576 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



study of the vertebrate body. The work in 

 botany will be restricted to the study of the 

 structure and development of types of the 

 various orders of the cryptogamous plants 

 Applications should be addressed to William 

 A. Setehell, 2 Hillhouse Avenue, New Haven, 

 Conn. 



Dr. E. B. Tylor suggests the use of cor- 

 respondence in culture as a means of tracing 

 lines of connection and intercourse between 

 ancient and remote peoples. The Egyptian 

 conception of the judgment of the dead by 

 weighing in a spiritual balance may be 

 traced in a series of variants that seem to 

 draw lines of intercourse through the Vedic 

 and Zoroastrian religions. The associated 

 doctrine of the Bridge of the Dead, which 

 separates the good, who pass over, from the 

 dead, who fall into the abyss, appears first in 

 the ancient Persian religion, reaching to the 

 extremities of Asia and Europe. 



The subscription of .$250,000 required 

 by the law incorporating the New York Bo- 

 tanic Garden as a condition precedent to the 

 city's furnishing $5oO,0<0 more and a site, 

 has been completed, and the Garden may 

 now be regarded as a near certainty. Its 

 friends purpose to go on with their efforts 

 and secure an increase of the subscriptions 

 to $500,000. The site chosen, comprising 

 250 acres, is in Bronx Park, on both sides 

 of the Bronx River. 



The difference between European (conti- 

 nental) and our own methods of criminal 

 procedure was strikingly illustrated in a 

 trial for murder by poisoning which recently 

 took place in Antwerp. The presiding jus- 

 tice freely expressed the opinion that the 

 evidence was convincing, and questioned the 

 prisoner as if he had been a prosecuting 

 lawyer ; and the prisoner, who expected this, 

 had to prepare herself for such treatment. 

 She was herself the principal witness. The 

 jury was presumed to take the judge's ques- 

 tioning for what it was worth as it would 

 have taken them from a prosecuting coun- 

 sel, and not as carrying any authority, as 

 whatever the judge might say would do with 

 us. The prisoner had her advantages under 

 this method, for she could be her own wit- 

 ness and counsel, and explain the circum- 

 stances herself. No prejudice appears to 

 have existed in the minds of any except that 

 which was raised by the evidence. 



The Report of the Interstate Commerce 

 Commission shows that the percentage of in- 

 crease of railway mileage in 1894 was less 

 than for any preceding year for which re- 

 ports have been made to the commission. 

 No better showing is anticipated for 1895. 

 Sixteen roads were abandoned. The gain in 

 the use of train brakes and automatic coup- 

 lers was largely in excess of the increase of 

 equipment during the year, but can not be 

 considered as showing a marked tendency 



toward compliance with the law ; for V4 - 80 

 per cent of the total equipment is still with- 

 out train brakes and / 72 - '77 per cent without 

 automatic couplers. All must, by law, be 

 supplied before January, 1898. The num- 

 ber of men employed was smaller than in 

 any year since 1890, the largest decrease be- 

 ing in trackmen. 



The man or woman, says Dr. B. Ward 

 Richardson, who trains himself in the best 

 bodily health makes the best of life. Bodily 

 welfare is important, not for itself only, but 

 because the health of the mind so largely de- 

 pends on the health of the body. A good 

 engine outlives many of its masters because 

 they attend to it more carefully than they at- 

 tend to their own bodies. The usual rela- 

 tions of the age of maturity to length of life, 

 indicating a ratio of one to five, suggest that 

 a man taking twenty-one years to mature 

 should live one hundred and five years. The 

 fact that such life is exceptionally attained 

 shows its possibility ; and it is owing to er- 

 rors that it is not more widely attained in 

 the human species. 



OBITUARY NOTES. 



Thomas Henry Huxley died at East- 

 bourne, England, on June 29th. A severe at- 

 tack of influenza early in the spring had been 

 followed by bronchitis and other disorders. 

 He several times rallied, but was finally 

 obliged to succumb. A sketch of his career, 

 by Ernst Haeckel, and a portrait, were pub- 

 lished in an early volume of this magazine. 

 Prof. Huxley had recently completed the re- 

 vision of his essays for an edition that has 

 appeared in nine volumes. His last maga- 

 zine article was on Mr. Balfour's Attack on 

 Agnosticism. It appeared in the Nineteenth 

 Century for March, and was to be followed 

 by a second paper which his illness prevented 

 him from completing. 



Prof. William C. Williamson, well 

 known as a biologist and paleontologist, died 

 at Clapham, England, on June 23d, in his 

 seventy-ninth year. When Owens College 

 was founded in 1851 he was made its 

 Professor of Biology and Geology, his re- 

 searches having already won him an election 

 as a F. R. S. Later this professorship was 

 divided, and for many years he had held the 

 chair of botany. He was the first to an- 

 nounce the existence in some of the deeper 

 seas of what is now known as the foraminifer- 

 ous ooze. He also made important researches 

 upon the teeth and scales of fishes, and upon 

 the fossil plants of the coal measures. He 

 received the Royal Medal of the Royal So- 

 ciety, and the Wollaston gold medal of the 

 Geological Society. The University of Edin- 

 burgh conferred upon him the degree of 

 LL. D. He was elected by the Royal Society 

 of Sweden to the foreign membership left 

 vacant by the death of Asa Gray. 



