MISCELLANY.
A Peculiar Conglomerate.—Mr. John Keily, of the Irish Geological Society, has addressed a letter to the editor of the Geological Magazine, describing a peculiar conglomerate bed which is on the shore at Cushendeen, in the county of Antrim. The mass is about fifty feet above the sea, and some thirty yards long and wide. It is composed of round pebbles of quartz rock, from two to four inches in diameter; and they occur so closely packed that everyone is in contact with another, and no room left, except for the sand which cements them, and which fills the openings between the pebbles, when originally heaped together. These pebbles, as just stated, are of quartz rock, and therefore all of one kind. There is no actual rock of the same kind, on the shore, nearer than—(1) Malin Head, or Culdaff, in Donegal; (2) Belderg, east of Belmullet in Mayo, where it occupies the shore for fourteen miles; and (3) in the twelve bins, near Clifden, in Connemara, where it forms bands interstratified with mica slate. This mass is backed by a hill of brown Devonian grits and shales interstratified, which extends from Cushendeen to Cushendal. In both those rocks are a few round pebbles of quartz rock, similar to those in the mass on the shore, but in the rocks of the hill they are thinly disseminated, perhaps six or ten of them to a cubic yard. Mr. Kelly desires to know how the quartz pebbles came together unmixed with any other species of rock. The answer which the editor of the Geological Magazine gives in a foot-note seems very like the correct one. It is to the effect that, in the grinding of the several elements which were being rubbed together to form the conglomerate, the softer ones became reduced to powder.—Popular Science Review.
Old Roman Mines in Spain.—In the mines of San Domingo, in Spain, some discoveries of Roman mining implements and galleries have been made, which show us the colossal character of the labors undertaken by that ancient nation. In some instances, draining galleries nearly three miles in length were discovered, and in others the remains of wheels used to raise water were found in abundance. The wood, owing, it is thought, to penetration by copper, is in a perfect state of preservation, and there appears to be evidence that the wheels were worked by a number of men stepping on the flanges somewhat after the manner of prisoners on a tread-mill. There were eight of these water-wheels, the water being raised by the first into the first basin, by the second into the second basin, and so on, till it was conveyed out of the mine. The age of these relics has been set down at 1500 years.—Ibid.
Blood Relationship in Marriage.—At a late meeting of the London Anthropological Society, a paper was read by Dr. Mitchell on the above subject. The conclusions arrived at are: 1. That consanguinity in parentage tends to injure the offspring. That this injury assumes various forms: "as, diminished viability; feeble constitution; bodily defects; impairment of the senses; disturbance of the nervous system; sterility.", 2. That the injury may show itself in the grand-children: "so that there may be given to the offspring by the kinship of the parents a potential defect which may become actual in their children, and thenceforth perhaps appear as an hereditary disease." 3. That idiocy and imbecility are more common than insanity in such cases.
Gigantic Birds'-Nests.—Mr. Gould describes the Wattled Talegalla, or Bush Turkey, of Australia, as adopting a most extraordinary process of nidification. The bird collects together an immense heap of decaying vegetable matter as a depository for the eggs, and trusts to the heat engendered by decomposition for the development of the young. The heap employed for this purpose is collected by the birds during several weeks previous to the period of laying. It varies in size from two to four cartloads, and is of a perfectly pyramidal form. Several birds work at its construction, not by using their bills, but by grasping [{854}] the materials with their feet and throwing them back to one common centre. In this heap the birds bury the eggs perfectly upright, with the large end upward; they are covered up as they are laid, and allowed to remain until hatched, when the young birds are clothed with feathers, not with down, as is usually the case. It is not unusual for the natives to obtain nearly a bushel of eggs at one time from a single heap; and as they are delicious eating, they are as eagerly sought after as the flesh. The birds are very stupid, and easily fall a victim to the sportsman, and will sit aloft and allow a succession of shots to be fired at them until they are brought down.—Lamp.
The Muscular Fibres of the Heart of Vertebrates.—We have received from Dr. J. B. Pettigrew, the accomplished sub-curator of the Royal College of Surgeons' Museum, a copy of his excellent monograph on the above subject. The memoir is certainly the finest which has yet been produced; for it is comprehensive, clear, and accurate, and is accompanied by a great number of beautiful lithographs, which have been taken from photographs of actual dissections. The arrangement of the muscular fibres, as demonstrated by the author, sheds much light upon the peculiar movements of the heart. For this reason the essay has a great physiological importance, and, from the circumstance that the anatomy of the heart in the four vertebrate classes is fully explored by Dr. Pettigrew, it is of equal import and interest to the comparative anatomist. We have also received Dr. Pettigrew's paper on the valvular apparatus of the circulatory system, and we commend it likewise to our readers' favorable notice.—Science Review.