may deal with him for the time being without inconvenience. In doing this, we regard the other person simply as a fellow-member of the human race, and say to him by implication: "The good elements of the race command my respect. I will presume that you belong to them, but I have at present no occasion to inquire whether that is so or not. I will act upon this presumption till the contrary is shown. Deal with me on the same principle." We must look for the origin of the outer manifestations of courtesy to the signals of peace manifest among savage tribes and rude men. As manners become ameliorated, what in the beginning meant "Your life is safe," comes to mean "You are welcome." Some of the manifestations may be traced directly back to gestures, or to attitudes showing the person using them to be unarmed. He stoops as if to drop his weapons; he holds up his empty hands; he crosses his arms upon his breast; he kneels, or he touches the ground with his forehead. From these come the "present arms" of the military service; from the taking off of the helmet came the opening of the visor of the old knights and the raising or touching the hat of the modern salutation; and possibly from the raising of the empty hands, the "shake-hands" gesture of the present time. The idea that we pay honor to another by standing in his presence is doubtless a survival from times when more scanty provision was made for seats than now, and the best place was given to the preferred person.
A Remarkable Specimen of Rock-Crystal.—Mr. George F. Kimz exhibited to the American Association some remarkably large specimens of rock-crystal from Ashe County, North Carolina. His attention was first called to the locality by receiving from there a fifty-one-pound fragment which was said to have been broken from a mass weighing three hundred pounds, by a mountain-girl twelve years old. Other specimens from farms in the same neighborhood were a remarkably clear twenty-pound half-distorted crystal, one weighing one hundred and eighty-eight pounds, and another—twenty-nine inches long, eighteen inches wide, and thirteen inches thick, showing one pyramidal termination perfect, and another partly so—weighing two hundred and eighty-five pounds. These localities are on a spur of the Phoenix Mountain, about fifty miles from Abingdon and forty miles from Marion, Virginia. The crystals were all found in disintegrated crystalline rocks, consisting principally of coarse feldspathic granite, which have all decomposed to a greater depth than their position. Most of them are obtained by digging where one crystal has been found, or by driving a plow till some hard object is struck. Several dozen have been found weighing from twenty to thirty pounds each. Some of these crystals afford larger masses of clear rock-crystal than have ever before been found in the United States, and suggest the use of that substance for such objects of luxury as crystal balls, clock-cases, mirrors, etc., of which examples may be seen in the Austrian Treasury at Vienna.
Origin of River-Swamps.—Prof. N. S. Shaler has observed, in studying the freshwater swamps of New England, that those rivers which flow southwardly run in clear beds, through valleys that are free from swamps; while the valleys of all the rivers flowing to the north are swampy. The former rivers flow freely, the latter are sluggish. He believes that this condition may be accounted for as the result of successive movements or changes of level which took place during the Glacial period, or at and after its close, the succession having probably been as follows: 1. The subsidence of the land-surface under the weight of the ice to a depth below the level of the sea; 2. With the retreat of the ice, a re-elevation, in a sudden manner, to a height above the level of the sea; and, 3. With the disappearance of the ice from the continent, a readjustment of its position and a consequent lowering of the southern portion of the glaciated area. It is not likely that in the readjusted condition of the continent all parts are equally elevated or equally lowered. The present levels of the several divisions of the continental area would probably be determined by complicated equations of thrusts, and it is probable that in this way we may explain the fact that certain of the lesser valleys of New England show little effect from the tilting movement
