No argument strikes harder than one of figures, and such the Rev. Joseph Cook has recently given us in his powerful preludes to his Boston Monday lectures. He shows us that one-third of our children are growing up in ignorance; that the liquor traffic for a day equals the missionary collections for a year. He proves our needs, and tells us what must be done. Trite and tiresome as the topics appear to many, upon the success or failure of them depend all national and Christian health. For many years these questions must be discussed, but the longer indifference is manifested, the harder it will be to uproot the evil results growing with such fearful rapidity in our nation.
Mr. J. B. Rogers, of Dundee, N. Y., writes the following: In company with a few ladies and gentlemen of the geology class, I visited Panama Rocks last summer. The questions were asked, how were they formed? To what system do they belong? and a number of other questions of similar import. Undoubtedly a great many persons have asked the same questions before. From the few observations which my limited visit afforded me, I came to the conclusion that the conglomerate was an outlier of the lowest conglomerate of the carboniferous system and that the adjacent portions had been removed by denudation. After reaching home I found that Prof. James Hall, in his report on the geology of the fourth district of the State of New York, held the same view. The rock at Panama is about 60 feet thick. The stratum in Pennsylvania, a few miles south of the State line, is 150 feet thick. In the states of Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky, the same rock is about 100 feet thick. It “thins out” toward the west, showing that the locality from which the materials of the conglomerate were obtained, was situated to the east. In fact, the rocks of New York and Pennsylvania, in the majority of cases, thin out toward the west; showing that while they were being deposited, there existed a large region of land surface to the east, from which the material of the rocks was derived. On the summits of the two highest hills over which the road passes from Chautauqua to Panama, the same conglomerate is found, affording an excellent example of erosion, for the intervening rock has been removed. The rock at Panama has evidently dropped down. Imagine an over-hanging cliff of conglomerate, the soft greenshale being worn away by water, undermining the conglomerate. It falls, and is broken in great blocks. The adjoining portions are worn down and carried away, as the rock is now being worn. The portions between Panama and Chautauqua are evidently in situ. I have been informed that on the north side of the lake a detached mass of conglomerate caps the hill.
Our country has been terribly visited during the last month by floods of enormous extent. In all the suffering and loss there has been marked sympathy and aid. While the waters were devastating the banks of the Rhine, Ohio sent contributions to the suffering people. Hardly were these evidences of friendliness received before Cincinnati was submerged and over the ocean came help from the Rhine. Certainly international brotherhood is fast increasing, and we are on the highway to unity.
A member of the C. L. S. C. complains of discrepancies between the measurements given in the text-book on astronomy and those in The Chautauquan. Our friend must not forget that when doctors disagree it is hard to be exact. In regard to the velocity of light various results have been reached. Foucault gives it 185,000 miles, and Newcomb says this is probably within 1,000 miles of the truth. Again, 185,200 is given; 186,250; 191,000. The exact diameter of the sun and its volume as compared with the earth is not known. The figures are approximate. As to the number of comets, the text-book refers to all the comets visible to naked eye and observed by telescope, and the discrepancy will disappear when it is noticed that The Chautauquan makes a division; the total being 700, which agrees with the text-book.
