43 2 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



gling and screaming in the talons of its 

 adversary. The hawk, evidently finding 

 considerable difficulty in dispatching the 

 bird, dragged it along the ground to a 

 shallow pool, where he put its head under 

 the water and stood on it till his victim was 

 drowned. 



Dr. Riley, in his last entomological re- 

 port, does not take a very hopeful view of 

 the immediate prospects of silk-culture in 

 the United States. In his opinion it re- 

 quires a temporary stimulus, and he would 

 suggest a duty on reeled silk imported from 

 foreign countries. It is possible, however, 

 that there are ways enough for Americans 

 to make money without adding to the list 

 of " protected " articles. 



Professor W. Mattieu "Williams dis- 

 putes the validity of the recently published 

 conclusion of a German philosopher, that 

 accidents from lightning are increasing, and 

 that the increase is owing to the multiplica- 

 tion of factories with their towering chim- 

 neys, and the consequent loading of the air 

 with smoke, steam, and particles of dust. It 

 does not agree with the accepted theory of 

 lightning-conductors, that the multiplication 

 of such agencies tends to the dissipation of 

 atmospheric electricity and the rendering of 

 it harmless. The real increase is not in the 

 number of accidents, but in the regularity 

 with which they are reported. 



The King of the Belgians' prize of five 

 thousand dollars, which was offered this 

 year to the competition of the world for the 

 best essay on " The Best Means of improv- 

 ing Sandy Coasts," has been awarded to M. 

 de Hey, engineer, of Bruges, against fifty- 

 nine competitors. The prize is alternately 

 international and confined to Belgians. The 

 subject for the next international competi- 

 tion is " The Progress of Electricity applied 

 to Motive Power and Illumination : its Ap- 

 plications and Economical Advantages." 

 The essays must be presented in French. 



A correspondent of " Science Gossip " 

 tells of a pair of swans which, having com- 

 pleted their nest on the bank of a dike, 

 shortly proceeded, as if they were anticipat- 

 ing danger, to raise the structure two feet 

 higher. On the next day a great storm oc- 

 curred, with floods, that would surely have 

 swept the nest away but for the precaution 

 the birds had taken to secure it. 



A French doctor, Sandras, claims to 

 have discovered a way of producing exten- 

 sive modifications of the voice in vibration, 

 force, and range by the inhalation of dif- 

 ferent substances. Among the typical ex- 

 periments which he exhibited recently be- 

 fore the Medical Society of the Pantheon, 

 were extension of the register by the inha- 

 lation of Botot water; producing hoarse- 

 ness and extinction of the voice with coal- 



tar; giving a drunken man's voice with 

 alcohol ; and by using other inhalants cor- 

 recting the effects of cold in the head and 

 of coal-tar inhalations. 



OBITUARY NOTES. 



Dr. Edward Tuckerman, Professor of 

 Botany in Amherst College, died March 

 15th, at the age of sixty-nine years. He 

 was recognized as one of the leading lichen- 

 ologists of the day, and as first in that branch 

 on this continent. 



Thomas Edwards, the self-taught nat- 

 uralist of Banff, Scotland, died April 27th, 

 in the seventy-fifth year of his age. His 

 father was a hand-loom weaver, and he 

 learned the shoemaker's trade. The passion 

 for collecting dominated in him ; and his 

 devotion to science brought him consider- 

 able fame. He was elected a member of 

 several learned societies in 1865, and after- 

 ward acted as Curator of the Banff Museum. 

 He wrote many papers concerning his own 

 discoveries for the scientific magazines. 

 Mr. Smiles published a biography of him 

 which made him generally known. This 

 was followed by a subscription of 333 

 for relief in his old age, and the award by 

 the Queen of a pension of 50 a year. 



M. A. Lallemand, a distinguished French 

 physicist, has just died at Poitiers, in the 

 seventieth year of his age. He had served 

 as Professor of Physics in several French 

 colleges, and was for a number of years 

 dean of the faculty at Poitiers. He was the 

 author of important investigations on elec- 

 tro-dynamic action in the illumination of 

 transparent bodies, and of researches in or- 

 ganic chemistry, among the results of which 

 was the discovery of thymol. 



M. Melsens, chemist, of Brussels, has 

 recently died, in the seventy-second year of 

 his age. He was the author of the discov- 

 ery of iodide of potassium as an antidote 

 for mercurial and lead poisoning. 



Johann Georg Varrentrapp, one of the 

 most distinguished and venerable hygienists 

 of Germany, died at Frankfort, March 10th, 

 in the seventy-eighth year of his age. He 

 was for thirty years physician in the neili- 

 gen Geist Hospital at Frankfort ; he was one 

 of the founders of the poor-clinic and of the 

 medical society of Frankfort ; he paid spe- 

 cial and practical attention to questions of 

 prison discipline and of school organization ; 

 he founded the special Section for Public 

 Health in the Association of German Natu- 

 ralists, and the German Association for Pub- 

 lic Health. The "Berliner klinische Wo- 

 chenschrift " mentions him as the earliest 

 German sanitarian who considered the ques- 

 tion of the cleansing of towns, and calls him 

 the father of the practice of public health. 

 In politics he was an active liberal. 



