570 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The more disagreeable symptoms had gone, 

 but the mountaineers still found themselves 

 " comparatively lifeless and feeble, with a 

 strong disposition to sit down when we 

 ought to have been moving." At length, 

 having spent three days in moving their 

 camp, and having passed a night at the high- 

 est station, they undertook the ascent to the 

 summit. It was extremely difficult, made 

 in the face of a high wind and through soft 

 snow in which the men sunk to their necks, 

 but it was accomplished, the measurement of 

 the height was taken, and the return safely 

 made to the camp, all in one day. The 

 most notable physical experience of the as- 

 cent was the observation, at a height of be- 

 tween 18,400 and 19,500 feet, that "om- 

 steps got shorter and shorter, until at last 

 the toe of one foot touched the heel of the 

 previous one." Mr. Whymper's residence 

 on Chimborazo "extended over seventeen 

 days ; one night was passed at a height of 

 13,400 feet, ten nights at a height of 16,500 

 feet, six at 17,300 feet. During this time, 

 besides the ascent to the summit, I also went 

 three times as high as 18,300 feet. When 

 we quitted the mountain, all traces of moim- 

 tain- sickness had disappeared, nor did it 

 touch us again until we arrived at the sum- 

 mit of Cotopaxi." The camp on the latter 

 mountain was placed about 130 feet below 

 the loftiest point, or at a height of 19,4'70 

 feet, " and was the most elevated position 

 at which any of us had ever lived. We re- 

 mained there twenty-six consecutive hours, 

 feeling slightly at first the effects of the 

 low pressure, having the same symptoms as 

 we noticed on Chimborazo ; and we used 

 chlorate of potash, and remarked its good 

 effects. All the signs of mountain-sickness 

 had passed away before we commenced the 

 descent, and they did not recur again during 

 the journey." The member of the party 

 who suffered least from mountain-sickness 

 was Mr. Perrin, the interpreter, who was in 

 bad health from having led a dissipated life, 

 and "could not walk a quarter of a mile on 

 a flat road without desiring to sit down " ; 

 but he had lived for a long time at heights 

 of between 9,000 and 10,000 feet, and had 

 several times passed over a height of more 

 than 14,000 feet; so that he was partly in- 

 ured to the rarefied air. Chimborazo was 

 visited again six months after the first visit, 



and a second measurement of the height 

 was made. The mean of the two measure- 

 ments gives 20,517 feet. 



Strnctnro of the Organs of Toncli. 



M. Eanvier has been much as^sted in his 

 investigation of the structure of the organs 

 of touch by the examinations of the struct- 

 ure of infants. At birth, the nerves of touch 

 may be found to pass into certain papilla?, 

 on the palmar aspect of the fingers, imme- 

 diately beneath the cells of the mucous 

 layer of Malpighi, where they form a net- 

 work of ramifications which, though dis- 

 tinct, are closely pressed together. No cel- 

 lular elements are at this time mixed with 

 the network, but a small collection of 

 round cells exists beneath it. These grad- 

 ually surround the network and pass in 

 among its branches ; the whole soon be- 

 comes united, and a tactile corpuscle is 

 formed. Sometimes the corpuscle remains 

 unilobar, but more frequently other lobes 

 are formed in the same manner as the first 

 one, and are joined to it. Hence it is that, 

 in young children, the nerve-fibers which 

 enter into the composition of the tactile 

 corpuscles are separated by layers of cells, 

 which, in the course of development, be- 

 come pushed to the periphery of each lobe, 

 and the most of them undergo a consider- 

 able atrophy. This fact suggests that they 

 are not nervous in their nature, for the 

 nerve-cells, so far from undergoing atrophy 

 during growth, gradually increase in size to 

 their full development. M. Ranvier has 

 not perceived any communication between 

 the nerve-fibers and the cells in the tactile 

 corpuscle ; the ramifying branches of the 

 nerve-fibers, after a tortuous and usually 

 complicated course, end in free, flattened 

 knobs. 



Infl nonce of Fhysieal Strnctore on Pro- 

 cesses of Dyeing. M. Gustave Engel has 

 been engaged for several years in studying 

 the influence which the physical structure 

 of substancQS exercises upon the operations 

 of dyeing, and has remarked that certain 

 sands, composed of silica, a substance chem- 

 ically inert, behave, in the presence of dif- 

 ferent coloring-matters and dyes, exactly in 

 the same manner as cotton and wool. On 

 examining with a microscope siliceous sands 



