IENTIFI£ MERI£AN Lr�ntered at the Post Office of Xew York. N. Y •• as 8econd Class Matter. Copyright, 1906, by Munn & Co.] Vol. XCIV.-No. 26. 10 CEN'I'S A ('oPY ESTABLISHED 1845. NEW YORK. JUNE 30, 1906. [ $3.00 A YI£AK. A �cientific Party lllaking Observations on a Glacier l\Ioraine. General View of Mount Tacoma. It is the bU",lIess of these men to survey the glacier by means of the usual methods employed III civil engineering Great Nisqllally glacier shown just below the summit and at the right of it. Scientific exploring party III the and to determine its rate of movement and its depth. Stakes are driven in the ice foreground. The glacier has apparently cut its way through the volcallic rock on whIch It oflg111ally and their change of position noted. rested. The rate of movement, is about 22\.i inches a day at tbe lower ponion. TYJlICal Crevasses in a GlaCIer' of the Selkirks (British Columbia). HOW GLACIERS ARE STUDIED.-[See page 034.] 530 Scientific American $22.95 $1,9()O SCIENTIFIC AMER.ICAN A member of thG Redwood Association tal,es us to storage is therefore only , as against for task for our corr.aspondent's criticism, and furnished the new Croton, and $238 for the WachuseU. Similar ESTABLISHED 1845 us with letters that he has received from San Fran­ figures for the Shoshone dam, the highest in the MUNN 6. CO. Editors and Proprietors cisco officials, all of whom unhesitatingly declare that world, are: Cubic yards of masonry, G9,OOO; cost, redwood is more refractory than pine, and some of $1,000,000; capacity of reservoir, 20,000,000,000 cubic Published Weekly at whom even venture the opinion that the fire was stay· feet; or a cost per million cubic feet storage of No. 361 Broa.dwa.y, New York ed by buildings finished with redwood exteriors. $50.35. We are only too well aware of the merits of Cali­ These extremely low costs have seldom been equaled T}I)RiWS SURSCRIB}I)RS TO fornia redwood to decry its use in unmeasured terms. in the history of re3ervoir construction, and are due One copy, one year, for 1)he United Canada, or Mexico . .. .. States. .. $3.00 and too l,eenly alive to its admirable fire-resisting largely to the excellent One copy, 011e year, to any fureign country, postage prepaid, £0 ltis. ad. 4.00 natural facilities which are qualities to class it with pine for ordinary purposes. found in the rugged THE SCI}l)NTIFIC AM}I)RICAN PUBLICATIONS western country. From this fact . Still, we may be permitted to believe that any wood, it must not be inferred that Scientific American (Established 1845) . .. ... .. .. .... .. $3.00 a year these western structures Scientific American 811uplement .l:£stabHs ed 1870) .. .. ....... •• t h . 5.00 subjected to a heat so fierce that the steel columns of are simple engineering works. On the Ameriean Homes and Gardens . ............. " .... ....__ .. :-tOO ... contrary, ow· SCientific American Export Edition (Hs ab is ed IS78) .. ...... .. :;'00 •• t l h a modern fireproof building sink and bend under it as ing to their The combined subscription rates and rates to toreign countries win isola ted location, their inaccessibility by be furnished upon applieatiol1. if made of wax, must be regarded as unsafe, whatever Hemit by postal or express money order, or by bank draft or check. rail and often by wagon, and the erratic and torrential M[]NN & CO., 3til Broadway, New York. its refractory qualities may be in comparison with character of (he streaII'.s, they involve problems which other woods, and in that opinion no doubt every build­ tax the skill and ingenuity of their builders to the NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JUNE 30, 1906. er will concur. For all the safety which it gave, the utmost. redwood which was consumed in the great conflagra­ It is most fortunate thi:lt these reservoirs provide The Editor is always ghtd to receive for examination Illustrated articles on subjects of timely interest. If the photographs arc tion might just as well have been supplanted by pine enormous storage at relatively low cost. Otherwise ,harp, the articles .<h()rt, and the facts authentic, the contributions or by material even more combustible. will receive special attention. Accepted artieles will be paid for their construction would not be feasible. as the irri­ at regular space rates. Admitting the ability of redwood to withstand ordi­ gated land could not bear the expense of the costly nary heat for a greater period than most woods (and A LOCK CANAL FOR PANAMA. structures of the East with their limited storag8 this, we take it, is all that redwood advocates claim capacity. Thanks to the arguments which have been advanced for it as a fire-resisting material J we must attribute The Croton dam, if it held been constructed in Salt by the President, the Secretary of War, and the Chief the salvation of that portion of San Francisco which River Valley in Arizona for irrigation, would only sup­ Engineer of the Pdnama Canal, the Senate has voted escaped to the very liberal use of dynamite. The fire ply 23,000 acres, and irrigators would have to pay for a lock canal across the Isthmus-a legislative deci· was stayed in th8 very midst of redwood structures, $330 an acre for stored water, as against $20, the esti­ sion which will probably be welcomed by the engi· it is true, but doubtless its course would have ended mated cost from the Roosevelt dam. neers who have been intrusted with the building of where it did, had these same structures been built of the waterway and by all Americans who have at heart --...� �----- other material. SEEDS AND SUSPENDED ANIMATION, a speedy termination of an undertaking that means .. �.,. much to the economic; advancement of the country. It has often been observed that any sudden change The sharp conflict which has been waged by the advo· COMPARISON OF WESTERN IRRIGATION RESERVOIRS in the superficial character of the soil is rapidly fol­ cates of sea·level and lock canals, and which has re­ AND THE N.EW CROTON DAM. lowed by an alteration in the natur2 cf the plants growing thereon, new slleeies appearing where the sulted in a delay both irksome and perplexing to the One of the most surprising features connected with ground has hitherto been a stranger to them. Very engineers at Panama, is now happily ended, and that the work of the Reclamation Service, as well as the many farmers, foresters, and scientific men-among project has been selected which, in the opinion of olle affording highest gratification, is the cost of struc­ others the French botanist Poisson-are inclined to those most compete.,t to judge, will most satisfactorily tures compared with those which have become familiar attribute this phenomenon to the retention of seeds, fill the immediate need of an Isthmian waterway. to engineers in the East. bulbs, or spor8S of a. former growth of vegetation in Of the thirteen members of the International Board When the reclamation work was inaugurated. it was a quies,;e;J.t :o;tate, these seeds and growths retaining of Consulting Engineers, eight reported in favor of a a matter of conjecture whether or not the standards of their powers of germination even after several sea-level canal and five in favor of a lock canal. Of cost fcr dams, canals, etc., that had been established othel' successive crOlls of plants have grown above the six members of the Canal Comlllission, five were by engineering practice in the eastern part of the coun­ them. Most botanists, however, h2ve doubterl the possibility in favor of a lock and only one in favor of a sea-level try, could be relied upon as a basis of estimates of tIie of seeds' retaining their germinating properties for so waterway. Now that the dispute has been settled, the cost of the proposed western structures. As the work long a time, and have explained the sudden recommendations of the President and Chief Engineer has progressed, it has become more and more evi:lent appear­ ance of strange plants in different plaees by Stevens will no doubt be carried out. According to that many classes of engineering work in the West can natural means of seed transmission, as, for instance, these recommendations, a gigantic dam is to be erected be performed much more cheaply than in the East, by birds, 7,700 131 bees, currents of air, and the like. at Gatull, measuring feet in length and feet and at the same time the n;ltural conditions are such A remarkable fact was once observed b,- Th. ill height, which darn is to be composed of no less than that these structures are more economical and effective. v. Held reidl at j he 21,200,000 mountain called Lanrion in At tiea. cubic yards of material, and upon which If wc) take, for example, tlw three great masonry dams Arter the l'elIlov:i1 500- of about ten feet of soil and rubble whieh the permanence of the canal rests. To this dam a now being erected for the ]lUl'lJOse of storing water, viz., had been UlI­ disturbed for ages, there silddeniy foot channel will lead from the Atlantic. Three locks the Roosevelt dam in Arizona, the Pathfinder dam. in sprang up a plant unknown theretofore in that region. arranged in a double flight will lift ships from the southeastern Wyoming, and the Shoshone dam in viz., a glaucium or horned poppy, accompanied sea 1evel to the huge sheet of water impounded by the northwestern Wyoming, we shall find that the effective by a rich growth of the fly-catcher or dam at an altitude of 85 feet.