NOTES. 



575 



whip the bridal doll, which is held up for 

 the purpose. That is his part of the mar- 

 riage ceremony. lie then goes to his house, 

 and the bride is brought up on horseback, 

 thickly veiled, with much shouting. As she 

 steps upon the threshold, she must cut in 

 two with her whip an olive-branch which is 

 put over the door ; if she does not succeed, 

 it is a bad sign. As she enters the room, a 

 number of young fellows armed with switches 

 rush upon the couple and try to give them a 

 good thrashing. Then they all prepare for 

 the feast. Abundant supplies of provisions 

 are sent down to the madari, or Arab inn. 

 The poor and travelers are admitted ; and 

 the bridegroom takes the seat cf honor amid 

 the congratulations of the crowd. After 

 the feast the couple take a seat together 

 and spend the whole evening and sometimes 

 the next day silently receiving the presents 

 and greetings of their acquaintances. On 

 the third day they are permitted to begin 

 their regular married life. 



Microscopy as a Science. The proper 

 scientific position of microscopy is well set 

 forth by Mr. Albert H. Tuttle in his address 

 as Vice-President of the Section of Histolo- 

 gy and Microscopy of the Montreal meeting 

 of the American Association. The claim of 

 microscopy to scientific consideration docs 

 not rest on anything in the perfection of its 

 instruments and accessories or the delicacy 

 of its manipulations, for they are mere tech- 

 nics, and, however important in their scien- 

 tific bearing, are not science ; nor on the 

 fact that it is engaged with objects too small 

 to be seen without the aid of the instrument, 

 for many of those objects have their proper 

 place in well-defined fields of science ; but 

 on the fact that there is a department, in- 

 vestigations in which must be carried on 

 wholly by the aid of the microscope. This 

 department is that of- the study of cell-life, 

 in all its bearings, in plant and animal alike. 

 It embraces all matters relating to the pro- 

 tozoa and the protophyta, including particu- 

 larly the ferment-organisms. To it belong 

 all studies dealing with cell-life in the higher 

 organisms ; ou the morphology of cells and 

 the higher morphological questions treated 

 by histological method ; and on the devel- 

 opment of cells and the structure and sig- 

 nificance of embryonic layers and tissues. 



Two Vital Phenomena explained. 



Speaking of the paucity of births and the 

 decrease of marriages shown in the French 

 census returns for 1881, M. Levasseur re- 

 marked in the French Association that they 

 ought not to occasion too much alarm, for 

 they might be only temporary. Men married 

 at thirty or thirty-five, and the men who 

 were now of that age belonged to the class 

 who served in the defense of the country in 

 1S70 and 1871, which was decimated. If 

 the decrease should be continuous for three 

 or four years, it would be grave, and a new 

 fact. Poverty had nothing to do with the 

 decrease of births, for that was conspicuous 

 in the richest departments, as in Normandy. 

 M. Passy said that the same was the case 

 in Switzerland. When a canton reached a 

 dertain degree of wealth, the births were 

 fewer. A kind of indolence, mingled with 

 a care for the future, set in, and the desire 

 began to prevail to secure an easy position 

 with a small expenditure, and without run- 

 ning any risks. 



NOTES. 



Dr. C. C. Abbott reports as among 

 many interesting "finds" which he discov- 

 ered in the Trenton gravels, after the heavy 

 rains of last September, a wisdom-tooth of 

 a man, which lay in the undisturbed gravel 

 within a dozen feet of the spot where a 

 mastodon's tusk, described in Professor 

 Cook's " Geology of New Jersey," was found 

 some years ago, buried almost as deeply as 

 the tusk, and in a similar situation and 

 among similar surroundings. This, he be- 

 lieves, proves the contemporaneity of man 

 and the mastodon. He also describes some 

 argillite spear-heads found in the gravels, 

 more finished than the palaeolithic, ruder 

 than the polished implements, which he is 

 disposed to class as the handiwork of the 

 direct, post-glacial descendants of palaeo- 

 lithic man. 



Dr. Th. Fcchs, of Vienna, has under- 

 taken to show that the distribution of life 

 at the different depths of the sea is influ- 

 enced more by the differences in the quan- 

 tity of light than by differences in tempera- 

 ture. He reasons that all the known facts 

 of the distribution of sea-life are consistent 

 with his view, and that some of the facts 

 favor it more than the other one. Thus, if 

 temperature is the controlling influence, the 

 shore-animals of northern regions should 

 seek the deep sea when they find themselves 

 in warmer climates, but they are still found 



