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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



count of subsequent observations made with 

 dead hazel branches (pea sticks), which had 

 been found to develop considerable suction 

 force, amounting in one case to nineteen 

 inches and a half of mercury with a stick 

 eighteen inches long. He concluded by ex- 

 pressing the opinion that in recent attempts 

 to explain the mechanism of the transpira- 

 tion current, the part played by the " imbi- 

 bition " of the cell walls had been underesti- 

 mated, and urged that what is especially 

 requisite for a further advance is a more 

 complete investigation of the properties of a 

 dead stick. 



Chinese Cheap Money. The Chinese, as 

 all the world may know, have cheap money, 

 their standard of value being a copper coin 

 about the size of a quarter of a dollar, with a 

 square hole in the middle by which it may be 

 strung, which is commonly called cash in 

 Chinese, tsien. They are strung by hundreds, 

 with a knot to mark each hundred, and when 

 large sums are to be used, strings enough to 

 make out the amount are hung upon the 

 shoulders of the carrier. Mr. Carles, a trav- 

 eler in Korea, relates that he had to hire a 

 special pony on one of his excursions to carry 

 his cash, and that at one time he met two 

 ponies carrying twenty-four thousand cash, 

 or thirty dollars, to pay the workmen at a 

 certain mine. The Chinese money-tellers be- 

 come very expert in counting these cash and 

 detecting false ones, for even these copper 

 pieces, representing as little value as money 

 can be made to do, are falsified. Emblems 

 manufactured out of iron or of sand and 

 gluten are often put upon the strings in place 

 of the real bronze coin ; in fact, a certain 

 number of these spurious pieces are nearly 

 always found. They are detected and sepa- 

 rated from the genuine by boiling the pile or 

 string. The sand and gluten cash are dis- 

 solved, and the iron are exposed. The ac- 

 countant weighs what is left ; or, if the sum 

 represents millions, he boils a few thousand 

 and makes an average from the result which 

 he applies to the whole. 



The Smoke Nuisance. A recent English 

 inquiry into the smoke nuisance and the pos- 

 sibility of its abatement is noticed in Indus- 

 tries and Iron. The commission's report 

 contains much interesting information, and 



sums up as follows : In presenting their re- 

 port the committee express their conviction 

 that in the great majority of cases the black 

 smoke thrown into the air during the com- 

 bustion of coal is preventable, either by hand 

 or mechanical firing, and without great cost 

 to the consumer. Often the prevention of 

 smoke is accompanied with saving of ex- 

 pense, in that an increase of heat is devel- 

 oped by a more perfect combustion of the 

 fuel ; and where live fire bars are adopted 

 that is, where the bars have an automatic 

 reciprocating motion an inferior and 

 cheaper quality of coal can be used, and 

 thus a further saving of expense effected. 

 The consumption of fuel was found to be 

 lower in boilers fired by machine than in 

 those fired by hand. In short, they say a 

 manufacturing district may be free from 

 manufacturing smoke at least from the 

 steam boilers, with which alone the commit- 

 tee have concerned themselves and they 

 give ample information as to the means by 

 which it may be so freed. As the discharge 

 of black smoke from factory chimneys was 

 made a criminal offense in England by the 

 Public Health Act of 1875, all that is neces- 

 sary now to abate the nuisance is a call by 

 public opinion for the application of the law. 



The Earliest Animal Life. The president 

 of the Geological Section of the British Asso- 

 ciation, J. E. Marr, opened his presidential 

 address, on stratigraphical geology, with a 

 reference to the points in geological history 

 of which we are ignorant. Specially promi- 

 nent among these is that of the animal life 

 of the earth during the vast length of time 

 previous to the Cambrian period. The ex- 

 traordinary complexity of the earliest known 

 Cambrian fauna has long been a matter of 

 surprise, and the recent discoveries in con- 

 nection with the Ofcnelltis fauna do not di- 

 minish the feeling. We may look forward 

 with confidence to the discovery of many 

 faunas older than those of which we now 

 possess certain knowledge, but until these 

 are discovered the paleontological record 

 must be acknowledged to be in a remarkably 

 incomplete condition. Valuable work has re- 

 cently been done in proving the existence of 

 important groups of stratified rocks depos- 

 ited previously to the beds containing the 

 earliest known Cambrian fossils. With our 



