Part 8

So the bird tried everything he could think of, and the fish held on, and they kept it up all day. In the afternoon a little boy came out on the sands. His name was Inocente, and he was the son of Ygnacio, the fisherman of Mazatlan. And Inocente took a club of mangrove and ran up to the struggling bird and struck it on the wing with the club. The blow broke the wing, and the bird lay down to die, for with a broken wing and a fish that would not go up nor down, there was no hope for him.

When Inocente saw what kind of a fish it was, he knew just what to do. He reached down into the bird's sack and took hold of the fish's spines. He gave each one a twist so that it rolled over in its socket, the upper part toward the fish's head, and then they were not stiff any more, but lay flat against the side of the fish, just as they ought to lie. Then the fish knew that it had found a master, and lay perfectly still. So the bird gave a great gulp, and out the bagre went on the sand, and when the tide came up it swam away, and took care never to go again where a bird could get hold of it. And the bird with the broken wing had learned something about fishes, too. But he could not fly away, so he waited to see what the boy was going to do.

The boy took the bird into his boat and brought him home. And old Ygnacio put a splint on his wing and covered it with salve, and by and by it healed. But the bone was set crooked, and the bird could not fly very well. So the boys called the bird Señor Alcatraz, which is the Spanish for Mr. Pelican, and Señor Alcatraz and all the boys and dogs and goats became good friends, and all ran about on the streets together. And when the boys would shout and the dogs bark, all Señor Alcatraz could do was to squawk and hiss and open his big mouth and show the inside of his red fish sack.

And when the boys would go fishing on the wharf, Alcatraz would go, too, and he would stow away the fishes in his pouch as fast as the boys could catch them. But if they caught a bagre fish, he would turn his head the other way and then run away home just as fast as his splay feet would take him.

And when the men drew the net on the beach Alcatraz would splash around inside the net, catching whatever he could, and having a great deal of fun in his clumsy pelican fashion. Then he would run along the street with the boys, squawking and flapping his wings and thinking that he was just like the rest of them. And if you ever go to Mazatlan, ask for Dr. Rogers, and he will show you the way to Ygnacio's cabin on the street they call Libertad. And there in the front yard, in a general scramble of dogs, goats, and little Indian boys, you will see Señor Alcatraz romping and squabbling like the best of them. And you will know which he is by the broken wing and the red sack under his throat. But if you say "Bagre" to him, he will run under the doorstep and hide his face till you go away.

II.--THE LITTLE BLUE FOX.

Once there was a little blue fox, and his name was Eichkao, and he was a thief. So he built his house down deep among the rocks under the moss on the Mist Island, and his little fox children used to stay down among the rocks. There they would gurgle, gurgle, gurgle, whenever they heard anybody walking over their heads. Eichkao and his fox wife used to run all round over the rocks to find something for them to eat, and whenever Eichkao saw anybody coming he would go clin-n-n-g, cling-g-g, and his voice was high and sharp, just like the voice of a buzz saw.

One day he walked out on the rocks over the water and began to talk to the black sea parrot, whose name is Epatka, and who sits erect on his carelessly built nest with one egg in it, and wears a great big bill made of red sealing wax. He has a long white quill pen stuck over each ear, and over his face is a white mask, so that nobody can know what kind of a face he has, and all you can see behind the mask is a pair of little foolish twinkling white glass eyes. What the two said to each other I don't know, but they did not talk very long, for in a few minutes when I came back to his house among the rocks Eichkao was gone, and there lay out on the bank a bill made of red sealing wax, a white mask, and two little white quill pens. There were a few bones and claws and some feathers, but they did not seem to belong to anything in particular, and the little foxes in the rocks went gurgle, gurgle, gurgle.

One day I lay down on the moss out by the old fox walk on the Mist Island, and Eichkao saw me there and thought I was some new kind of walrus which might be good to eat, and would feed all the little foxes for a month. So he ran around me in a circle, and then he ran around again, then again and again, always making the circle smaller, until finally the circle was so narrow that I could reach him with my hand. As he went around and around, all the time he looked at me with his cold, gray, selfish eye, and not one of all the beasts has an eye as cruel-cold as his. When he thought that he was near enough, he gave a snap with his jaws, and tried to bite out a morsel to take home to the little foxes; but all I offered him was a piece of rubber boot. And when I turned around to look at him he was running away as fast as he could, calling klin-n-g-g, klin-n-g, klin-n-g, like a scared buzz saw all the time as he went out of sight. And I think that he is running yet, while the little foxes still go gurgle, gurgle under the rocks.

III.-HOW THE RED FOX WENT HUNTING.

(_With acknowledgment to Mr. A. C. Bassett, of Menlo Park, California._)

Once on a time there was a great tall rabbit, the kind the miners call a "narrow-gauge mule"; but he was not a mule at all, and his real name was "Jack Rabbit." His home was in Montana, and he lived by the river they call the Silver Bow. He could run faster than any of the other beasts, and he went lickety-clip, lickety-clip, bounding over the tops of the sagebrush, for he had no brush of his own to carry.

And there was a red fox who lived on the Silver Bow, too, and he went hunting because he wanted rabbit for dinner. But while he could run very fast he could not bound over the tops of the sagebrush, for his own brush, which he always carried with him because he was so proud of it, would catch on the thorns of the other kinds of brush and so would keep him back.

So he sent for his cousin, the coyote, to come and help him. Now, the coyote lived out in the country by Emigrant Mountain. He was not proud at all, for he hadn't much of a brush, and nobody flattered him for his beauty. But for all that the coyote could run very fast, as he had Indian blood in him. The only trouble was that his hind feet ran faster than his fore feet. So he had to stop every little while and run sidewise to unkink himself and give his fore feet a chance to catch up.

When the coyote came up the rabbit was bounding along through the bushes, going around in a great circle so that he always came back to the same place, for that is the way of the rabbit-folk. So the fox lay low and hid his brush in the sage, and the coyote followed the rabbit around the circle. And he just kept up with the rabbit all the way, for the rabbit wasn't scared, and didn't run very fast. And when they had gone once around the circle the rabbit passed the hidden fox. Then the fox got up and chased him, and was only a few feet behind. And the coyote stopped and ran sidewise for a while to unkink himself, and then he lay down in the bushes and waited for the rabbit to come back. The rabbit was much scared when he saw the fox close behind him, so he ran and bounded very fast, and the fox kept falling behind because he had his long brush to carry. But he kept at it just the same, and when the rabbit came around the circle to where he started there was the coyote waiting for him. The rabbit had to make a great jump to get over the coyote's head. Then they went around again and the coyote kept close behind all the way, and the rabbit began to get tired. When the coyote's hind legs got tangled up then the fox was rested, and he took up the chase; and so they kept on, each one taking his turn, except the rabbit, who had to keep his own turn all the time.

When the race was over there was nobody there to see how they divided up what they caught. But I saw the coyote the next day, and he looked so very empty that I think that the red fox must have taken all the rabbit meat for himself. Most likely he left his cousin just the ears for his part, with a rabbit's foot to carry in his pocket for good luck.

GLACIAL GEOLOGY IN AMERICA.

BY PROF. DANIEL S. MARTIN.

Under this title the vice-president of Section E (Geology) of the American Association--Prof. Herman L. Fairchild, of the University of Rochester, New York--gave an admirable _résumé_ of the whole history, progress, and scope of the study of ice phenomena in North America, as the opening address before the section at the recent Boston meeting. Apart from the interest of the subject in itself considered, this address was a model of what such addresses should be. While strictly scientific, without the least attempt at rhetorical effect, it was at the same time so clear, so well arranged and so simple in language, that any intelligent auditor could enjoy it and grasp it, and carry away a distinct impression of the gradual development and present status of this great department of geological study. Professor Fairchild's choice of his subject was happy also in its fitness to the occasion, as covering almost exactly the half century of the life of the association, though going back indeed a few years further, into the period of the earlier society which developed into the association in 1848.

The great body of phenomena comprised under the term "drift," and the smoothed and scratched surfaces of rock, etc., had been by no means unnoticed by the early students of American geology, but they were attributed to violent and widespread water action, and were spoken of in general as "diluvial" formations. When the agency of ice began to be recognized, it was regarded as that of floating and stranding bergs; and this view for a long time contended with the theory of glacial action, even when the latter had been adopted and advocated by eminent students of the subject.

The first allusion to drifting ice as the agent of transportation of bowlders, etc., appears to have been made as early as 1825, by one Peter Dobson, of Connecticut, in a letter to Prof. Benjamin Silliman, of Yale College. Sir Roderick Murchison, who became the great champion of this view, credits Mr. Dobson's letter with giving him the first suggestion of it. Twelve years later, in 1837, T. A. Conrad made the earliest reference to land ice as the cause of our drift phenomena; he does this in very striking words when read in the light of the studies and determinations of later years, although of course imperfectly and vaguely.

Meanwhile, however, Agassiz and others had been working among the glaciers of the Alps, and their views as to a great period of former extension, in Europe and the British Isles, were finding some acceptance abroad. In this country, Prof. Edward Hitchcock, in his address as retiring president of the Association of American Geologists, in 1841, gave a broad and careful review of the drift phenomena in eastern North America, and referred to the work of Agassiz, Buckland, and Lyell with great interest, as having given him "a new geological sense" in observing these phenomena, and said, with prophetic foresight, "Henceforth, glacial action must form an important chapter in geology."

But the time was not ripe for the understanding and acceptance of the glacial theory as a later generation has come to know it. The studies of Agassiz and his _confrères_ had been among glaciers upon mountain slopes, and hence, while many of the drift phenomena were strikingly accounted for, others were not and could not be. So it came to pass that, while Professor Hitchcock and others in this country were strongly impressed, they were not satisfied, and held for years an uncertain position. The glacial indications conformed in some aspects to the theory, but not in others; the striæ and groovings, instead of following valleys, all had a general trend to the southward, and the bowlders were carried across great depressions and deposited upon heights. How could these conditions be due to glaciers? Could ice flow uphill, or move long distances over level areas? These and other phenomena, such as the peculiar distribution of drift material, in "drumlin" ridges and the like, had no explanation. Hence, notwithstanding President Hitchcock's utterances above quoted, and his similar Postscript on the subject of drift and moraines, appended in the same year to his volume on the Geology of Massachusetts, we find him in 1843, when again addressing the Association of Geologists, adopting a modified tone, dwelling upon these points of difficulty, and seeking a compromise view, which he called "glacio-aqueous." The great influence also of Murchison and Lyell had been thrown into the scale in favor of the iceberg theory, and this fact doubtless had much to do with the slow development of true conceptions. Lyell visited America in 1842, and was present at the American Geologists' meeting, advocating the floating-ice doctrine, to which most of our observers already leaned; and so the views of Agassiz and the glacial school had to wait for a decade before they found general acceptance or even audience.

This, we may note in passing, is but one marked instance out of many in the history of science, wherein the personal influence of eminent leaders has obstructed and retarded the advance of true knowledge. The whole recognition of the Cambrian system, as pre-Silurian and distinct, was suppressed and prevented for many years by Murchison's intense opposition to the views of Sedgwick. Similar facts might be cited in this country, did we care to mention names. Science can not claim, as is sometimes asserted, that it possesses or imparts any entire exemption from the influence of authority, and bestows complete independence from the tendency to "swear to the words of a master."

Of the New York geologists, Vanuxem alone, in his Geology of the Third District, 1842, inclined to the glacial theory; the others--Emmons, Mather, and Hall--advocated floating ice, the latter urging as a chief objection the absence of any great northern highlands from which glaciers could extend southward. Prof. Henry D. Rogers advocated De la Beche's view, of great catastrophic waves or _débacles_ of water and ice, produced by sudden uplifts of the floor of a circumpolar ocean, and sweeping southward with tremendous power over the middle latitudes. These views were presented by him in 1844, at the Washington meeting of the geologists, and are to us a most curious illustration of the old "cataclysmic" phase of geological conceptions.

Two years later Agassiz came to America, and at once set about studying the ice evidences here, first in the White Mountains and then around the Great Lakes. At the first meeting of the American Association, in 1848, he presented his views as to the identity of our phenomena with those studied by himself, Desor, and Guyot abroad. His views were not very warmly received, however, and he did not attempt their public presentation again for some years, turning his attention more to the field of zoölogy. In 1850, in a work on Lake Superior, he refers somewhat sharply to the prejudice that seemed to prevail in relation to this subject.

From this time, however, the aqueous theories began to be less strongly presented; and a new generation of geologists was coming on, largely under the training of Guyot and Agassiz, and more open to their observed results. C. B. Adams, in 1850, presented a view nearly akin to that adopted by Dana a few years later, of an elevation of the high northern latitudes, resulting in a southward-moving glacial sheet, and a subsequent depression connected with its retreat, to account for the stratified deposits. Professor Dana accepted this doctrine in his presidential address before the association in 1855, adding the "Terrace period" of partial re-elevation. From this time he became the leader of the American glacialists, and his great Manual, issued in 1862, carried these views into all the colleges of the country.

In 1857 Prof. Edward Hitchcock published an important treatise on Surface Geology, particularly of the Connecticut Valley, in the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge. In this paper he noted the distinction, so important and now so familiar, between local striæ and those with the general southward course of the "drift." Two years later his son, Prof. C. H. Hitchcock, extended this distinction widely over New England. In 1863 the report of progress of the Geological Survey of Canada gave an extended review of the surface geology, by Prof. Robert Bell, in which he fully adopted the glacial theory. Meantime, also, Professor Ramsay, in England, had abandoned the iceberg doctrine for that of glaciers.

In 1866 and 1867 important papers appeared by Charles Whittlesey, and one by Edward Hungerford; this last, read before the association, adopted the general views of Agassiz, with some important limitations now generally received. In the same year the revised edition of Dana's Manual gave yet fuller statement and wider diffusion to the generally accepted views as held to-day.

Professor Fairchild sums up this historical sketch as comprising four periods--viz., prior to 1841, undisputed reign of diluvial hypotheses; 1841 to 1848, suggestion and discussion of glacial hypotheses; 1849 to 1866, gradual acceptance of the latter view; from 1867 onward, development of glacial geology.

From this point, the address was occupied with consideration of the various aspects of the subject as studied and wrought out during the past twenty years by numerous observers. These are grouped under four main heads, each with various subdivisions--viz., (1) the ice sheet, as to its area, its thickness, its centers of dispersion, its migration of centers, etc.; (2) the ice period, as to its cause, its divisions, its duration, its distance in time; (3) the interpretation of special phenomena, such as moraines, drumlins, eskers, "kettles," and the like, valley drift, terraces, loess, etc.; and (4) existing glaciers, as discovered on our high mountains of the far West, and as studied in closer relation to the ancient phenomena in the great ice cap of Greenland and the immense glacier development in Alaska.

It is impossible to go into a detailed review of the numerous points of interest covered in this discussion. Suffice it to say that one who heard or who reads it finds an admirably clear and condensed account of all the problems and phenomena that have been and that are now encountered in the study of glacial geology on this continent, and of their gradual interpretation and solution by the combined labors of many students. The progress of knowledge over this wide field, advancing step by step, amid conflicting views and perplexing conditions, is beautifully shown, and leaves a very striking impression on the mind, of the difficulties and the successes of scientific research. Nor is Professor Fairchild disposed to claim too much or assert too strongly. He recognizes that, with all that has been met and mastered, there are still questions unsolved, and laurels to be won by others.

Among the facts brought out, a few may be briefly alluded to. The early abandonment of Agassiz's original view of a vast extension of the polar snow caps, and the recognition of separate centers of continental glaciation, now distinctly determined as three in number--a western, a central, and an eastern--the former being the earliest, and the others following in succession; the recognition by the Western geologists of the twofold character of the Glacial epoch, as also determined in western Europe, but less markedly traceable in our Eastern States, though now generally admitted; in close relation to this the determination of the line of the great terminal moraine, traced by successive observers from the Atlantic seaboard to Minnesota, and the subsequent recognition of an older, eroded, and fragmentary morainal "fringe," marking the line of the earlier ice sheet, somewhat beyond the later. With regard to the actual distance of the last glacial retreat, as expressed in years, Professor Fairchild is both cautious and frank. He notes the general consensus of recent observers toward a much shorter period than was formerly supposed--from five to ten or perhaps fifteen thousand years. At the same time, there are many elements of uncertainty involved, and the problem is by no means settled. The Niagara gorge, so long looked upon as a possible chronometer, grows more complicated as it is further studied; the rate of erosion has evidently varied much with the volume of water carried by the river; and this, in turn, has varied with the changes of level, and consequently of drainage routes, in the basin of the Great Lakes. There have been times when only the Erie waters flowed through the Niagara outlet, the upper lake drainage passing eastward independently, until a gradual northern rise of the land, which is proved to be still going on, turned the entire drainage into the present St. Clair route from Lake Huron into Lake Erie, and so through Niagara.

This point leads us to digress for a moment from the address under consideration to allude to a very interesting department of study that is now growing into prominence--to wit, the restoration of pre-glacial geography and hydrography, and the genesis of our existing river and lake systems throughout the northern part of the country. The discussions and results in regard to Niagara and the Great Lakes are somewhat familiar, but the work on the rivers and smaller lakes is not so widely known. Professor Fairchild himself has done much in relation to the "central lakes" of New York State; and one very interesting paper of this kind on The Development of the Ohio River was read before the section by Prof. William G. Light, of Granville, Ohio, besides many papers by others on similar topics.

The work done within a few years upon the glaciers of Arctic America has proved peculiarly fruitful in results. Here, again, the whole subject is reviewed historically, and the name and work of each observer are impartially noted. Much of the difficulty encountered by the glacial theory arose, as we have seen, from the fact that only mountain glaciers had been studied, so that many of the phenomena produced by continental ice could not be explained. Professor Fairchild says, as to this aspect: "More has been learned of the structure, behavior, and work of our ancient ice sheets by the study of the Alaskan glaciers during the last ten years, and especially by the study of the Greenland ice cap during the last four years, than by all the study of the Alpine glaciers for the seventy years since they have been observed." Prominent among those who have worked in this field are the names of Professors Chamberlain and Salisbury in Greenland, and Professors H. F. Reid and I. C. Russell in Alaska; other important contributors are Prof. W. P. Blake, the pioneer geologist in Alaska, 1867; Dall and Baker, who discovered and named the Malaspina Glacier in 1874; and John Muir, 1878, for whom the Muir Glacier was named; Wright, Baldwin, Schwatka, Libbey, and others, and Barton and Tarr in Greenland.