576 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Mr. William H. Johnson, B. Sc, has 

 described before ihe Manchester Literary 

 and Philosophical Society, a series of experi- 

 ments in the electrical resistance of iron 

 and steel wire, from which he has drawn 

 the conclusion that the amount of that re- 

 sistance is a measure of the resistance of 

 the iron or steel to tensile strain, and of the 

 amount of combined carbon, sulphur, sili- 

 con, and phosphorus it contains. 



The course of instruction in natural his- 

 tory of the Academy of Natural Sciences, of 

 Philadelphia, which was begun in the spring 

 of 1881, was resumed for the present winter 

 in the first week in January. Courses of 

 from twenty-five to thirty lectures each will 

 be given, with practical demonstrations in 

 the laboratory, on " Physiography and Inver- 

 tebrate Paleontology," by Professor Angelo 

 Heilprin, and on " Mineralogy," by Professor 

 Henry Carvill Lewis. Professor Ileilprin's 

 lectures embrace general considerations rel- 

 ative to various features of the earth's 

 structure and history, and the geological 

 and geographical distribution of past and 

 present life, with special attention in the 

 latter half to practical paleontological dem- 

 onstrations and advanced instructions. Prac- 

 tical work, including the methods of dis- 

 tinguishing minerals by their external and 

 chemical characters, anil blow-pipe analysis, 

 is a regular feature of Professor Lewis's 

 lectures. 



Mr. Frederick Curry, an English bot- 

 anist, distinguished chiefly for his studies of 

 the fungi, died September 8th, aged sixty- 

 two years. He had been Secretary, and 

 was at the time of his death Vice-President 

 and Treasurer of the Linnaean Society. His 

 valuable collection of fungi is to be pre- 

 sented to the museum at Kcw. 



Professor J. P. Wickersham having 

 been commissioned by the National Educa- 

 tional Association to inquire into the effi- 

 ciency of education as a preventive of crime, 

 reports that in the prisons of Pennsylvania, 

 the colleges and high-schools are most in- 

 significantly and the fairly educated classes 

 only moderately represented, while one sixth 

 of the crime of the State is committed by 

 the wholly illiterate, who constitute only one 

 thirtieth part of the population. He further 

 concludes that about one third of the crime 

 is committed by persons practically illiter- 

 ate, mid that the proportion of criminals 

 among the illiterate is about ten times as 

 greal as among those who have been in- 



t ted in the elements of a common-school 



education or beyond. 



M. Pasteur has succeeded in communi- 

 cating rabies by inoculation from the brain 

 of a dog dead with the disease. He has 



o found that by trephining a healthy dog 

 and placing in contact with its brain cere- 



bral tissue from an infected animal, not only 

 is the disease communicated with certainty, 

 but the incubative period is in every case 

 reduced to a few days. 



The Surgeon-General of the United 

 States Army reports that the proportion of 

 cases on the sick list of the army last year 

 was 1,708 per thousand of mean strength 

 among the white troops, and 1,984 per 

 thousand among the colored troops. The 

 average number at one time was 44 per 

 thousand of white, and 45 per thousand of 

 colored troops. About one sixth of the 

 number of white and less than one seventh 

 of the colored sick were cases of wounds, 

 accidents, and injuries. The proportions 

 of deaths to cases treated were 1 to 190 

 among the whites, and 1 to 97 among the 

 colored troops. 



M. Fatio explains the theory of disin- 

 fection by sulphurous acid by remarking 

 that the vapors of the acid act in two ways 

 on all organisms that depend on oxygen for 

 life, viz., by asphyxiating them through sup- 

 pression of that element, and by gradually 

 burning them interiorly, the acid being dis- 

 solved in their humors or aqueous parts. 



A catalogue of the phenogamous and 

 vascular cryptogamous plants of Indiana, 

 prepared by the editors of the " Botanical 

 Gazette " and Professor C. E. Barnes, names 

 1,432 species, grouped under 577 genera, 

 and is published, though not absolutely 

 complete, to provoke further additions. The 

 flora of the State is divided into four groups, 

 each marked by the physical aspect of the 

 region in which it is found. The regions 

 may be called the "the river-valleys " "the 

 lake-borders," " the prairies," and "the bar- 

 rens." The prairie plants are disappearing 

 faster than any others under pressure of 

 cultivation. The splendid forests that orig- 

 inally covered the greater part of the State 

 are rapidly disappearing, and a new race of 

 plants is springing up in their place. New 

 species are continually appearing along the 

 rivers and railroads. 



Another prehistoric canoe has been dis- 

 covered while digging in the old bed of the 

 Rhone, near the bridge of Gardou, France. 

 It is excavated from an oak-log, which has 

 been left with its natural form, except that 

 the ends have been beveled so as to give a 

 sharp form to the prow and stern. Braces 

 were left in hollowing out the vessel, to 

 extend across the inside and strengthen the 

 sides, and five pairs of holes were bored in 

 the side, for oars. The boat is about thirty- 

 eight feet long, three feet wide, and two feet 

 deep, and would probably hold about twelve 

 men. It was considerably decayed, and was 

 somewhat broken in getting it out, but has 

 been deposited in the museum of Lyons in 

 a tolerably sound condition. 



