the mountain in 1870. At the same meeting of the Geological Society Mr. Becker presented a pestle with a communication from Mr. Clarence King, stating that he found, it, about twenty years ago, and took it with his own hands from undisturbed gravel under Table Mountain in the vicinity of Tuttletown, not far from Rawhide Gulch, and still nearer to the Empire mine.
Thus the evidence establishing the occurrence of human relics under Table Mountain would seem to be sufficient, and I should not now repeat the doubts expressed at former times concerning their genuineness. What the final conclusions will be as to the date of this lava-flow, it is now too early to surmise.
| SANITARY IMPROVEMENT IN NEW YORK DURING THE LAST QUARTER OF A CENTURY. |
By General EMMONS CLARK.
DURING the quarter of a century (1836-1860) preceding the war for the Union, a great change occurred in the character and social condition of the population of the large cities upon the Atlantic seaboard, and especially in the city of New York. The famine in Ireland, and the extreme poverty of the people of that unfortunate country; the unsuccessful revolutions in various parts of the Continent; and the popular belief that Fortune beckoned the poor and oppressed of foreign lands to comfortable homes and to personal, political, and religious freedom beyond the Atlantic, were chief among the causes of the immense emigration at that period to the United States. Immigrants of some pecuniary means and from agricultural districts generally located upon the fertile plains of the Western States, and contributed by their industry and frugality to the rapid growth of new commonwealths. But a very large number, from choice or necessity, and especially the indigent, found homes in the large cities on the sea-coast, and New York received and retained more than its share of the immigrants who were least desirable as a permanent addition to its population. Previous to this tidal wave of immigration, the city was peopled mainly by the descendants of its staid Dutch founders, their thrifty English successors, and the active and enterprising sons of New England. Their dwellings were generally small and inexpensive, and were owned or occupied by single families of moderate income, and the habitations of the more wealthy were quite unpretentious. With the advent of Irish and German immigrants, houses constructed for the comfortable accommodation of single families were transformed to shelter many; their cleanliness and healthfulness disappeared with the numerical increase
