7H 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



lous matter be avoided and destroyed, and pro- 

 vided care is taken to save the actual meat 

 substance from contamination by such mat- 

 ter, a great deal of meat from animals af- 

 fected by tuberculosis may be eaten without 

 risk to the consumer. Ordinary processes of 

 cooking applied to meat which has got con- 

 taminated on its surface are probably suffi- 

 cient to destroy the harmful quality. They 

 would not avail to render wholesome any 

 piece of meat that contained tuberculous 

 matter in its deeper parts. The boiling of 

 milk, even for a moment, would probably be 

 sufficient to make it safe. 



Similarities in Cnltnre. Prof. 0. T. 



Mason closes a somewhat critical discussion 

 of similarities in culture on which, he sug- 

 gests, more is sometimes built than can 

 stand with the conclusion that such simi- 

 larities may arise through a common hu- 

 manity, a common stress, common environ- 

 ment, and common attributes of Nature ; 

 through acculturation, or contact, commerce, 

 borrowing, appropriating, between peoples in 

 all degrees of kinship ; and through com- 

 mon kinship, race, or nationality. Generic 

 similitudes arise by the first cause; special 

 and adventitious similarities by the second 

 cause ; and the more profound, co-ordinated, 

 real, and numerous similarities by the third 

 cause. Similarities are partly natural, such 

 as sounds of animals, forms of pebbles, 

 qualities of stone, clay, and the like, but 

 most of tbem are fundamentally ideal. Where 

 the same idea exists in two areas, a simple 

 one may have come to men independently. 

 One containing two or more elements in the 

 same relation and order is less likely to have 

 so arisen, while a highly organized idea 

 could not often have come to two men far 

 removed from one another. Furthermore, a 

 complex idea is never the progeny of a sin- 

 gle mind, and that embarrasses the question 

 further. The generic and adventitious simi- 

 larities are most striking and most frequently 

 called to notice. The error is in taking 

 them for profound and real similarities. 

 Those similarities that are imbedded in the 

 life of peoples and logically co-ordinated with 

 the annual circle of activities are of the fam- 

 ily and stock, and beyond any reasonable 

 doubt proclaim the people to be one. " Fur- 

 thermore, they exist for the trained and 



patient eye and hand ; they elude the gaze 

 of the superficial observer. The identifica- 

 tion of them is the reward of long years of 

 patient research, and the finder is the dis- 

 coverer of a pearl of great price." 



Electric Cooking Vessels. The first at- 

 tempt in practice to devise vessels for cook- 

 ing by electricity was made about four years 

 ago by a Mr. Carpenter, an American, who 

 developed Lane Fox's idea of surrounding 

 the vessel by a coil of insulated wire through 

 which a current should be passed. He at- 

 tached the resistant wires to the surface of 

 cast-iron plates by an enameling process. 

 Some defects appeared in his method, among 

 which was the liability of the enamel to 

 crack, whereby the wire was exposed to the 

 oxidizing action of the air. These difficul- 

 ties have been overcome by the English 

 manufacturers Crorapton & Co., who have 

 found a safer enamel and substituted a 

 nickel-steel wire as being better adapted to 

 endure the action to which it is exposed than 

 the wire that was used before. By specially 

 adapted methods they are able to apply the 

 wire in somewhat complicated patterns to 

 the surface of any metal plate, and to insu- 

 late it therefrom in a very thorough and 

 permanent manner. They exhibit, con- 

 structed on this plan, a simple electric 

 heater a circular plate mounted on short 

 legs, to the under side of which wire is ap- 

 plied and fixed by the enamel, while the 

 upper side is ground flat and polished a 

 frying pan, saucepan, kettle, griller, hot iron, 

 and radiator. The radiators have been 

 found convenient, safe, and economical for 

 heating theaters and efficient in preventing 

 the deposition of frost on shop windows. 



Formation of Stalactites. Describing 

 the deposition of carbonate of lime in 

 stalactites and stalagmites, Mr. George P. 

 Merrill, of the United States National Mu- 

 seum, says that water filtering through a 

 rock roof, by virtue of the carbonic acid it 

 contains, is enabled to dissolve a small amount 

 of the lime carbonate, which is again de- 

 posited when the excess of carbonic acid 

 escapes either through relief from pressure 

 or through the evaporation of the water. 

 Conditions favorable to either process are 

 furnished by the water filtering through the 



