282 



THE POPULAR SCIEXCE J10XTHLY. 



being rated at 4,S00 and another at 20 

 quarts a minute. At the averaged rate of 

 supply, each of the wells should furnish 

 water enough to sustain 15,000 palm-trees, 

 representing a plantation of 425 acres. 

 Each tree, if thriving, well manured, and 

 cared for, will bear from one hundred to 

 one hundred and twenty - five pounds of 

 dates ; raised by the quantity and without 

 manure or particular attention, the average 

 crop per tree is thirty-five or forty pounds, 

 and this is worth about sixty cents. It is 

 not a matter of very great expense to start 

 a plantation of dates. A lot of five or six 

 hundred acres, on which 30,000 trees may 

 be planted, can be bought for about five 

 hundred dollars; the wells will cost eight 

 hundred dollars apiece ; the trees cost 

 about thirty cents apiece ; and M. Jus esti- 

 mates the whole expense of stocking an oasis 

 with 10,000 trees at about $4,000. The trees 

 are expected to bear a crop in the fifth year 

 after planting. The cost might be greater and 

 the time of waiting longer than is calculated, 

 as will often probably turn out to be the 

 case, and the enterprise still be a profitable 

 one, especially as the expense of the outlay, 

 it is thought, may be nearly covered by the 

 barley that may be raised with the aid of 

 the winter rains. The care of the young 

 trees is intrusted to tenant farmers, who 

 take half the barley and a sixth of the 

 dates. When the plantation has come into 

 bearing, it will return, if all is prosperous, 

 375,000 pounds of dates, worth $6,000 

 gross, of which the proprietor receives 

 $4,800, or a few hundred dollars more than 

 his estimated first outlay. The prospect 

 has proved flattering enough to attract the 

 attention of a few capitalists who have 

 started several plantations near Ourlana, in 

 the center of the oasis. 



The Poisonous Principle of Bnlbs. 



Professor Husemann remarked several years 

 ago that a certain class of poisons was gen- 

 erally diffused in plants of the families 

 LWiacecB and AmarylUdcoe. His view has 

 been confirmed by the results of later re- 

 searches. Gerrard has extracted from the 

 tulip a poison called tulipin, the nitrate of 

 which, according to Sydney Ringer, has the 

 power of stopping the contraction of the 

 heart, with many of the properties of vera- 



trin. Professor Warden, of Calcutta, has 

 extracted from a lily of India a very poi- 

 sonous principle (superbin), which appears 

 to be identical with the scillitoxin of the 

 squill, and a very small dose of which killed 

 a grown cat. The presence of the poison- 

 ous principle in bulbs, on which many plants 

 are more dependent for propagation than 

 on the seed, has an important bearing on 

 the perpetuity of species by its agency in 

 preserving them from the attacks of ani- 

 mals which would be likely to destroy them 

 by eating them. "While the poisons are 

 comparatively harmless to men, they are 

 peculiarly deadly to the rodentia ; and it is 

 from the depredations of animals of this 

 class that bulbs would be most likely to 

 suffer. 



Seope and Talue of Anthropological 

 Stndies. Professor Otis A. Mason, in his 

 address before the Anthropological Section 

 of the American Association, on the H Scope 

 and Value of Anthropological Studies," an- 

 swers the inquiry as to what benefit the world 

 has derived from the cultivation of that 

 science : First, every study is improved by 

 study, and, if " the proper study of mankind 

 is man," it is eminently important that that 

 should be improved and pursued scientifi- 

 cally. Secondly, the value of a study must 

 be estimated by its effects upon human 

 weal ; and are not the questions agitated by 

 anthropologists connected with human wel- 

 fare ? " Do thev not relate to the bodv, mind, 



* mil 



and speech of man, to the races of mankind, 

 their arts, amusements, social needs, politi- 

 cal organizations, religion, and dispersion 

 over the earth ? For instance, the French 

 in Africa, the British in India, and our own 

 citizens in malarious and fever-laden re- 

 gions, have they not learned from loss of 

 treasure, ruined health, and the shadow of 

 death, that there is a law of nature which 

 can not be transgressed with impunity ? It 

 is the same with sociology and religion. 

 The pages of history glow with the narra- 

 tives of crusades against alleged wrongs, 

 which were in reality campaigns against the 



' sacred laws of nature. Social svstems, which 

 I 

 had required centuries to crystallize, have 



' been shattered in some effort to bend them 



' to some new order of things. Arts and in. 



J dustries planted in uncongenial soil, at great 



