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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the wind raise ; and, by-the-way,' he said, 

 1 you go back by the way you came, and tell 

 the people to set back - fires at once, and 

 have them send word to the settlements be- 

 low.' Before starting I tried my sense of 

 smell, and, although I imitated the attitude 

 of the trapper and the dog, I could detect 

 nothing but the sweet October air." The 

 warning given by the dogs was justified in 

 the event. 



NOTES. 



Mr. IIerbert Spencer is taking a long 

 vacation in Scotland, occupied with his fa- 

 vorite recreation of salmon-fishing. A para- 

 graph in " Mind " announces that he has 

 declined the honor of election to the French 

 Academy, on grounds of principle. 



Herren Fischer and Rudolph have pro- 

 duced by the action of chloride of lime on 

 acetaniline at a temperature of 270 C. a 

 new coloring-matter of a brilliant yellow, 

 which they call flavaniline. It has an espe- 

 cially brilliant appearance, with a remark- 

 able green fluorescence on silk fibers. 



Professor Stephen Alexander, Profes- 

 sor Emeritus of Astronomy at Princeton, 

 New Jersey, died June 26th. He had been 

 connected with the college at Princeton 

 since 1840, first as Professor of Astronomy, 

 and afterward of Astronomy and Mathe- 

 matics. 



A discovert is announced by the "Union 

 Medicale " which promises to throw consid- 

 erable light on the subject of prehistoric 

 man. While running a gallery in a coal- 

 mine at Bully-Grenay, a subterranean cave 

 was broken into, in one chamber of which 

 were found six fossil human bodies a man, 

 two women, and three children together 

 with implements, and fragments of lower 

 animals. Another chamber contained eleven 

 human bodies, precious stones, and numer- 

 ous other articles, while on the walls were 

 drawings of combats between men and huge 

 beasts. 



According to legends of colonial times, 

 seals were formerly common in Long Island 

 Sound, Red Rock in the estuary of the 

 Quinepiac River being their favorite resort. 

 A few are still seen or caught every year. 

 Mr. II. C. Hovey states, in the " Scientific 

 American," that more than the usual num- 

 ber have been seen during the recent cold 

 season. Two fine specimens were caught 

 on the 11th of April, near Guilford, Con- 

 necticut. 



Professor 0. C. Marsh, of Yale Col- 

 lege, has been chosen a member of the Mu- 

 nich Academy of Sciences, Bavaria. 



Dr. Bowditch, of the National Board of 

 Health, objects to dependence on sewerage 

 for the sanitation of sea-side resorts, that the 

 sewers will leave the refuse matter where it 

 is liable to be brought back to the shore by 

 returning tides. He commends the method 

 adopted at an hotel at Cape May Point, of 

 systematic deportation of sewage material. 

 The cess-pools are emptied every morning 

 by means of odorless excavators, and their 

 contents are conveyed to the hotel com- 

 pany's farm, where they are deposited in 

 trenches with sea-weed and covered with 

 earth, to be converted by the next spriDg 

 into excellent manures. 



Mr. Russell, a skillful observer at Car- 

 son City, Nevada, is convinced that the im- 

 pressions in the sandstone there which have 

 been talked of as human footprints, are 

 really the tracks of an edentate, the moro- 

 therium. The mud where the tracks occur 

 was so soft that the animal's foot sunk into 

 it, pushed a ridge upward two or three 

 inches higher than the outside level, and 

 came out with a mass adhering to it. Con- 

 sequently no marks of claws or skin-creases 

 are to be looked for. 



M. Gat-Lussac, son of the celebrated 

 chemist, and himself an able chemist and 

 metallurgist, has recently died, at the age of 

 sixty-three. 



In testimony to the value of M. Pasteur's 

 researches, the French Government has in- 

 creased his pension from twelve thousand 

 francs to twenty-five thousand francs yearly, 

 and has made it payable to his wife if she 

 should outlive him. 



Baron Nordenskiold was to start from 

 Sweden, May 20th, on an expedition at the 

 expense of his old friend Oscar Dickson, for 

 the exploration of Greenland. He believed 

 that the interior of that country, which is 

 generally thought to be a vast plain of ice, 

 i< partially free from ice during the summer, 

 basing his opinion on the warmth of the 

 winds from the interior, and will endeavor 

 to reach it. He will also seek for traces of 

 the old Norse colonies, which have been 

 lost since the fourteenth century. 



Dr. Michael Foster has received the ap- 

 pointment to the new chair of Physiology at 

 Cambridge, and Dr. A. Macalister to that of 

 Anatomy. 



The Academy of Natural Sciences of 

 Philadelphia has recently come into posses- 

 sion of the William S. Vaux mineralogical 

 and archaeological collection. The minera- 

 logical department includes more than six 

 thousand trays of specimens, many of them 

 of rare beauty and perfection, and is valued 

 at .$40,000; while the archaeological col- 

 lection is estimated to be worth at least 

 $10,000. 



