288 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



are remarkably free from all kinds of ail- 

 ments. This has been the case during eleven 

 years. The subsequent residence at a lower 

 level renders them liable to a kind of influ- 

 enzal catarrh. 



The great exposition to be held in Paris 

 in 1900 is to be much like the two which 

 have preceded it; but a new and special 

 feature will be added. It is intended to 

 make it a sort of a mirror of the century of 

 which it will mark the close. 



The industrial exhibitions now so com- 

 mon are wittily characterized by the Count 

 Alphonse de Calonna, in the Revue des Deux 

 Mondes, as festivals of which industry is 

 only a pretext and amusement has become 

 the real object. " The great capitals and 

 even the secondary cities take turns in danc- 

 ing a grand six months' saraband around a 

 shrine in which the product of the mental 

 and material efforts of a decade has been 

 piled up." 



The Austro-German Alpine Club includes 

 two hundred and fourteen local sections and 

 more than thirty-one thousand registered 

 members. Its purpose is to improve the 

 roads of the Alps and increase knowledge of 

 the mountains. An exhibition of remark- 

 able maps was given at the general meeting 

 in August, 1894, among them a relief map 

 of the Jungfrau group, on a scale of 1 to 

 100,000. 



Concerning the possibilities of the molec- 

 ular constitution of argon and its chemical 

 position, Prof. Mendeleef finds that if it be 

 monatomic, with an atomic weight of 40, as 

 found by Lord Rayleigh and Prof. Ramsay, 

 it has no place in the periodic system. If it 

 be diatomic, with a molecular formula A 2 , 

 its atomic weight would be about 20, and its 

 place would be in the eighth group of the 

 second series, or after fluorine. If the mole- 

 cule contains three atoms, the atomic weight 

 of argon would be about 14, and it might be 

 regarded as condensed nitrogen ; and much 

 may be said in favor of the hypothesis. If 

 its molecule contains four or five atoms, its 

 atomic weight would be 10 or 8, and there 

 would be no room for it in the periodic sys- 

 tem. If its molecule be found to contain six 

 atoms, and its atomic weight to be 6*5, it 

 would be placed in the first series, and prob- 

 ably in the fifth group. This, or the supposi- 

 tion that argon is condensed nitrogen, seems 

 to Prof. Mendeleef most probable. 



While the employment of anaesthetics 

 has made only slow progress in veterinary 

 practice, a considerable number of the English 

 veterinary surgeons resort to them on all pos- 

 sible occasions, and find tliem of great advan 

 tage. Some operations on horses could not 

 be attempted with any successful result with- 

 out their aid. Of all animals, the horse is the 

 one to which chloroform can be most safely 

 administered ; it is even very hard to injure 



him with it. Some surgeons, however, use it 

 diluted with air. Attention is now increas- 

 ingly directed to this matter. An improved 

 apparatus to be used in connection with the 

 administration of it has been devised by Mr. 

 Wallis Hoare, of Cork, by the aid of which 

 the treatment is made more convenient and 

 even safer than before. 



M. Berthelot has found that argon, under 

 the influence of the silent electric discharge, 

 combines with several organic compounds, 

 and notably with benzene. 



A curious report has been made to the 

 Medico-chirurgical Society of Bristol, Eng- 

 land, of operations performed in the Zoologic- 

 al Garden. Among them were the removal 

 of an ingrowing nail on a lion, a Cesarean 

 operation on a gazelle, and gastrotomy on an 

 ostrich which had feasted too heartily on in- 

 digestible food, having swallowed a handker- 

 chief, pebbles, a pencil, a portfolio, and a 

 prayer book. The unfortunate fowl died. 



A society has been formed in Berlin for 

 the purpose of preventing the extermination 

 of the elephant in the German African pos- 

 sessions and of promoting the increase and 

 usefulness of the animals. 



OBITUARY NOTES. 



General John Newton, a distinguished 

 officer, Chief of Engineers of the United 

 States Army, and an eminent engineer, best 

 known, perhaps, from his services in clear- 

 ing the channel of Hell Gate from its dan- 

 gerous rocks, died at his home in this city, 

 May 1 st, after an illness of a few weeks, from 

 chronic rheumatism. A portrait of him and 

 a sketch of his life up to his appointment as 

 Commissioner of Public Works of the City of 

 New York were given in The Popular Science 

 Monthly for October, 1886. A detailed ac- 

 count, with maps and illustrations, of the im- 

 provement of the East River and Hell Gate, 

 furnished by him, was published in the 

 Monthly for February, 1886. His appoint- 

 ment as Superintendent of Public Works of 

 this city was an ideal one, of the fittest man 

 for that highly responsible position to be 

 found. In it he executed some of the most 

 important works the city has undertaken, 

 and his administration is described as having 

 been notably able and having resulted in 

 great public good. Since April, 1888, he 

 had been President of the Panama Railway 

 Company, the Panama Steamship Company, 

 and the Columbian Steamship Line. 



Dr. George A. Rex, of Philadelphia, 

 whose sudden death was recently announced, 

 was an earnest student of the lower orders of 

 fungi, an authority of the highest repute on 

 myxomycetes, an ardent microscopist, and a 

 discoverer of many new species in his special 

 province. 



