ON THE PROGRESS OP SCIENCE. 17 



Phormium Tena.T, maybe dressed at a cost not exceeding 5 per 

 ton, (this price to prepare the flax as a raw material,) reckoning the 

 wages of an ordinary laborer at 4s. per diem, and of artisans at 6s. to 

 6s. 6d. The machine to be of two kinds one analogous to the old 

 spinning-wheel, that may be used in every cottage or shepherd's hut, 

 and the other suitable for more extensive operations. 



The New York Academy of Medicine, through the liberality of a 

 few of its members, offers a prize of $100 for the best essay on " The 

 Nature and Treatment of Cholera Infantum," to be presented during 

 the ensuing year. The trial for the prize is open to the profession 

 throughout the country. 



The National Education Society, at its session at Pittsburg last 

 August, offered a reward of $500 for the best philosophical work on 

 education. That Society adjourned to Washington city, August 8, 

 1854. 



The French Government has decided that a periodical, containing 

 reports and papers of scientific and literary societies, accounts of 

 missions, &c., shall henceforth be published under the title of Bulletin 

 des Societes Savants. 



At the last meeting of the Royal Geographical Society the Found 

 er's medal was presented to Admiral Smyth, for his able and all but 

 exhaustive work on the Mediterranean Sea. A medal was also pre- 

 sented to Capt. McClure for his discoveries in the Polar Regions. 



The office of superintendent of the French National Observatory 

 has been given to M. Leverrier. 



A petition, drawn up j)y M. Vattemare, has been addressed to the 

 American Senate. Its purpose is to induce that body to examine the 

 French metrical decimal system for weights and measures, and adopt 

 it, or a similar one, in the United States. In France the monetary 

 system is decimal, and has been since the revolution of '93 ; the 

 thermometer is decimal, since Napoleon established the centigrade ; 

 and measures of length, surface, solidity, capacity and weight, have 

 been obligatory decimal since 1840. 



At the recent Congress of the learned societies of France, the sub- 

 ject of the acclimatization of useful plants and animals received con- 

 siderable attention. It was stated that, from what has already been 

 done and what is now doing, there is every reason to expect that 

 several sorts of vegetables, fruits, plants, birds, fish, and animals 

 heretofore confined to Asiatic or American countries, will before long 

 become completely naturalized in France, and will in time form an 

 important part of the people's food, or will add to the conveniences or 

 pleasures of life. 



A new tuber, the Chinese Yam, has been introduced in Paris, from 



