NOTES. 



719 



reason that the goat-skins of Turkey, in 

 the tanning of which there is nothing mod- 

 ern or " improved," are still recognized as 

 furnishing the best leather for bindings. 

 The sulphide of sodium that is sometimes 

 used in tanning may supply a part of the 

 sulphur that is complained of in modern 

 libraries. A second cause is the practice 

 of using split skins, which gives a binding 

 only half as strong and lasting as the old 

 whole skins ; and a third cause may be 

 found in the gases escaping from the hot- 

 air furnaces with which libraries are warmed, 

 which are hardly less destructive than the 

 products of illumination, and are more con- 

 stantly in action. 



Mixed Education. Professor Alexan- 

 der Hogg, in a note reprinted from the 

 "Proceedings of the National Educational 

 Association," refers to the perplexities aris- 

 ing from mixing military with industrial 

 education in the Agricultural and Mechani- 

 cal College of Texas. A cadet failed to 

 receive promotion at the hands of the 

 faculty, and the board of directors con- 

 firmed their decision, and then turned out 

 the whole faculty. Professor Hogg says 

 that serious troubles have befallen these 

 institutions in several States, and remarks : 

 " With regard to the cause, I venture to 

 suggest that it will be found that it has all 

 grown out of the complications of attempt- 

 in"' to run in the same institution these 

 three leading features, viz., agricultural, 

 mechanical, and military education. The 

 military, so far as I have been able to learn 

 (and this is corroborated by my personal ex- 

 perience), is the source of all the troubles. 

 And this, I think, grows out of the further 

 fact that the military, to be of any use 

 whatever, must be thoroughly equipped in 

 all its departments and requirements, while 

 the act of Congress, granting lands for the 

 support of these colleges, intended it should 

 be secondary, and cultivated entirely as a 

 means of discipline and good order not at 

 all intended to make proficients in arms, 

 but simply as a gymnastic exercise." 



Rate of Growth of Coral. Light is 

 thrown on the question of the rapidity 

 with which corals grow, by the case of 

 specimens of living coral which were re- 

 cently found on the hull of the French 



man-of-war Dayot, after a cruise of a few 

 months in the South Pacific Ocean. When 

 the vessel reached Tahiti, several corals 

 were discovered growing on the copper 

 sheathing, the longest of which was a.fun- 

 ffia of discoidal shape nine inches in di- 

 ameter, and weighing when half dry two 

 pounds and four ounces. The Dayot had 

 entered tropical waters several months be- 

 fore, but had not made a long stay in any 

 harbor until she reached the Gambier Isl- 

 ands, where she remained for two months 

 in the still waters of a coral basin. Thence 

 she sailed direct for Tahiti. A young /un(/ia 

 probably became attached to the sheathing 

 of the ship in passing the reef, where the 

 vessel rubbed, and grew to the size and 

 weight it had attained when observed, in 

 nine weeks. 



NOTES. 



Fleuss's diving apparatus, which we de- 

 scribed several months ago, has been used 

 with success at the Severn Tunnel by a pro- 

 fessional diver, who with it reached the bot- 

 tom of the shaft under thirty-five feet of 

 water, and walked more than a thousand 

 feet up a heading to close some sluices and 

 shut an iron door. He was cut off from all 

 communication for an hour and a half. The 

 ordinary diving gear had been tried for this 

 work without success, for the great length 

 of tubing required in connection with it ren- 

 dered its use impracticable. 



The suffocation of infants by overlying 

 in the night has recently been investigated 

 by a London coroner, who found that the 

 abuse of alcohol was the principal cause 

 of this form of mortality. Most of the 

 cases occur on Saturday nights following 

 the weekly debauch of the poorer classes 

 among which they happen. The mother 

 goes to bed in a state of semi-intoxication, 

 nurses the baby with alcohol-poisoned milk, 

 and both sink into a sort of drunken stupor, 

 of which the infant becomes the victim. 



The death is announced of Francis Tre- 

 velyan Buckland, best known as Frank 

 Buckland, a popular writer on subjects of 

 natural history, and a constant contributor 

 to -'Land and Water." He was a son of 

 Dean Buckland, author of the work on ge- 

 ology in the " Bridgewater Treatises," whch 

 he edited in 1858, was himself a writer 

 "who could seize with alacrity the popular 

 side of a scientific question, but seldom went 

 deeper," and was an authority on subjects 

 relating to fish and fish-culture. 



