864 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



oughly moist during the early morning, and 

 has the appearance of having been freshly 

 sprinkled. 



The Tarahumare people, who live in the 

 most inaccessible part of northern Mexico, 

 were described by Dr. Krauss in the British 

 Association as ignorant and primitive, and 

 many still living in caves. What villages 

 they have are at altitudes of about eight 

 thousand feet above the sea level. They are 

 a small and wiry people, with great powers 

 of endurance. Their only food is pinoli, or 

 maize, parched and ground. They have a 

 peculiar drink, called teakuin, also produced 

 from maize and manufactured with consid- 

 erable ceremony, which tastes like a mixture 

 of sour milk and turpentine. Their language 

 is limited to about three hundred words. 

 Their imperfect knowledge of numbers ren- 

 ders them unable to count beyond ten. Their 

 religion seems to be a distorted and imper- 

 fect conception of Christian traditions, mixed 

 with some of their own ideas and supersti- 

 tions. 



The directory of the School of Anthro- 

 pology of Paris, which consists chiefly of the 

 professors in the institution, has chosen Dr. 

 Capitan, professor of pathological anthropol- 

 ogy, to succeed M. Gabriel de Mortillet, de- 

 ceased, as professor of prehistoric anthropol- 

 ogy. Dr. Capitan's former chair is suppressed. 



The highest cog-wheel railroad in Europe 

 and probably in the world is the one from Zer- 

 matt, Switzerland, to the summit of the Gor- 

 ner Grat, upward of eleven thousand five hun- 

 dred feet above the sea. It is between five and 

 six miles long, and rises nearly fifty-two hun- 

 dred feet, with a maximum grade of twenty 

 per cent. There are two intermediate sta- 

 tions, at the Riffel Alp and the Riffelberg, 

 and the ascent is made in ninety minutes. 

 The height of this road will be surpassed by 

 that of the one now being erected up the 

 Jungfrau. 



Extraordinary advantages are claimed 

 by Mrs. Theodore R. MacClure, of the State 

 Board of Health, for Michigan as a summer 

 and health-resort State. The State has more 

 than sixteen hundred miles of lake line, the 

 greater part of which is or can be utilized 

 for summer-resort purposes ; there are in its 

 limits 5,173 inland lakes varying in size and 

 having a total area of 712,864 square acres 

 of water. The many rivers running through 

 the State furnish on their banks delightful 

 places for camping and for recreation. 



An action of bacteria on photographic 

 plates was described by Prof. P. P. Frank- 

 land at the last meeting of the British Asso- 

 ciation. Ordinary bacterial cultures in gela- 

 tin and agar-agar are found to be capable 

 of affecting the photographic film even at a 

 distance of half an inch, while, when they 

 are placed in contact with the film, definite 

 pictures of the bacterial growths can be ob- 



tained. The action does not take place 

 through glass, and therefore, as in the case 

 of Dr. W. J. Russell's observations with 

 some other substances, it is considered prob- 

 ably due to the evolution of volatile chemical 

 materials which react with the sensitive film. 

 Many varieties of bacteria exert the action, 

 but to a different degree. Bacterial growths 

 which are luminous in the dark are much 

 more active than the non- luminous bacteria 

 hitherto tried. 



Telephonic communication, it is said, has 

 been established between a number of farms 

 in Australia by means of wire fences. A 

 correspondent of the Australian Agricul- 

 turist from a station near Colmar represents 

 that it is easy to converse with a station 

 eight miles distant by means of instruments 

 connected on the wire fences, and that the 

 same kind of communication has been estab- 

 lished over a distance of eight miles. Sev- 

 eral stations are connected in this way. 



We have to record the deaths of F. A. 

 Obach, electrical engineer, at Gratz, Austria, 

 December 27th, aged forty-six years. He 

 was author of numerous papers on subjects 

 of electrical science in English and German 

 publications, and of lectures on the chem- 

 istry of India rubber and gutta percha ; Dr. 

 Reinhold Ehret, seismologist and author of 

 books on earthquakes and seismometers, who 

 died from an Alpine accident in the Susten 

 Pass ; Dr. Joseph Coats, professor of pa- 

 thology at the University of Glasgow, and 

 author of a manual of pathology, a work on 

 tuberculosis, etc. ; Thomas Hincks, F. R. S., 

 author of books on marine zoology, February 

 2d; Major J. Hotchkiss, president in 1895 of 

 the Geological Section of the American Asso- 

 ciation and author of papers on economic 

 geology and engineering; Wilbur Wilson Tho- 

 burn, professor of biomechanics at Leland 

 Stanford Junior University ; Dr. Giuseppe 

 Gibelli, professor of botany in the University 

 of Turin ; Dr. G. Wolffhuzel, professor of 

 hygiene in the University of Gottingen ; Dr. 

 Dareste de Chavannes, author of researches 

 in animal teratology, and formerly president 

 of the French Society of Anthropology ; Dr. 

 Rupert Bock, professor of mechanics in 

 the Technical Institute of Vienna; William 

 Colenso, F. R. S., of New Zealand, naturalist 

 and author of investigations of Maori an- 

 tiquities and myths ; Dr. Lench, assistant in 

 the observatory at Zurich, Switzerland ; Dr. 

 Franz Lang, rector and teacher of natural 

 history in the cantonal schools of Soleure, 

 Switzerland, and one of the presidents of the 

 Swiss Natural History Society, aged seventy- 

 eight years ; Dr. William Rutherford, pro- 

 fessor of physiology in the University of 

 Edinburgh, and author of several books in 

 that science, February 21st, in his sixtieth 

 year ; and Sir Douglas Galton, president of 

 the British Association in 1895 and an au- 

 thority and author on sanitation, March 10th, 

 in his seventy seventh year. 



