in precipitous exposures. These outcrops have been measured and the ore sampled and analyzed. The report on this range alone would form a volume of considerable size, with some scores of illustrations.

Eastern Wisconsin has been nearly or entirely surveyed by P. of Chamberlin's party. He has been able to divide the Niagara limestone into several subordinate formations. He has also obtained many new and interesting facts bearing on the drift phenomena of a region most remarkable for its glaciated surfaces, giant kettles, boulder clays and moraine heaps. He has also prepared a series of soil and timber maps of this region, and has collected no less than 14,000 fossils, many of them new forms.

Central Wisconsin has been examined in detail by Professor Irving, where he has made observations of the Lower Silurian of the Four Lake country; the Archaean quartzite [quartzite] range of Sauk and Columbia Counties; the extensive Potsdam sandstone region of the center of the State, with its remarkable castellated outliers of sandstone, and numerous Archaean islands; the boundary between the Archaean and Potsdam the rocks of the main Archaean body along the valleys of the Wisconsin, Yellows, and Black Rivers; and on the drift phenomena of the entire region, which are especially interesting because the area is just on the edge of the drift less region of the western half of the State.

While the members of the corps were just now expecting authority from the legislature for the printing of these reports, they were greeted, we learn, by the announcement that the governor had appointed a new chief geologist, and one whose sole recommendation for the position was political services, no one having ever heard of him before as acquainted with geology or any other science. It appeared that Dr. Lapham had been appointed under the law subject to the confirmation of the senate at its next session. At that time a new administration had come in and Dr. Lapham's name was never sent in, though he continued to perform his duties, and to be recognized by the State officials. This fact was taken advantage of to oust him, the appointment being defended in the senate by parties from the northern portion of the State, who had got the idea that the reports on the mineral regions of that section were not as favorable as interested parties desired. The whole thing was a total surprise to Dr. Lapham and other members of the corps, so that there was no time for any opposition on their part, or that of other friends of the survey and of good honest scientific work.

A great wrong has been done to Dr. Lapham, and a greater to the State. But we cannot believe that the State of Wisconsin will be satisfied to thus stultify itself before the world by sustaining the appointment to a scientific position of one who confessedly knows nothing of its duties.

4. Geological Survey of Alabama. Report of Progress for 1874; by EUGENE A. SMITH, Ph.D., State Geologist. 140 pp. 8 v0. Montgomery, Alabama, 1875.—Prof. Smith, after a history of the Geological Survey of the State hitherto undertaken, gives in a brief and systematic form the results of his geological work carried on during the past year. His labors were confined mainly to the portions of the State occupied by crystalline rocks, and especially to Chilton, Talladega, Cleburne, Randolph, Clay, Coosa, Tallapoosa, Chambers, Lee, and Elmore Counties. The rocks, and the mines or valuable minerals they contain, are described with care. The crystalline rocks include granites, gneiss, hornblendic rocks, mica schist, hydromica slate, chlorite slate; and also hypersthenyte [hypersthene] or noryte [norite?], which occurs near Columbus; with crystalline limestones, which are partly dolomitic. Among the materials of economical importance occurring in these counties

BULLETIN OF THE WISCONSIN AGRICULTURAL & MECHANICAL ASSOCIATION,

MILWAUKEE, WIS., AUGUST, 1860.