862 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



had won an established position. The twen- 

 tieth volume, instead of 52 pages of short, 

 mostly local notes, had 568 pages of struc- 

 tural, physiological, ecological, systematic, 

 and paleontological matter. Now a further 

 enlargement has been found necessary, 

 under which the numbers will average 65 

 pages each, and the magazine becomes one 

 of the publications of the University of Chi- 

 cago, with a still further increased editorial 

 force, to which it is contemplated to add one 

 or more European botanists. The magazine, 

 Prof. Bessy says, " has grown and developed 

 as the science of botany has grown and de- 

 veloped in this country. When we look over 



the earlier volumes -with surprise at the little 

 notes which fill the pages, we must not for- 

 get that American botany had not then gen- 

 erally risen above such conti-ibutions. It is 

 true that we had a few masters in the sci- 

 ence, but these masters wrote little for gen- 

 eral readers, and their technically systematic 

 contributions were mostly published in the 

 proceedings of learned societies. The one 

 thing which stands out to-day in sharp con- 

 trast with the botany of two decades ago is 

 the very great increase in the number of 

 masters in the science who are making lib- 

 eral contributions from many different de- 

 partments." 



MINOR PARAGRAPHS. 



Alfred Nobel, the inventor of the appli- 

 cation of dynamite as an explosive, left a be- 

 quest for the institution of five equal prizes, 

 to be awarded yearly to the persons who 

 shall have made the most important discov- 

 eries or inventions in the domains respective- 

 ly of physics, chemistry, and physiology or 

 medicine ; who shall have produced the most 

 important work, in the ideal sense, in the do- 

 main of letters ; and to the person who shall 

 have exerted the greatest or the best action 

 for the fraternity of peoples, for the suppres- 

 sion or diminution of permanent armies, and 

 for the formation or spreading of peace con- 

 gresses. The literary prize is to be awarded 

 by the Swedish Academy, and the prize for 

 the promotion of peace by a committee of 

 the Norwegian Storthmg. It is the testator's 

 expressed wish that no consideration of na- 

 tionality may enter into any of the awards. 

 The prizes are supposed to be worth sixty 

 thousand dollars each. 



A NEW flying machine, similar in principle 

 to that of Lilienthal, has been devised by 

 Herr Arthur Stenzel, of Altona, Germany. 

 It has parabolic wings in imitation of birds' 

 wings, is driven by the power of compressed 

 carbonic acid, and has been made to " go " 

 when attached for safety to a guiding cable. 

 With a force of one horse power it has ad- 

 vanced three metres at each beating of the 

 wings, of which there are one and three 

 tenths per second. With a horse power and 

 a half the machine may tfe made to fly free 

 from the cable. The wings are remarkably 



elastic, and the inventor thinks that this is 

 one of the factors of his success. They are 

 made of unsoldered steel tubes and bamboo, 

 and are covered with a specially prepared 

 India-rubber cloth. The apparatus is di- 

 rected by a rudder which is not unlike a 

 bird's tail. As yet no passengers have been 

 carried on the machine. 



A SUM of ten thousand francs was be- 

 queathed a few years ago by M. Edouard 

 Mailly, of the Royal Academy of Belgium, 

 as the foundation of a prize to be awarded to 

 a Belgian who has contributed most to the 

 progress of astronomy or to the spread of the 

 taste for it and knowledge of it. The prize 

 " Mailly " has been fixed at one thousand 

 francs, to be awarded every four years. The 

 Belgian Academy in December, 1896, made 

 the first award of the prize, and bestowed it, 

 most worthily, on the editorial committee of 

 our contemporary, Cid et Ttrre. 



The oldest known measurement of the 

 height of clouds is asserted by M. Schreiber, 

 of the Belgian Astronomical Society, to be 

 the work of the two Jesuits Riccioli and 

 Grimaldi, near Bologna, in 1644. They used 

 the trigonometrical method, with two stations, 

 which is still preferred, and which Kamtz, in 

 his treatise on meteorology, calls Riccioli's 

 method. They found 3,222 metres as the 

 altitude of a bright white cloud ; Riccioli re- 

 lates that another Jesuit, of Metz, who meas- 

 ured a large number of clouds, told him that 

 none of them was more than 7,400 metres 

 above the earth. He speaks of another 



