NOTES. 



431 



average death-rate per one thousand persons 

 has been reduced nearly eleven per cent, in 

 twelve years, under the operation of the 

 sanitary measures instituted by them, which 

 included the demolition of unwholesome 

 dwellings, and the provision of ample hos- 

 pital space for small-pox and fever cases, 

 and for the control and limitation of epi- 

 demic disease. They also cite from the re- 

 port of the Registrar-General figures show- 

 ing that a similar improvement in sanitary 

 condition has been wrought in other towns : 

 in Edinburgh of fourteen, in Dundee of 

 twelve, in Aberdeen (where the death-rate 

 was already very low) of three and one-half 

 per cent. The figures given of a number of 

 English towns show a less striking rate of 

 improvement. Dividing the twelve years 

 into two groups of six years each, it is found 

 that, in twelve leading towns, 61,000 fewer 

 deaths occurred in the second six years 

 (ISVS-'VS) than would have occurred under 

 the higher death-rates of 1867-'72. The 

 sanitary officer of Manchester has reported 

 to the bishop of the diocese that, under the 

 operation of the measures which have been 

 adopted in that city, " typhus and typhoid 

 fever, though not absolutely extinguished, 

 are of comparatively rare occurrence, and 

 nearly all other infectious diseases have 

 been largely reduced in amount, while the 

 general health has been improved." 



An Antarctic Expedition, The Italian 

 Geographical Society has projected an Ant- 

 arctic exploring expedition, to be under the 

 command of Lieutenant Beve, an Italian 

 officer who was with Nordenskjold during 

 his last expedition. Very little is definitely 

 known concerning the Antarctic regions, and 

 they offer numerous problems to be solved. 

 They have been touched upon, but can hard- 

 ly be said to have been explored, by several 

 navigators since Captain Cook crqssed the 

 Antarctic Circle in 1 7*74-75, including Lieu- 

 tenant Wilkes with the American Expedi- 

 tion, but the results of the observations 

 made upon them do not agree. Even the 

 Challenger Expedition, in 1873, added but 

 little to our knowledge of them. It is still 

 not fully settled whether the region be only 

 an immense mass of water or whether it con- 

 tains another continent. Lieutenant Wilkes 

 believed that he had established the exist- 



ence of a continent, but Sir James Ross a 

 year later sailed over two of the positions 

 assigned by him to the continent, while he 

 found the extensive Victoria Land with 

 mountains 14,000 feet high and an active 

 volcano. The great ice-sheet, which certain- 

 ly covers the land, needs to be studied and 

 compared with the ice-sheet of Greenland. 

 Lieutenant Beve and his companions hope 

 to winter in the Antarctic region, and to be 

 more successful in studying its character 

 than their predecessors have been. 



NOTES. 



A HoLTZ f rictional electric machine, said 

 to be the largest ever made in this country, 

 has recently been constructed by a well- 

 known firm manufacturing physical and 

 chemical apparatus in this city. The re- 

 volving glass disk is forty and the condens- 

 ing stationary disk forty-six inches in diam- 

 eter. It is provided with the continuous 

 charging apparatus of Van Brunt, which is 

 a very considerable improvement over the 

 ordinary means of charging by rubbing a 

 disk of vulcanite with a skin by hand. The 

 machine gives a discharge over twenty inch- 

 es long, and, on account of the facility of 

 charging, can be satisfactorily worked in al- 

 most any weather. 



At a late meeting of the California Acad- 

 emy of Sciences, Mr. W. N. Lockington 

 read a paper on fishes, in which he states 

 that of three hundred and eight species, 

 mostly marine, occurring on the Pacific coast, 

 all but thirty-seven are found in California. 

 Of the five hundred and forty fresh-water 

 species known in the United States, but 

 thirty-seven are found in that State. 



That ants can make themselves heard 

 as well as felt, is asserted by Mr. S. E. Peal, 

 who writes to "Nature" that he has ob- 

 served in several varieties of this insect the 

 power of producing distinctly audible sounds. 

 Two kinds of ants, one brown the other 

 black in color, could be heard a distance of 

 twenty or thirty feet, the noise being pro- 

 duced by scraping the horny apex of the 

 abdomen three times in rapid succession 

 against the dry leaves of the nest. 



Dr. Ephraim Cutter describes in the Oc- 

 tober number of the "American Monthly 

 Microscopical Journal" an interesting study 

 he has lately made of the central surface- 

 waters of several ponds and lakes in Massa- 

 chusetts. He found, contrary to the general 

 opinion, that the waters in the middle of 

 ponds or lakes contain large numbers of mi- 



