144 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The London "Sanitary World" pub- 

 lishes regulaily a " Black-list," including 

 the names of dealers who have been proved 

 to be selling falsified or adulterated goods. 

 It intends to secure for this list the records 

 of all proceedings under the Foods Act, and 

 against the owners of rookeries, throughout 

 England, so that the people of all the vil- 

 lages can learn at once who is cheating them 

 and selling them unwholesome goods. 



A new artificial fire-proof stone or plas- 

 ter has been invented, the principal con- 

 stituent of which is the mineral asbestine, a 

 silicate of magnesium. This is mixed with 

 powdered flint and caustic potash, and with 

 sufficient water-glass (silicate of soda) to 

 make it into an adhesive plaster. It is fur- 

 ther mixed with sand before use. It does 

 not require lathing, but adheres to a smooth 

 surface, and may be applied upon a wall or 

 ceiling of sheet-iron. 



For fixing soils in embankments, or 

 where there is wash, reliance is usually 

 placed upon the roots of grass or other 

 plants ; and long delays are often incurred, 

 with frequent renewals and repairs of gul- 

 leys, before a network of roots can be ob- 

 tained capable of giving a firm foundation. 

 M. Cambier, of the French railway service, 

 has found in the double poppy a most 

 valuable plant for this purpose. It grows 

 quickly, and helps to support the soil in 

 about two weeks, while, at the end of three 

 or four months, it forms a stronger net- 

 work of roots than any grass known. It is 

 an annual, but sows itself after the first 

 year. 



According to the Newcastle (England) 

 "Journal," Mr. Walter McDonald, of Ilder- 

 ton, near Wooler, while trying to clear a 

 dam which had been clogged by a freshet, 

 fell into a snow-drift, and might have been 

 buried in it but for the extraordinary sa- 

 gacity of his collie dog. He was struggling 

 to reach the branch of a tree that overhung 

 him, which the dog observing, it sprang at 

 the branch, pulled it down, and held it with- 

 in its master's reach till he was able to get 

 a hold upon it. 



Mr. Clemens Winkler, of Freiburg, Sax- 

 ony, announces the discovery by himself, in 

 the new mineral argyrodite, of a new non- 

 metallic element, closely related to arsenic 

 and antimony, to which he has given the 

 name of Germanium. 



OBITUARY NOTES. 



Professor John L. Campbell, of the 

 chair of Geology and Chemistry in Wash- 

 ington and Lee University, died at Lexing- 

 ton, Virginia, February 2d, in the sixty-fifth 

 year of his age. He had been a professor at 



Lexington since 1851. He was the author 

 of contributions on "Virginian Geology in 

 American Science," his last paper having 

 been a review of the geological reports of 

 Professor W. B. Rogers. 



The death of M. Jules Jamin, Perpetual 

 Secretary of the Section of Physical Science 

 in the Paris Academy of Sciences, is an- 

 nounced. He was born in 1813, was elected 

 a member of the Academy in 1858, was an 

 eloquent teacher and debater, and a fre- 

 quent contributor to the " Revue des Deux 

 Mondes " ; he published many papers in the 

 " Transactions " of the Academy, was author 

 of a course in physics for the Polytechnic 

 School, and had patented an electric light. 



Mr. Charles William Peach, who was 

 distinguished as a field geologist of the 

 southern coasts of England, died in Edin- 

 burgh on the 28th of February, in his 

 eighty-sixth year. He was the son of a 

 country mechanic and inn - keeper, and 

 served in the revenue coast - guards for 

 twenty years, and afterward in the cus- 

 toms, for pay hardly ever much exceeding 

 five hundred dollars a year. He was an 

 industrious collector, and an indefatigable 

 hunter of new species ; he became very early 

 acquainted with the marine fauna of his dis- 

 tricts ; first detected the lower Silurian fos- 

 sils in the supposed Azoic rocks of Corn- 

 wall ; furnished the Polytechnic Society in 

 1843 a valuable paper on land and fresh- 

 water shells and marine animals; discov- 

 ered the fossils in the altered rocks of the 

 Highlands, which enabled Murchison to elu- 

 cidate the structure of that region ; and has 

 been said by a living geologist to have done 

 more in the field of old red sandstone fos- 

 sils "than all other geologists put to- 

 gether." 



Charles James Edward Morren, Pro- 

 fessor of Botany in the University of Liege, 

 died February 28th, in his sixty-third year. 

 He was a son of Professor Charles Morren, 

 of the University of Ghent, who was after- 

 ward Professor of Botany in the University 

 of Liege. Being called upon to assist his 

 father in teaching, he prepared, as his espe- 

 cial examination thesis for the doctorate, a 

 dissertation on green and colored leaves, by 

 which he first became known to the botan- 

 ists of Europe. He succeeded his father as 

 full professor in 1858. He was founder of 

 the Botanical Institute of Liege ; editor of 

 the " Belgique Horticole," and author of nu- 

 merous memoirs and academic dissertations 

 on questions of botany, chemistry, and vege- 

 table physiology. 



Dr. Heinrich Fischer, mineralogist and 

 Professor at the Freiburg University, is dead. 

 He was best known by his book on " Jadite 

 and Nephrite." 



