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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



the water with its mouth wide open, a con- 

 stant stream passing in at the front, through 

 the upright whalebone plates at the sides, 

 and out again at the back. The small ani- 

 mals which form its food are entangled in 

 the long hairs which fringe the internal 

 edges of the plates, and from time to time, 

 as they become collected in sufficient num- 

 bers, the whale closes its mouth, raises its 

 tongue, and swallows the mass." Its favorite 

 food is a black pteropodous mollusk, resem- 

 bling a humble-bee, and, after this, jelly- 

 fish, of which it takes millions to make a 

 meal. Fortunately for the whale, these 

 creatures go closely massed together in 

 shoals many square miles in extent. After 

 man, the whale's worst enemy is the gram- 

 pus, which attacks it savagely, and is very 

 destructive to the species. Its protection 

 from both enemies is the ice ; and it is, con- 

 sequently, now found almost exclusively in 

 the neighborhood of ice. 



Typography and Eyesight. Dr. Javal 

 considers the subject of typography in rela- 

 tion to the hygiene of the eyes in the " Re- 

 vue Scientifique." His conclusions differ 

 materially only in a few points from those 

 which Professor Herman Cohn has pub- 

 lished. He believes it important to make 

 the several letters, particularly those which 

 are allied in form, as distinct as possible, 

 and therefore favors those fashions in the 

 cutting of the types which tend to accen- 

 tuate the distinctions. The superior im- 

 portance of the upper part of the letters, 

 which is generally recognized, is enforced 

 by the fact that in the case of the irreg- 

 ularities in the lines occasioned by the 

 "long letters," eighty-five instances occur 

 in which the long strokes rise above the 

 line to fifteen in which they fall below it. 

 Of the groups of letters resembling each 

 other the members of the one composed of 

 a, c, e, o, and s, are most likely to be con- 

 founded with each other, and more clear 

 distinctions in the formation of their upper 

 curves are eminently desirable. The strokes 

 of which the letters are composed should 

 not be made so thick as to blur the figure 

 of the whole letter, which is the feature the 

 practiced reader regards ; and only young 

 readers require a particularly heavy stroke. 

 The thin lines that cut off the strokes at 



either end are not without importance ; and 

 Dr. Javal prefers the English method of 

 drawing them so as to leave a curve be- 

 tween the stroke and the line, to the French 

 method of leaving a sharp angle. These 

 lines may be used with good effect, with 

 slight variations in their position to assist in 

 marking distinctions between letters which 

 are otherwise somewhat alike. Dr. Javal 

 regards the width of the letters as of more 

 importance than their height, and the spac- 

 ing between them as of more moment than 

 the separation of the lines by leads ; he 

 does not consider leaded matter as really 

 more legible than " solid " ; and he ascribes 

 a superior legibility in English books to the 

 predominance of short words, giving more 

 horizontal spacing. He would prefer a large 

 type " solid " to a finer type leaded, although 

 he admits that a " solid " page has a black- 

 ish, heavy, and somewhat disagreeable as- 

 pect. If attention is paid to his views 

 regarding the breadth of the letters and 

 the inter-literal spacing, he believes that 

 the height, in the case of ordinary reading 

 matter, may be considerably reduced with- 

 out marring the legibility. Different con- 

 siderations must prevail in regard to school- 

 books, in which the typography must vaiy 

 according to the age of the pupil, within 

 limits which can be determined only by ex- 

 perience. 



Accommodative Cultivation of Infec- 

 tions Organisms. Dr. A. Wernieh has con- 

 sidered, in " Kosmos," the extent to which 

 the molds, the microbic parasites of the 

 body, and the germs of infection, are able 

 to adapt themselves to new conditions of 

 existence, assume new forms, and produce 

 different effects. When microbes are ob- 

 served in great numbers, as they may be 

 sometimes in the tissues and secretions even 

 of healthy persons, much more of sickly 

 ones, the temptation is very strong to asso- 

 ciate them with the production of disease, 

 and is apt to mislead. Naegele has ex- 

 pressed himself in favor of the doctrine of 

 transformation, and says that the same 

 fungoid, transferred successively from one 

 medium to another, may produce, in milk, 

 lactic acid ; in meat, putrefaction ; in wine, 

 gum ; in the ground, nothing ; in the human 

 body, disease; and that it may, in each 



