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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



these Greeks. The Eastern barbers hold the 

 aut a large-headed Camponotus in a for- 

 ceps, when it opens its mandibles wide, and, 

 being permitted to seize the edges of the 

 cut, which are held together for the purpose, 

 its head is cut off as soon as a firm grip is 

 obtained. A similar practice was observed 

 in Brazil several years ago by M. Mocquerys, 

 of Rouen, and is cited by Sir John Lubbock, 

 but it is not mentioned by either Bates or 

 Wallace. 



Judgment was recently given in an Eng- 

 lish court, in the suit of an actress against 

 the Nottingham Theater company for dam- 

 ages for injuries by falling through a dilapi- 

 dated stairway, on the evidence of an X-ray 

 picture of the injured foot. 



The third volume of Poggendorff's Bio- 

 graphical and Literary Dictionary, now in 

 publication, will contain notices of scientific 

 men in various fields who lived between 1858 

 and 1883. A fourth volume will cover the 

 years from 1883 to 1900. Full lists of con- 

 tributions to scientific literature will accom- 

 pany the notices. The dictionary will contain 

 many names not often heard of, among them 

 those of Arabian philosophers. 



Experiments are in order to protect let- 

 ters against exposure by the Rontgen rays. 

 MM. Thayer and Hardtmuth, of Vienna, 

 bronze the inside of their envelopes or orna- 

 ment them with designs in bronze. It is 

 found that the X rays have only a feeble ac- 

 tion through the bronzed envelopes, while in 

 those ornamented with bronze pastes only 

 the spots that are left white are exposed; 

 and in both cases the written characters are 

 not revealed in intelligible shape. 



In an experiment recently made at an 

 Austrian wood-pulp factory to determine how 

 quickly it was possible to make a newspaper 

 from a tree, three ti-ees were felled in the 

 presence of a notary and witnesses at 7.35 

 A. M. The trees were taken to the factory 

 and cut up into short pieces, which were 

 stripped of their bark and converted into 

 mechanical pulp. This was placed in a vat 

 and mixed with the materials necessary to 

 form paper, and the first leaf of paper came 

 out at 9.34 A. M. Some of the sheets were 

 taken, the notary still watching the proceed- 

 ings, to a printing office about three miles 

 away ; and the printed newspaper was issued 

 at ten o'clock. It thus took two hours and 

 twenty-five minutes to convert a tree into a 

 newspaper. 



American science has suffered a serious 

 loss in the death, September 6th, of Dr. 

 George Brown Goode, Assistant Secietary of 

 the Smithsonian Institution. Dr. Goode was 

 born at New Albany, Ind., February 13, 

 1851 ; was interested in natural history from 

 an early age ; was graduated from Wesleyan 

 University in 1870 ; and made a collecting 



trip to the West Indies in 1872 and 1873. 

 In the latter year he became connected, on 

 the invitation of Prof. Baird, with the Smith- 

 sonian Institution, where he spent the rest of 

 his life. He performed many special services, 

 especially in connection with the interests of 

 fisheries; as director of the Natural History 

 division in the Philadelphia Centennial Ex- 

 hibition of 1876; United States Commis- 

 sioner to the International Fisheries Exhi- 

 bitions in London and Berlin in 1880 and 

 1883 ; statistical expert with the Halifax 

 Fisheries Commission in 1877; representa- 

 tive of the Smithsonian Institution at the 

 Chicago Exhibition of 1893; and member 

 of the Board of Awards at the Atlanta Cot- 

 ton States Exhibition of 1895. Among his 

 published reports and works are those on 

 the Game Fishes of the United States, The 

 Fishes and Fishing Industries of the United 

 States, American Fishes and Oceanic Ichthy- 

 ology, the Plan of Classification for the 

 World's Columbian Exhibition, and the Mu- 

 seums of the Future. 



Prof. Hubert A. Newton, of Yale Uni- 

 versity, mathematician, and one of the most 

 distinguished investigators of meteors and 

 meteoric showers, died in New Haven, Conn., 

 August 12th. A sketch of his life and his 

 work on the problem of the meteors was 

 published, with a portrait, in the Popular 

 Science Monthly for October, 1885 (vol. 

 xxvii, p. 840). His address as President 

 of the American Association, at the Buffalo 

 meeting in 1886, on Meteorites, Meteors, and 

 Shooting Stars, was published in the Month- 

 ly for October, 1886 (vol. xxix, p. 733). 

 Subsequently to these dates. Prof. Newton 

 continued his studies of meteors by the aid 

 of stellar photography, with many interesting 

 and valuable results ; and through his exer- 

 tions a battery of cameras was placed in 

 Yale Observatory for more extensive mete- 

 oric photography. His work in mathematics 

 was also of the highest order. 



We announce with regret the death of 

 Prof. J. L. Delboeuf, of the University of 

 Liege, at Bonn, August 13th. Prof. Del- 

 bo3uf was a student and scientific writer of 

 more than ordinary power to interest, origi- 

 nal and genial, and possessing considerable 

 humor. We have published several articles 

 and extracts from his writings; among them 

 are Dwarfs and Giants in tlie twenty-sec- 

 ond and What may Animals be taught ? in 

 the twenty-ninth volume of the Monthly ; 

 and more recently, Observations on the Psy- 

 chology of Lizards. 



Herr Otto Lilienthal, the inventor of 

 a flying machine with which he had achieved 

 some small successes, was killed during an 

 experiment with his apparatus at Rhinow, 

 near Berlin, August 12th. The machinery 

 became deranged, and the whole concern fell, 

 with Herr Lilienthal, to the ground. 



