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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



should be furnished with the principles of 

 a science they have not had to discover for 

 themselves, and with charts to guide their 

 general course, leaving to their individual 

 acumen the adaptations and modifications 

 required by special circumstauces. We 

 have such knowledge to guide us in im- 

 proving our breeds of cattle and our crops : 

 must we remain without it in the infinitely 

 more important business of improving our 

 human crop, of getting out of our human 

 soil all that it can be made to yield for so- 

 cial and individual good ? Must every tyro 

 still be allowed to try experiments, not in 

 corpore vili, but on the most delicate and 

 precious of materials the human body and 

 mind, on the most powerful of all forces 

 human passions and the human will ; ex- 

 periments in which success or failure means 

 virtue or vice, happiness or misery, lives 

 worthy or unworthy, sowing with every ac- 

 tion a seed of good or ill, to reproduce itself 

 in an endless series beyond all human ken ? 



NOTES. 



During the summer, the division of the 

 geological and geographical survey of the 

 Territories under the charge of Prof. Powell 

 explored Northeastern, Middle, and South- 

 eastern Utah. In addition to the geograph- 

 ical and geological work, the expedition has 

 collected, according to the Tribune, many 

 interesting facts in ethnography. Prof. 

 Powell has found several new ruins of an- 

 cient towns in the Colorado Valley, and has 

 collected some specimens of ancient pict- 

 ure-writings, and many stone implements. 

 Prof. Powell, we are told, is now prepared 

 to indicate in his map the position of many 

 scores of these ancient towns or hamlets 

 now found iu ruins in the valleys on each 

 side of the Colorado. 



Prof. Theodore Gill, of the Smithsoni- 

 an Institution, and Dr. Elliott Coues,U. S. A., 

 are engaged upon a systematic revision of 

 the mammals of North America. The sci- 

 entific competence of the authors, as well 

 as their rare opportunities for the inspec- 

 tion of specimens in practically unlimited 

 numbers, is an ample guarantee for the thor- 

 oughness of the promised treatise. 



Dr. Lyon Platfair, at the recent meet- 

 ing of the British Social Science Associa- 

 tion, quoted Michelet's statement that, for 

 1,000 years, no one in Europe used the bath, 

 and urged that it was no wonder that the 

 epidemics of the middle ages cut off one- 

 fourth of the population no wonder that 



there were a spotted plague, black death, 

 sweating sickness, dancing mania, mewing 

 mania, biting mania, and other terrible epi- 

 demics. 



In Sonoma County, California, according 

 to the report of the Department of Agri- 

 culture, the farmers soak their seed-wheat 

 from eight to twelve hours in a solution of 

 sulphate of copper, in the proportion of six 

 ounces of the salt to 100 pounds of wheat. 

 In this way the " smut," which is a fungoid 

 growth, is killed, and prevented from spread- 

 ing from diseased to sound grains. 



The council of a new college, recently 

 opened in London for the medical education 

 of women, includes the names of the follow- 

 ing eminent physicians and physiologists, 

 many of whom are also lecturers in the in- 

 stitution : Charlton Bastian, King, Cham- 

 bers, Huxley, Hughlings -Jackson, W. L. 

 Playfair, and Burdon-Sanderson. 



About forty years ago the Government 

 of France made a costly attempt to intro- 

 duce the culture of the tea-plant into that 

 country. Three thousand shrubs were im- 

 ported and planted in various regions of 

 France. Next year the disaster was com- 

 plete. It is now known that the tea-plant 

 does not give a crop unless with an aver- 

 age temperature reaching 61 Fahr., and a 

 considerable atmospheric moisture in sum- 

 mer. The English Government have not 

 been similarly deceived. Introduced on 

 the slopes of the Himalayas at a height cal- 

 culated for the suitable heat and moisture, 

 tea now ranks among the sources of wealth 

 of British India. With like success the 

 cinchona is now cultivated in Asia; but 

 botanists and meteorologists were first dis- 

 patched to the Andes to determine the con- 

 ditions of its native growth. 



De Candolle proposes a physiological 

 classification of plants based on their rela- 

 tions to heat and moisture. He makes six 

 divisions, viz. : megatherms, which need 

 much heat and moisture; xerophiles, re- 

 quiring dry heat ; mesotherms, moderate 

 heat ; microtherms, natives of temperate 

 climates ; hekisotherms, natives of high lat- 

 itudes ; finally megistotherms, an excep- 

 tional group which require a mean annual 

 temperature of over 30 C. (86 Fahr.). 



A French botanist, Cosson, holds that 

 lichens require a very pure air for their de- 

 velopment ; in fact, he thinks they afford a 

 very delicate natural test of the purity of 

 the atmosphere. 



The Smithsonian Institution is soon to 

 publish a memoir by Prof. Simon Newcomb, 

 of the United States Naval Observatory, on 

 "The General Integrals of Planetary Mo- 

 tion." 



