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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



But in the next age, the age of polished 

 atone, we find no indications of horse-flesh 

 having been consumed as food. The ques- 

 tion is, whether the horse disappeared from 

 Europe just as it did from this continent, 

 and was imported again from abroad. 



A new mineral, Rivotite (so called in 

 honor of the memory of M. Rivot, late of 

 the Paris School of Mines) has been discov- 

 ered by X. Ducloux. It occurs in small, 

 irregular masses, dispersed in a yellowish- 

 white chalk, upon the western slope of the 

 Sierra del Cadi, in the Spanish province of 

 Lerida. 



Sugar, now almost one of the necessa- 

 ries of life, was nearly unknown to Europe 

 before the Crusades. At present, England 

 consumes as much sugar as all the rest of 

 Europe together more than one pound per 

 week for every man, woman, and child in 

 the United Kingdom. In 1870, the refined 

 cane-sugar, molasses, and syrup, manufac- 

 tured in the United States was : Sugar, 

 754,000,000 pounds ; molasses, 839,000 gal- 

 lons; and syrup, 18,000,000 gallons. 



A characteristic effect of snake-poison 

 is rapid decomposition of muscular tissue. 

 From Dr. Weir Mitchell's experiments it 

 appears that, after a few hours, the wounded 

 muscle becomes almost diffluent, and as- 

 sumes a dark color and somewhat jelly-like 

 appearance ; under the microscope it has 

 the appearance of a mass of minute granules. 



The "Copley Medal" of the London 

 Royal Society for the year 1874 has been 

 awarded to M. Louis Pasteur for his re- 

 searches on fermentation and on Pebrine 

 (a disease of the silk-worm) ; the " Rumford 

 Medal " to J. Norman Lockyer, for his 

 spectroscopic researches on the sun and 

 on the chemical elements ; a " Royal Med- 

 al " to Prof. William C. Williamson, for his 

 contributions to zoology and paleontology ; 

 and a " Royal Medal " to Henry Clifton Sor- 

 by, for his researches on slaty cleavage, 

 and on the minute structure of minerals. 



The British Government has decided to 

 send out next spring an expedition to ex- 

 plore the region of the north-pole. The 

 chief command of this expedition is to be 

 intrusted to Captain Nares, at present in 

 command of the Challenger and already a 

 distinguished arctic navigator. It is in- 

 tended to make the expedition a purely 

 naval one, no person being permitted to 

 join it in any capacity save officers and 

 men of the Royal Navy. 



Two German physiologists, Weiske and 

 Wildt, in a series of investigations on goats, 

 have shown that, although the withdrawal of 

 lime or of phosphoric acid from the food of 

 adult animals leads to fatal consequences, 



yet it has little or no influence on the com- 

 position of the bones, and in particular does 

 not make them friable. To determine the 

 same point with regard to young animals, they 

 selected Southdown lambs about ten weeks 

 old. One of these was fed upon food poor 

 in phosphoric acid, a second on food poor 

 in lime, and a third on normal diet. After 

 the lapse of 55 days various bones were 

 analyzed, and the general result was that, 

 just as in adults, so in young animals : no 

 remarkable change was produced in the 

 composition of the several bones by the dif- 

 ference of diet ; or, in other words, that the 

 composition of the bones is independent of 

 the nature of the food. The bones were, 

 however, stunted in their growth. 



From the researches of Schone on the 

 conduct of ozone and water toward each 

 other, it appears that ozone does not oxi- 

 dize water; that ozone is absorbed by water 

 in considerable quantity, even at the ordi- 

 nary temperature ; that when ozonized oxy- 

 gen is conducted through water, the amount 

 of ozone contained in the mixture is di- 

 minished ; and that ozone in contact with 

 water is slowly changed to ordinary oxygen. 



A patent has been granted for an India- 

 rubber shoe, or rather overshoe, for horses, 

 as it is called by the Scientific American. 

 The shoe is made and lined precisely in the 

 same way as the " arctic overshoe," and in 

 fact presents no difference, save in its shape 

 and in its manufacture, from the bast qual- 

 ity of India-rubber. Horses suffering from 

 cracked or contracted hoof are soon cured 

 by the use of these elastic shoes. The cost 

 of rubber shoes, as compared with those of 

 iron, is about one-third more, and their 

 weight is about 40 per cent. less. 



A correspondent of the Department of 

 Agriculture, writing from Stanley County, 

 North Carolina, notes a curious fact ob- 

 served in growing turnips on land previous- 

 ly sown with the opium-poppy : the turnips 

 came up, but never got beyond the seed- 

 leaf. Repeated sowings on the same lot 

 had the same result. On the other hand, 

 turnips sowed in spots not far removed 

 from the poppies, did very well, and were 

 less annoyed by insect enemies than ever 

 before. " Can it be," asks the correspond- 

 ent, " that the opium-poppy leaves in the 

 ground elements incompatible with the life 

 of the turnip ? " 



At the instance of the German Anthro- 

 pological Society, statistical information is 

 to be collected from schools and military 

 depots throughout the German Empire, with 

 a view to the solution of the vexed question, 

 whether there are two distinct types of 

 Germans, one tall and fair, the other short 

 and dark. 



