Britain in the Carboniferous Period.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume 30, Issue 9186, 13 October 1899, Page 1 (Supplement)

Britain in the Carboniferous Period.

la a paper on the " Geography of tht British Isles hi the Carboniferous Period,' Professor Boyd Dawkins said: At the com mencement of the carboniferous epoch there was a line of high land from Scotland to the west of Ireland, from which were derived the materials out of which the lower coal measures were formed. In addition to this there was another block of high land, which he would c3ll the middle island, extending in a barrier from the east of Ireland across England, including the mountains of Wales, to Charnwood Forest. From the shores of these two high lands materials were deposited. More coarse, sandy deposits were laid down in great thickness near the shores of this land; but thinned out towards the centre of the area of sea were deep-water deposits of limestones. In the latter carboniferous period this area of sea, which then extended over the south of Scotland and the north of England, nearly ailed up, and an area of almost flat grounds was formed, upon which the coal measures were deposited under the conditions partly marine, partly estuarial, and partly'freshwater. The coal-measures extended pretty nniformerly over the area, but h»Te been since, in a large measure, denuded by the elevation of certain parts, which now formed the so-called coal-basins.

Tbo theory that Americans are moresnsceptibe to toe influence of alcohol than Englishmen are, was advanced by Dr. B. P. Thwing, of New York city, at the quarterly meeting of the Society for the Studv of Inebriety recently held in London. "He also pointed out that Americans suffered mora from the effects of tobacco than do the Hollanders, Turks or Chinese. This difference was attributed to the over pressure characteristic of life in this country, which tends to increase the sensitiveness of the nervous systeaGreat confidence tin 1 the effisacy oi govermental sanitary measures was recently expressed by Sir Spencer Wells, the eminent English surgeon, who says that if there was in England a competent Minister of Public Health, with full power and an efficient staff of health officers and engineers, the deatti vate of London—now nineteen in a thousand —might certainly be reduced to fourteen, and probably to twelve. At a recent meeting of the American Society of Civil Engineers a curious statement was made concerning the durability of the sun-dried bricks used for building purposes in Peru. It is said tbat these bricks teemed to improve in quality with age ; so that when a building three centuries old was torn down in Lima, the bricks from the ancient walls sold for & higher prioe than new ones. According to Mons. Bacchi, of the Paris Academy of Medicine, ihe injurious effects of many liquors and wines are due to the presence of 3 poisonous substance called furfurcl. This he describes as a colorless liquid, which turns brown upon exposure to Ihe air, and as an odor like that of cinnaoon. Very small doses of furfurol, when administered to dogs, suffice to prodac* symptoms of lock-law and epilepsy. An epidemic of typhoid fever recently prevailed in the town of Belves, in France. Water was taken from the various fountains in the place and sent to the Paris Academy of Medicine for examination. Chemical analysis revealed the presence of the characteristic germs of typhoid fever in the water of one of the fountains. There is a hard wood, which grows in South Africa, that will last seven times as long as lignum vit.-e. It is the wood of the Umzumbit or Urntiza tree, which is found in the coast forest?, and attains a height of thirty-five feet and a diameter of eighteen to twenty-four inches. **rii<3 telephone between Berlin and Hamburg has been used so much that th*e man*, gcrs have lately shortened the time for a • ingle conversation from five minutes to three minutes, without, however, reducing the price. The great plains or steppes about the Caspam Sea hare lately become the home of va>t numbers of marmots, although these animals were unknown in that region a few years An ana of hundreds of square miles ;s nnw covered by their mounds. A report c>mes from Naples that a case of ancient Iv.man surgical instruments, many of which resemble those employed by surgeons of the present day, has recently bee»