7 i8 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



undone, and as a consequence the girl was 

 'kept in' and otherwise punished. For 

 some time the strange movements of the 

 child had been noticed at home, but nothing 

 was thought of them, and no change was 

 made in the routine of her life. It was as- 

 certained that there had been no intentional 

 unkindness either at school or at home. 

 The child was anxious to learn, but too lit- 

 tle allowance was made for her scanty op- 

 portunities of mental culture, and she thus 

 fell into undeserved disgrace." The mal- 

 ady is one which develops slowly, and is 

 very rarely recognized at the beginning. 

 " The rule is that for weeks or for months 

 what is really disease is taken for careless- 

 ness or perversity, and a condition which 

 needs for its cure the utmost tenderness 

 and allowance is thus aggravated by repeat- 

 ed punishment." 



NOTES. 



The fifth volume of the " History of Cali- 

 fornia," in the series of Bancroft's Works, 

 now just published, brings the record up to 

 the discovery of gold in 1849. The publish- 

 ers announce that they have been busily 

 engaged in remanufacturing the stock that 

 was consumed in the fire of April 30th, of 

 which the edition of the present volume 

 was a part, and that the delay and incon- 

 venience caused by that disaster were only 

 temporary. 



The editor of the Johns Hopkins " Uni- 

 versity Studies in Historical and Political 

 Science " proposes a series of extra vol- 

 umes to appear in a style uniform with the 

 regular studies, but otherwise independent 

 of them. The volumes will vary in size 

 from 200 to 500 pages, with corresponding 

 prices. The first volume will be published 

 early in the season, as " The Republic of 

 New Haven " ; a History of Municipal Revo- 

 lution. By Charles H. Levermore, Ph. D. It 

 is a new study, from original records, of a 

 most remarkable chapter of municipal de- 

 velopment. 



From a series of experiments which he 

 has made upon the amount of water con- 

 tained in highly lignified plants in various 

 seasons and under varied conditions of 

 growth, Professor D. P. Penhallow has 

 drawn the conclusions that the hydration of 

 woody plants is not constant for all seasons, 

 and depends upon conditions of growth ; 

 that it reaches its maximum during the lat- 

 ter part of May or early June, and its mini- 

 mum during January ; that it is greatest in 

 the sap-wood, and least in the heart-wood ; 



and that the greatest hydration is directly 

 correlated to the most active growth of the 

 plant, while lignification and storage of 

 starch and other products are correlated to 

 diminishing hydration. 



Professor W. Mattieu Williams in- 

 fers, from the examination of Count Rum- 

 ford's " Essay on Gunpowder," that he pro- 

 duced solid carbonic acid in the course of 

 his experiments on the explosive force of 

 that composition. In an experiment with a 

 confined cylinder, the count observed " an 

 extremely white powder, resembling very 

 light white ashes, but which almost instan- 

 taneously changed to the most perfect black 

 color upon being exposed to the air." Pro- 

 fessor Williams supposes that this white 

 evanescent ash-like deposit was solid car- 

 bonic acid. The change to black mentioned 

 by Rumford was caused by the instantane- 

 ous evaporation of the acid, causing to be 

 revealed the ordinary black deposit of gun- 

 powder beneath it. The pressure under 

 which the experiment w T as conducted was 

 9,431 atmospheres, which is abundantly suf- 

 ficient to effect the solidification of carbonic 

 acid. 



Considerably more than four million 

 persons had been, at the end of last year, 

 insured against sickness under the German 

 law of compulsory insurance. At the be- 

 ginning of 1886 the compulsion to insure 

 was extended to the whole administration 

 of the post, railway, and telegraph, and to all 

 trades connected with transportation ; and 

 a movement is on foot to extend the prin- 

 ciple still further. The introduction of the 

 system has not led to any diminution in 

 the number of friendly societies or trades- 

 unions, but many of them have had an 

 enormous increase. 



Dr. W. J. Graham, of Grafton, Dakota, 

 has propounded a new theory of the origin 

 of the alkali which is more or less abundant 

 on the Western plains. He derives it from 

 his observations, during several years' resi- 

 dence, of the soil, water, and atmosphere of 

 the country. It is that the basis of the al- 

 kali is common salt, which is derived from 

 a rock-salt formation underlying the region, 

 by permeation to the surface, where it un- 

 dergoes the chemical reactions which give 

 it its apparent form and composition. Dr. 

 Graham also believes that the alkali will 

 afford a valuable and really inexhaustible 

 fertilizing material. 



Professor Brown-Sequard was, on the 

 21st of June, elected to the Section of Medi- 

 cine and Surgery in the French Academy of 

 Sciences, in place of M. Vulpian, who has 

 been made perpetual secretary. Professor 

 Brown-Sequard received thirty-six votes, to 

 nineteen given for M. Germain See. 



