126 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



is fortified against his inclement sky by an 

 abundant development of the adipose tis- 

 sue ; and, though his sea-otter or guanaco 

 cloak is somewhat scanty, in admiring his 

 handiwork, we must not forget that inside 

 his skin he wears a thick underclothing of 

 non-conducting fat. Hence these island- 

 ers sometimes exhibit feats, the recital of 

 which is enough to make us shiver. In the 

 coldest midwinter they may be seen diving 

 for sea-eggs ; and it was on a dark night, 

 when the thermometer was at 25, that 

 some of them swam from the shore, and 

 from its mooring alongside cut away the 

 ship's boat of the Adelaide." 



Dronght and the Potato - Disease. A 



writer in the Gardeners' Chronicle observes 

 that every outbreak of the potato-disease, 

 since 1845, has been preceded by a long 

 term of dry, warm weather, followed by 

 heavy rain late in July, or during August. 

 Hence he concludes that this disease mut 

 be caused by the carbonic, sulphuric, nitric, 

 and other acid matters, which are constant- 

 ly accumulating in the atmosphere during 

 dry weather, until they unite with showers 

 of rain, by means of which they are de- 

 posited upon plants and soil. As the leaves 

 of plants are their lungs, and the potato is 

 a tender plant, the poisonous atmospheric 

 acids of summer droughts, thrown down by 

 heavy rains, quickly act upon the holms. 

 The surest remedy appears to be, to dig the 

 potatoes, and store them before the sum- 

 mer rain commences, provided they are 

 nearly ripe that is, when the stalks begin 

 to wither, or when the skin of the tuber 

 cannot be rubbed off with the thumb. 



NOTES. 



During the Khivan expedition, the Rus- 

 sian army was fed chiefly on biscuits com- 

 posed one-third of rye-flour, one-third of 

 beef reduced to powder, and one-third of 

 powdered sauerkraut. The men are said to 

 have had a great relish for this food, and 

 their good health during the expedition is 

 attributed, in great part, to the use of it. 



In his address before the Congress of 

 Orientalists, Max Muller claimed that, dur- 

 ing the last 100 years, Oriental studies had 

 contributed more than any other branch of 

 scientific research to purify the intellectual 

 atmosphere of Europe. 



An exhibition of very considerable in- 

 terest is to be held in Paris in September 

 and October. It will consist of all the use- 

 ful insects and their productions, and of the 

 noxious insects, and specimens of the injury 

 they do. Each species is to be shown, when 

 possible, in its several stages of egg, larva, 

 chrysalis, and perfect insect. The exhibi- 

 tion will be under the auspices of the Cen- 

 tral Society of Agriculture and Entomology. 



Prof. Jeffreys Wyman, of Harvard Uni- 

 versity, died at Bethlehem, N. H., Septem- 

 ber 4th, aged sixty years. The deceased was, 

 for twenty-seven years, Hersey Professor of 

 Anatomy at Harvard, and of Comparative 

 Anatomy in the Lawrence Scientific School. 

 His published works consist of numerous 

 articles on anatomy and physiology contrib- 

 uted to scientific periodicals and learned so- 

 cieties. 



The Austrian Polar Expedition, which, 

 for some time, has caused such anxious ap- 

 prehensions, has at last been heard from. 

 The expedition was shipwrecked, and spent 

 two winters upon the ice. The highest lati- 

 tude reached was 83. Hall's highest lati- 

 tude was 82 16'. A large tract of land 

 was discovered northward of Nova Zembla. 

 Only one death occurred during the whole 

 time from the sailing of the expedition, in 

 1872, to their arrival at the Norwegian 

 island of Wardoe in September of the pres- 

 ent year. 



Tissandier finds the quantity of solid 

 matter contained in a cubic metre of Paris 

 air to vary between 6 and 23 milligrames. 

 Where this matter consists of debris of 

 wood, coal, or the like, the corpuscles reach 

 sometimes a length of T l - millimetre; where 

 of mineral matters, silica, etc., the diameter 

 varies from -j-Jy to toW of a millimetre. 

 Analysis of the dust shows : organic mat- 

 ters, from 25 to 34 per cent. ; mineral mat- 

 ters, from 75 to 66 per cent. Iron was 

 found in notable quantity. 



M. Grehaut, of the Paris Biological So- 

 ciety, has, for some time, employed a method 

 of producing anaesthesia by means of chlo- 

 roform, which gives very satisfactory results, 

 and produces complete anaesthesia, for any 

 required length of time, without danger to 

 life. To this end, he administers to the 

 person or animal to be anaesthetized a 

 quantity of vaporous chloroform accurately 

 determined. He fastens to the muzzle of a 

 dog, weighing say 20 pounds, a rubber bag 

 holding 100 quarts of air mixed with 20 

 grammes (about 300 grains) of chloroform 

 in the state of vapor. The animal breathes 

 this confined atmosphere, and anaesthesia is 

 produced in the course of from five to ten 

 minutes. It may be protracted for over 

 two hours. With this amount of chloro- 

 form the anaesthesia is complete, and, in pro- 



