144 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Thk phenomenon of the perforation of 

 rocks by sand carried on tlie wind has been 

 observed in the Valley of the Rhone in 

 France. A %'ery violent wind often prevails 

 in the neighborhood of Uzes, and drives 

 large quantities of sand against a band of 

 quartzose pebbles contained in a tertiary 

 soil. The pebbles contain cavities which 

 might be believed to have been made by 

 human hands, but which are really produced 

 by the often renewed friction of the sandy 

 particles against their surface. 



Dr. Charles T. Jackson, distinguished as 

 a chemist and geologist, and one of the dis- 

 coverers of the anaesthetic properties and 

 uses of ether, died at Somerville, Massachu- 

 setts, on the 29th of August, 1880, aged sev- 

 enty-live years. 



According to the recent census of New 

 Zealand, the Maories or primitive inhabi- 

 tants are rapidly decreasing, their num- 

 bers, which in 1861 were 55,334, having 

 fallen in seventeen years to 43,595, or 

 about twenty per cent. The causes given 

 for this national decay are love of drink, 

 bad food and clothing, neglect of cleanli- 

 ness, and unwholesome dwellings. The na- 

 tives of Hawaii are disappearing still more 

 rapidly. In 186(5 they numbered 57,125, 

 and had fallen off in the next twelve years 

 to 44,088. 



The report of the experts employed to 

 ascertain the causes of the Tay Bridge dis- 

 aster is in refreshing contrast to the excu- 

 satory treatment of official recklessness and 

 incompetency in this country. The bridge, 

 according to this report, was badly designed, 

 badly constructed, and badly maintained, 

 and it tumbled down on account of defects 

 of structure that became apparent and were 

 patched up some time before the casualty 

 happened. The initial blunders are laid at 

 the door of Sir Thomas Bouch, the designer 

 and constructor of the bridge, and General 

 Hutchinson, the Board of Trade Inspector, 

 has to bear the blame of allowing the bridge 

 to be used when he knew it was in this dan- 

 gerous condition. 



M. BoL'TiGNY has called attention to the 

 remarkable powers of resistance against 

 chemical agents possessed by insects. Hav- 

 ing put a common fly into the lye of potash, 

 he found it in the best condition on the next 

 day. He also found that weevils, imprisoned 

 for a considerable time in a flask containing 

 caustic stone and coriander-seed, prospered, 

 multiplied, and lived as long as the seed 

 lasted. 



Samuel Sherman Haldeman, Professor 

 of Comparative Philology in the University 

 of Pennsylvania, died at his home in Chic- 

 kies, Pennsylvania, September 10, 1880, at 

 the age of sixty-eight. 



M. RiVETT Carnac, who has explored 

 many of the barrows and burial-mounds of 

 India, has found in them new evidences of 

 the resemblance of the mounds and their 

 contents to similar works in Europe. The 

 shape of the tumuli is the same in the East 

 and the West, and they are always placed 

 on the slope of a hill facing the south. 



Professor Forel, of Merges, Switzer- 

 land, has just published some interesting 

 observations he has made upon the flicker- 

 ing of gaslights. At a distance of six miles 

 these lights appear to the eye as star-like 

 shining points ; and from a large number of 

 observations Professor Forel has arrived at 

 the conclusion that their flickering is strong- 

 est when the air is still, and becomes weaker 

 as the force of the wind increases. This 

 appearance should not, of course, be con- 

 founded with the flickering which is pro- 

 duced by the wind. The study of the at- 

 mospheric conditions under which the flick- 

 ering takes place might be made the starting- 

 point for investigating the twinkling of the 

 stars. 



Fritz Muller has found a bivalve crus- 

 tacean allied to Cythera, a salt-water genus, 

 living between the leaves of the bromeli- 

 ads, or plants of the pineapple tribe, which 

 grow upon the trees in Brazil. It does not 

 resemble any living entomostracan, but has 

 its nearest known ally in a fossil species of 

 the Silurian strata of Bohemia. Miillcr has 

 named it Elpidium hromelUarimi. He found 

 it in the tree-frequenting bromeliads every- 

 where from the seaside to nearly one hun- 

 dred miles in the interior. As it can not 

 wander from tree to tree, or even from one 

 plant of bromelia to another, its distribution 

 must be efi"ected by beetles or some other 

 bromelia-infecting forms. 



By putting chloride of aluminum, the 

 vapor of water, and metallic magnesium in 

 a heated porcelain tube, Stanislas Meunier 

 has produced a multitude of microscopic 

 octahedral crystals, of extreme hardness and 

 wholly proof against the action of fuming 

 nitric acid, which he says have the same 

 composition as natural spinelle. He has 

 also produced, by the reaction of water and 

 chloride of aluminum, hexagonal laminas of 

 corundum crystallized as in nature. 



In a paper on Japanese Pidmonifera, 

 read at the Boston meeting of the American 

 Association, Professor Morse called atten- 

 tion to the occurrence of a number of spe- 

 cies of land-snails in Yezo, identical with 

 forms occurring in New England. He also 

 alluded to the occurrence of two species of 

 slugs in Japan which are common in New 

 England. While he had met with most of 

 fresh-water genera of Puhnonifera in Japan, 

 he had never yet found a- example of 

 Physa. 



