256 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



mittee formed at Shanghai for the purpose 

 of organizing it, the English consul being 

 its president. All charges of transport will 

 be defrayed by the committee. The Acad- 

 emy, our authority for the above statement, 

 does not say what part the Chinese Govern- 

 ment are to take in this important enter- 

 prise. 



In his address at the Breslau Congress 

 of German Naturalists and Physicians, Vir- 

 chow spoke of the miracles, said to have 

 been performed at the scenes of many of 

 the recent Catholic pilgrimages. He had 

 not, he said, visited Louise Lateau, the Bel- 

 gian stigmatisee. An examination, he ob- 

 served, would have led to no useful result, 

 except under certain conditions laid down 

 by himself, and rejected by the other side. 



Dr. Adolf Meter has collected in New 

 Guinea 63 different specimens of animals be- 

 longing to the orders reptilia and batrachia, 

 of which 34 are new to science. The pre- 

 dominant types are Australian. 



In Prince William County, Virginia, 

 according to the Monthly Report of the 

 Department of Agriculture, wasps were last 

 summer observed destroying the Colorado 

 beetle very rapidly. From the same au- 

 thority we learn that in Whiteside County, 

 Illinois, a new beetle, undescribed, attacked 

 the larvae of the Colorado beetle, " thrusting 

 it through the body with its beak and kill- 

 ing it instantly." 



The operations of the Irish Peat Fuel 

 Company, though prosecuted under the 

 most unfavorable circumstances during the 

 winter months, have given very satisfactory 

 results. By a mixture of the lighter and 

 heavier portions of the peat, a fuel has 

 been obtained having a density about 15 

 per cent, that of coal. This peat-fuel is 

 also full of gas, burns with a bright, hot 

 flame, and produces a hard cinder, which 

 remains red throughout until it is entirely 

 consumed. The density of the fuel, it is 

 thought, will render it suitable for smelting- 

 purposes ; and, if so, it would be possible 

 to produce a superior quality of iron from 

 the Irish ores, which are at present com- 

 paratively valueless, owing to the want of 

 a suitable fuel to smelt them. 



The construction of the Panama Rail- 

 road cost 81,000 human lives, destroyed by 

 malaria ; this death-rate is equal to one 

 man per yard of the track. 



During six hours of July 29th last, rain 

 fell in Chowan County, North Carolina, to 

 the depth of twelve inches. 



At the request of Mr. A. W. Sheldon, 

 general agent of the Prison Association of 

 New York, the Commissioners of Charities 

 and Correction have had a room set apart 



for a library in Blackwell's Island Peniten- 

 tiary. The library-room is suitably fitted 

 up for its destined use, and the Association 

 has already made a liberal donation of books. 

 We are requested to state that contributions 

 of books, magazines, etc., for the above 

 library will be received at the office of the 

 Association, No. 19 Centre Street. 



A Microscopical Society has recently 

 been founded in Memphis, Tennessee. Its 

 membership is already numerous, and its 

 regular semi-monthly meetings are charac- 

 terized by a large attendance of members, 

 as also by an evident determination to for- 

 ward the cause of microscopic research by 

 hard, honest work. At the second October 

 meeting of the society, A. F. Dodd read a 

 paper on infusorial life, illustrated by draw- 

 ings from life of a large number of speci- 

 mens 



La Nature vouches for the absolute cor- 

 rectness of the following figures, showing 

 the consumption of tobacco in France in 

 1873: Smoking -tobacco, 40,000,000 lbs.; 

 cigars, 7,716,9*76 lbs. (925,000,000 cigars) ; 

 snuff, 16,536,375 lbs.; chewing -tobacco, 

 1,433,152 lbs. ; " carotte," a sort of to- 

 bacco used (mostly in Brittany) for smok- 

 ing, chewing, and snuffing, 992,182 lbs. 

 Total, over 66,500,000 lbs. The total reve- 

 nue derived by the state from this manu- 

 facture was last year 294,000,000 francs. 

 Paris has 1,200 tobacconists' shops. 



After the death of Boerhaave, the most 

 celebrated physician of the eighteenth cen- 

 tury, there was found among his books a 

 volume sumptuously bound, in which were 

 written down, he used to say, all the secrets 

 of physic. All the pages were blank, ex- 

 cept the frontispiece, on which he had writ- 

 ten in his best hand this sentence : " Keep 

 the head cool, the feet warm, and the bowels 

 open." 



The annual report of the treasurer of 

 the French Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science shows that this, the young- 

 est of the national scientific institutions, 

 stands upon a sound financial basis. At the 

 close of 1873 it had a funded capital of 

 about 166,000 francs, yielding an income 

 of over 9,000 francs. This income, together 

 with the subscriptions of members, brought 

 the total receipts of 1873 to about 30,000 

 francs. This money is judiciously expend- 

 ed in giving encouragement to original re- 

 search. 



Another Jesse Pomeroy has appeared 

 in Chico, California. A boy in that town 

 has developed an uncontrollable propensity 

 for injuring with stones, clubs, etc., all the 

 little children that he meets. He has been 

 lodged in jail, and now threatens to kill a 

 number of his companions as soon as he i3 

 released. 



