864 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



M. Pastei'R has reported concerning ex- 

 periments on the endurance of vitality in 

 the germs of disease. Seven sheep were led 

 daily, for a few hours, to a piece of ground 

 where some animals that had died of anthra- 

 coid disease, or charbon, had been buried 

 twelve years previously. Two of the sheep 

 caught the disease and died. As there was 

 no grass on the spot for the animals to eat, 

 M. Pasteur believes that they must have re- 

 ceived the germs of the malady from smell- 

 ing about the ground, as sheep are in the 

 habit of doing. 



Mr. William White, author of several 

 works on subjects of chemistry and mining, 

 died in London, January 29th, at the age of 

 seventy-one. He had held at different peri- 

 ods lectureships on metallurgy and chemis- 

 try at various educational establishments, 

 and had been a constant contributor to scien- 

 tific literature for more than half a century. 



The council of the Society of Arts has 

 offered for its third Congress on Domestic 

 Economy, which is to be held during the 

 present year, prizes for papers not exceed- 

 ing one thousand words each, written by 

 teachers, and giving accounts of the best 

 methods practiced by them, of their experi- 

 ence, and of the results of their teaching on 

 the subjects of clothing and washing ; the 

 dwelling warming, cleaning, and ventila- 

 tion ; rules for health, including the man- 

 agement of the sick-room, cottage income, 

 expenditure, and savings ; food, its compo- 

 sition and nutritive value, its functions, its 

 preparation and culinary treatment. The 

 papers are to be sent in to the secretary of 

 the Society, London, by the first of May 

 next. 



A COURSE of twenty-five lectures, for 

 practical instruction in invertebrate pale- 

 ontology, was opened in Philadelphia, March 

 8th, by Professor Angelo Heilprin, under 

 the auspices of the Academy of Natural 

 Sciences of that city. The plan of instruc- 

 tion embraces the examination of the life- 

 histories of the various geological forma- 

 tions, the discussion of the biological rela- 

 tions of past organic forms, and the practical 

 determination of those forms for the pur- 

 poses of paleontological inquiry. A course 

 of ten lectures for practical instruction in 

 determinative mineralogy was begun by Pro- 

 fessor H. Carvill Lewis, March 15th. 



Whales were formerly counted as im- 

 portant aids to the fisheries of the North 

 Sea coasts, by driving immense numbers of 

 small fishes toward the land. Now, accord- 

 ing to M. Bogdanoff, of the recent Russian 

 North Sea expedition, since the whales have 

 been pursued with steamers and bullets in- 

 stead of sailing-vessels and the old harpoon, 

 their destruction has greatly increased, and 

 the number of small fish coming to the coast 



has correspondingly diminished. The cod- 

 fishing has been nearly extinguished in parts 

 of the Varanger Fiord region in consequence 

 of the presence of sharks, which, attracted 

 by the fat thrown into the sea at Varanger, 

 destroy the fish. Both of these instances 

 illustrate the interdependence which exists 

 among the different kinds of animals in- 

 habiting the same region. 



Professor Dd Bois-Reymond, in con- 

 junction with Professor G. Fritsch. is about 

 to publish, under the auspices of the Royal 

 Academy of Sciences at Berlin, the observa- 

 tions and experiments made by the late Dr. 

 Karl Sachs on the electrical eel {Gymnoius 

 clcdriciis), in South America, during 1876 

 and 1877. 



M. Grehaut has been endeavoring to 

 determine by experiment what proportion 

 of carbonic oxide in the atmosphere is nec- 

 essary as a minimum to produce the death 

 of animals. With a dog the proportion 

 varied from ^{-ij, to ^Jii; ; a hare was not as- 

 phyxiated till it had been exposed to an at- 

 mosphere containing /,? of carbonic oxide ; 

 a sparrow was killed by confinement in an 

 atmosphere charged with only ji,jj of the 

 gas. A very wide range of difference is 

 thus shown to exist in the susceptibility of 

 different species to this poison. 



Professor Adolphe Broxgxiart was en- 

 gaged at the time of his death in the study 

 of the silicified seeds of the carboniferous 

 beds of St. Etienne and Autun, France. His 

 investigations have been published by some 

 of his family. Among the results was the 

 discovery in fossil seeds of a pollen-bearing 

 chamber hitherto unknown in any living 

 plant, in which the pollen was held in re- 

 serve till the time of fecundation. M. Bron- 

 gniart, remarking that the palaeozoic plants 

 exhibiting this disposition were related to 

 the cycades, believed that the modern eycas 

 might also possess it, and found his belief 

 confirmed by an examination of plants of 

 that genus. This is said to be the first 

 time that paleontological studies have led to 

 an anatomical discovery in living beings. 



Dr. John Jeremiah Bigsbt, F. R. S., a 

 well-known writer on palaeozoic fossils, died 

 in London, February 10th, at the advanced 

 age of eighty-eight years. The greater part 

 of his life was spent in Canada and the 

 United States. He contributed a paper on 

 a subject of American geology to " Silli- 

 man's Journal," as far back as 1820. His 

 best-known works are two " Thesauri," re- 

 lating to the flora and fauna of the Silurian 

 and the Devonian and Carboniferous forma- 

 tions,which were published in 1868 and 1878. 

 He was the founder of the Bigsby medal, 

 which is awarded at the annual meetings 

 of the Geological Society of London. 



