7 i8 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and Ireland, firmly established and very 

 lucrative, and, a safe investment, which 

 would, according to the report of an expert 

 sent out with the prospectus, return, taking 

 the previous year's business as a criterion, a 

 profit of fifteen per cent. The worst of the 

 matter is that the report confesses that the 

 statements, false as they were, were not of 

 such specific character that they could be 

 made the subject of criminal indictment. 



NOTES. 



A practical piece of work is reported 

 in the bulletin of the University of Wyo- 

 ming. This is a series of determinations 

 of the heating power of fifty-four samples 

 of Wyoming coal, six of petroleum, and two 

 of asphalt, by Prof. Edwin E. Slosson and 

 Prof. L. C. Colburn. Proximate analyses of 

 the coals and a description of the bomb 

 calorimeter used for the heat tests are also 

 given. 



It appeared in observations made in Rus- 

 sia during two years that at the depth of 

 about a foot and a half the soil in the open 

 steppe holds only about two thirds as much 

 moisture as the soil of the woods and their 

 immediate borders. The snow covering on 

 the steppe on the 20th of February corre- 

 sponded with only one third as much water 

 as that in the forest. Frost reached four 

 times the depth in the open land that it did 

 in the woods. In summer, the upper layers 

 of the ground were most dried in the open 

 land, the deeper layers in the forest. It 

 was therefore inferred that the action of 

 trees is one of drainage. Woods planted in 

 the steppes protect the ground against the 

 direct effects of the sun and the wind, but 

 utilize most of the water that falls. The ex- 

 istence and growth of groves depend on 

 water coming from without. The subsoil 

 moisture is too deep down to be available for 

 the young plantations. 



Two customs, supposed to be of Thibetan 

 origin, were noticed by the American trav- 

 eler W. W. Rockhill, as observed by Mon- 

 gols in connection with the fireplace. When 

 the party had finished drinking a big kettle 

 of tea, the men put the leaves on the hearth- 

 stones on which the kettle rested. This 

 practice was held to be equivalent to burn- 

 ing incense or making an oblation to the 

 gods, and is usually observed by the Chi- 

 nese frontiersmen, even though they profess 

 Islamism. In case a hearthstone cracks, they 

 are always careful to smear it with a little 

 butter " for good luck," they say. 



Of the results of recent antarctic explo- 

 ration, Prof. Angelo Heilprin, in an address 

 on the Progress of Discovery, mentions the 



penetration by two Norwegian vessels on the 

 opposite sides of Graham Land to the sixty- 

 eighth and sixty-ninth parallels of latitude, 

 thus far the " farthest south " positions. 

 They discovered new lands - and islands, 

 which they called King Oscar II Land, 

 Weather, Robertson, Christensen, and Lin- 

 denberg Islands ; and found that the sup- 

 posed continental mass of Graham Land is 

 possibly an archipelago. Two of the islands 

 have active volcanoes. In the arctic re- 

 gions Captain Johannessen has discovered 

 a new land which he calls Hansenland, fif- 

 teen miles northwest of the New Siberian 

 Islands. The new land is described as rug- 

 gedly barren, nearly destitute of vegetation, 

 having high mountains, and supporting gi- 

 gantic glaciers. 



Prof. J. Kollmaxn communicated to 

 the British Association in 1894 the discov- 

 ery at Schaffhausen, Switzerland, in neolithic 

 interments, side by side with the remains 

 of full - grown European types, those of 

 small-sized people, presumably pygmies of 

 that age. The situation of the remains in- 

 dicated that the two races lived peacefully 

 together. In connection with this find it is 

 observed that Sergi and Mantie have discov- 

 ered some living pygmies in Sicily and Sar- 

 dinia, looking like miniature Europeans. 

 The Schaffhausen bones are declared by 

 Virchow not to be of a pathologically degen- 

 erated people, but of those of normal struc- 

 ture. In the author's opinion these small 

 types must not be regarded as diminutive 

 examples of normal races, but as a distinct 

 species of mankind, which may have been 

 the precursor of the larger types of man. 



Ax interesting and instructive enterprise, 

 an International Exhibition of Hygiene, or- 

 ganized under the direction of M. Brouardel, 

 was recently opened in Paris. The exhibits 

 were grouped as follows : (1) Hygiene of 

 Private Houses. (2) City Hygiene. (3) The 

 Prophylactics of Zymotic Diseases, Demog- 

 raphy, Sanitary Statistics, etc. (4) Hygiene 

 of Childhood, including Alimentary Hygiene, 

 Questions of Clothing, and Physical Exer- 

 cises. (5) Industrial and Professional Hy- 

 giene. 



The International Geographical Congress, 

 which met in London from July 26th to Au- 

 gust 3d, had a very successful and interest- 

 ing week. The exhibits included a series of 

 maps showing the development of English 

 cartography ; portraits of explorers and 

 geographers from the thirteenth or four- 

 teenth century down to the present day ; a 

 series of globes constructed by von Raven- 

 stein to show how knowledge of the earth's 

 surface has grown from century to century ; 

 many rare and curious old maps ; a very 

 large collection of photographs representing 

 types of scenery in all parts of the world ; and 

 an extensive collection of geographical in- 

 struments, both ancient and modern. The 



