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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



dred young farmers were enrolled in the 

 Agricultural Reading Course. Much interest 

 seems to have been shown by farmers in 

 sugar-beet culture, in investigations of which 

 more than three hundred of them are co- 

 operating with the station, and two hundred 

 in experiments with fertilizers. 



NOTES. 



An important feature in the evolution of 

 trade journalism is pointed out in the presi- 

 dential address of E. C. Brown, of the Amer- 

 ican Trade Press Association, in the establish- 

 ment of small trade journals, covering limited 

 fields. Such industries as brickmaking, ste- 

 nography, advertising, acetylene, hospital 

 practice, etc., are ably representei by their 

 respective trade journals ; and this tendency 

 is promoted by the complementary one of 

 the trades, in their centralization and concen- 

 tration, compelling even journals in the same 

 business to make their field distinct and re- 

 stricted. The public demands specific infor- 

 mation, not for the purpose of catering to a 

 passing interest, but for its application di- 

 rectly in the conduct of business or the for- 

 mation of a policy ; and those trade journals 

 succeed best which supply accurate informa- 

 tion of value to their readers. 



_ The ascent of Mont Blanc was accom- 

 plished between June 21st and September 

 16th by one hundred and nineteen persons, 

 eleven of whom were women. By nation- 

 ality the climbers included forty-four 

 Frenchmen and eleven Frenchwomen, fifteen 

 Englishmen and one Englishwoman, and fif- 

 teen Swiss, with Germans, Americans, Bel- 

 gians, Hollanders, Irish, and Russians. A 

 Belgian lady and a Dutch lady were of this 

 company. A Frenchwoman, seventy-five 

 years old, was one of the party that reached 

 the summit on one of the last days in Sep- 

 tember. 



Mr. Horace Brown, whose interesting 

 researches on the enzymes have attracted 

 much attention during the past few years, 

 has recently announced the results of some 

 important experiments on the vitality of 

 seeds. He found that certain seeds subjected 

 to the very low temperature of evaporating 

 liquid air, about — 192 C, for one hundred 

 and ten consecutive hours, retained perfectly 

 their power of germinating. 



The report made by Prof. W. A. Herd- 

 man to the British Association concerning 

 the liability to disease through oysters recog- 

 nizes the possibility of contamination through 

 the proximity of the beds to sewage water, 

 and recommends steps to be taken, through 

 either legislative control or association, to 

 induce the oyster trade to remove any pos- 

 sible suspicion of contamination of the beds ; 

 provision for the inspection of foreign oysters 



or their subjection to a quarantine by deposi- 

 tion for a stated period in British waters, as 

 already takes place in many instances ; and 

 the periodical inspection of "the grounds from 

 which mussels, cockles, and periwinkles are 

 gathered. 



As the result of long-continued observa- 

 tions of annual temperatures the appearance 

 of the earliest leaves, and the return of birds 

 of passage, M. Camille Flammarion has pub- 

 lished the conclusions that the maximum 

 temperatures correspond with abundant sun 

 spots and the least humidity, and the mini- 

 mum temperatures with sc rcity of sun spots 

 and great humidity ; and that sparrows be- 

 gin to sit when horse-chestnuts, lilacs, and 

 peonies begin to bloom, and the young are 

 hatched about two days after these plants 

 are in full inflorescence. M. Flammarion 

 also believes that the temperatures of March 

 and April indicate those of the entire year. 



Little steel capsules containing a small 

 quantity of liquefied carbonic acid are made, 

 La Nature says, at Zurich, Switzerland; One 

 of them is placed in the neck of a bottle of 

 water which is provided with a faucet and 

 the capsule is pricked. The carbonic acid 

 escapes and charges the water, and a bottle 

 of soda water is the result. The capsules 

 are cheap and convenient, and are very pop- 

 ular in Switzerland and Germany. 



It is proposed to erect a memorial to 

 James Clerk Maxwell in the parish church 

 of Corsock, of which he was a trustee and 

 elder. Subscriptions may be sent to the Rev. 

 George Stimock, The Manse, Corsock bv Dal- 

 beattie, N. B. 



Our obituary list includes among men 

 well known in science the names of Edward 

 Dunkin, an English practical astronomer, for 

 fifty years an assistant and part of the time 

 chief assistant at the Royal Observatory, 

 Greenwich, a contributor of many paper 

 on practical astronomy, aged seventy-seven 

 years ; H. Vogel, professor of photography, 

 photo-chemistry, and spectroscopy in the 

 Technical High School, Berlin, author of 

 The Chemistry of Light and Photography, in 

 the International Scientific Series, in" his 

 sixty-fifth year; Alexandre Pillet, curator of 

 the Musee Dupuytre, Paris, and well known 

 for his contributions on morbid anatomy, at 

 Paris, November 2d, aged eighty-eight years ; 

 George T. Allmann, formerly professor cf 

 botany in Dublin and of natural history in 

 Edinburgh, who described the hydroids col- 

 lected by the Challenger Expedition, and was 

 author of a number of monographs on the 

 invertebrates, aged eighty-six; Thomas San- 

 derson Bulmer, investigator in American 

 archaeology and ethnography, and contrib- 

 utor to Filling's Bibliographies of American 

 Languages, at Sierra Blanca, Texas, October 

 5th ; and Dr. Ewald Geissler, professor of 

 chemistry at the veterinary school of Dres- 

 den, aged fifty years. 



