432 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



around by the wires to assembly-rooms, and 

 we will be able to " turn it on " by adjust- 

 ing a commutator, as we now get water by 

 turning a faucet. 



Under the head of " Birds out of Place," 

 Mr. Charles Aldiich, of Webster City, Iowa, 

 records, in " The American Naturalist," that 

 a robin remained last winter on his farm, 

 frequenting a slieltered spot where a little 

 spring of water flowed out of a bank below 

 a mill-dam. He also tells of some crows 

 that were found, during the severe weather, 

 roosting with the chickens, which, for the 

 want of a better shelter, were accustomed 

 to roost in the low branches of a thicket 

 near the house of one of his neighbors. A 

 comparison of many similar observations to 

 those of the robin, which might be recorded 

 if those who made them would take the 

 pains, would probably show that many so- 

 called birds of passage elect to spend the 

 winter in their northern homes, when suit- 

 able shelter from violent storms and cold is 

 provided for them, and a supply of food is 

 made accessible. 



A Field Club, composed of specialists in 

 various branches of science, and working 

 naturalists, has lately been organized at 

 Des Moines, Iowa. It will publish any 

 results reached which may prove of suffi- 

 cient value, in the form of occasional bul- 

 letins, and proposes, ultimately, to work up 

 the natural history of the entire State, in 

 which little has been done except by indi- 

 viduals, in the shape of local contributions 

 made at their own expense. Geological 

 surveys have been instituted twice, to be 

 abruptly closed by the Legislature before 

 anything of moment could be accomplished. 

 A society like this one can do much to pro- 

 mote a better knowledge of the State, and 

 to awaken a spirit of thorough investiga- 

 tion. 



M. Dr. Lemoine has discovered in the 

 lower tertiary beds near Rheims which 

 were considered nearly if not quite Azoic 

 fossil remains of an extremely interesting 

 fauna, comprising numerous new species, 

 and even some new genera, of mammals, 

 birds, and reptiles. Many of these species 

 exhibit characters intermediate between 

 those of types which have been heretofore 

 described. 



M, G. Trouve has applied two of his 

 electric motors to an Enghsh tricycle, with 

 a gratifying success in making it go. The 

 machines were each fed by three of the ac- 

 cumulators which he uses in his polyscope. 

 The tricycle ran for an hour and a half at 

 the speed of a good carriage. M. Trouve in- 

 tends to construct another motor, with which 

 he expects to attain a speed of twelve or 

 sixteen miles an hour. 



The Appalachian ^fountain Club is en- 

 joying an encouraging prosperity. Eighty- 

 tive members were added to its list last 

 year, making the whole present number 

 three hundred and twenty. Its position in 

 the community is regarded as established 

 and recognized, and its sphere of usefulness 

 and plans of work as having become in 

 great part well defined and settled. Its 

 library is increasing considerably, by the 

 exchange of its publications for those of 

 other similar societies, which has been un- 

 dertaken with forty-one societies in Europe, 

 as well as with American organizations. 

 Nine regular meetings were held during 

 1880, and field meetings at Plymouth and 

 the Fabyan House, New Hampshire, and 

 several excursions w^ere made. The last 

 number of its journal, " Appalachia," con- 

 tains, besides the reports, the annual , ad- 

 dress of President Charles R. Cross on 

 *' Barometric Measurement of Heights " ; 

 and papers on " Mount Cardigan," by Har- 

 old Murdock, and "A Sojourn in Andover, 

 Maine," by Gaetano Lanza. 



On the 5th of March last, the main seam 

 of coal in the Ashton Moss Colliery, in Lan- 

 cashire, England, was cut at the depth of 

 2,691 feet, or 231 feet lower than the deep- 

 est sinking heretofore worked in England, 

 The temperature in the colliery, at the depth 

 of 860 yards, was 78. 



M. DE QtTATREFAGES pcports that fossil 

 remains of men, well preserved, have been 

 discovered in the quaternary limestones of 

 Nice. M. Desor has determined their geo- 

 logical age, which, it is said, can not be con- 

 tested ; and M. de Quatrefages has deter- 

 mined the race to which they belong as that 

 which has been long known as the Croma- 

 gnon race. 



Some experiments described by Mr. A. 

 Vogt, in the " Zeitschrif t f iir Biologic," in- 

 dicate that the southern walls of houses ab- 

 sorb less heat from solar radiation during 

 the day than the eastern and western walls, 

 notwithstanding they are exposed for a con- 

 siderable longer time to the direct rays of 

 the sun. On a day when the highest tem- 

 perature of the air was observed at four 

 o'clock in the afternoon, and the maximum 

 of solar radiation at one o'clock, the ther- 

 mometer behind the eastern wall was highest 

 at eleven o'clock in the morning, behind the 

 southern wall at three, and behind the west- 

 ern at six o'clock in the afternoon. 



The Central ^Meteorological Bureau of 

 France is in telegraphic communication 

 with one hundred and twenty stations in 

 Europe and Northern Africa, over a terri- 

 tory extending fi-om Bodo, in northern Nor- 

 way, toi Laghore, in southern Algeria, and 

 from the island of Madeira to Moscow. 



