HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



21 



construed as expressing approval by Sir Michael 

 Hicks-Beach of experiments on animals, or in any 

 way aftecting the exercise by the Secretary of State 

 of his discretionary powers to grant or withhold a 

 vivisection licence to the proposed institute. 



It is proposed to erect an observatory on top of 

 Mont Blanc. The idea originated with M. Janssen, 

 who stayed on the mountain some time last summer 

 for the purpose of making meteorological observations. 

 In conjunction with M. Eiffel (of tower fame), and 

 with the support of M. Bischoffsheim, Prince Roland 

 Bonaparte, and Baron Alfred de Rothschild, he has 

 now elaborated a plan which is as daring as the 

 Jungfrau railway. The obsei-vatory is to be entirely 

 of iron, and is to have a length of eighty-five feet and 

 a breadth of twenty feet. The iron roof is to have 

 the spherical form of an ironclad turret, which the 

 construction will much resemble. The erection of 

 such a building on the highest point of Mont Blanc 

 naturally involves thorough preliminary studies, with 

 which a Zurich engineer experienced in works on 

 high mountains has been charged by M. Eiffel and 

 M. Janssen. 



We deeply regret having to record the death of 

 Mr. D. Mackintosh, F.G.S., whose work on "The 

 Scenery of England and Wales," is well known. It 

 was a pioneer work on the subject, although it 

 ascribed everything to marine denudation. Mr. 

 Mackintosh was also well known as a geological 

 lecturer. 



" Technical Education " is all in the air. The 

 official people discussing it remind us of the Little 

 Room at Jerusalem. 



A NEW Flux for iron has been brought out under 

 the name of Stephatiite. It includes aluminum with 

 the iron in a chemical combination, and is said to 

 render the iron harder than the hardest steel. 



M. BOUTOUX has found there are five species of 

 plant fungi, and three of bacteria present during the 

 fermentation of bread. The bacteria operate on the 

 gluten. 



We are sorry to record the death of an early 

 contributor to our columns, that of the genial natural- 

 ist Dr. Thos. Allcock of Manchester, in his sixty-ninth 

 year. 



MICROSCOPY. 



New Slides.— Mr. Abraham Flatters, of Open- 

 shaw, Manchester, sends us four botanical slides, 

 which for clean-cut sections and definite staining and 

 good mounting are among the best we have examined. 

 All botanical students are aware that a well-mounted 

 section of the organs of plants is worth a thousand 

 pictures of the same, as regards their power of im- 

 pression. Mr. Flatter's slides are as follows : section 

 of the ovary of Lilhim croceum, 2-inch object ; leaf- 



bud of ash {Fraxinus excelsior), 2-inch object, and 

 spot ; trans-section of leaf-bud of sycamore {Acer 

 pscudoplatanus), 2-inch object ; trans-section of ovary 

 oi Iris Germanica, 2-inch object. Mr. Flatters is a 

 working man — one of the ardent and enthusiastic 

 working-men naturalists for which Lancashire has 

 always been famous. We hope, therefore, the fact of 

 our calling attention to his capital slides will be a 

 source of encourasjement. 



ZOOLOGY. 



A Link with the Trilobites. — Four or five sea 

 scorpions have recently been placed in two of the 

 tanks in the fish-house at the Zoological Gardens. 

 The creature is better known as King Crab {Limuliis), 

 but the first name is more appropriate. It is really a 

 marine representation of the scorpions in the insect- 

 house, and is not a crab at all ; but unlike them it 

 cannot sting, although the long spine in which its 

 body terminates is the precise equivalent of the 

 venomous sting of the scorpion. If the sea scorpions 

 find their surroundings sufficiently congenial, they 

 may, perhaps, lay eggs and hatch out young. This 

 would be a very desirable event, for the young of 

 this animal are curiously like some of the extinct 

 Trilobites. 



BOTANY. 



The Tii Plant of Tahiti. — In an interesting 

 work entitled " Tahiti, the Garden of the Pacific," 

 by Dora Hort, published by T. Fisher Unwin, there 

 appears the following account of some peculiar 

 properties of the above plant. Perhaps some of the 

 readers of Science-Gossip may be able to furnish a 

 satisfactory explanation of the power possessed by 

 this plant in deadening the heat emitted from fire. 



" The leaf of the Tii possesses the mysterious 

 power of quelling the heat usually emitted from 

 flames of fire. At an early period of Tahitian history 

 this property was only known to the idolatrous priests, 

 who made use of their knowledge to assist in the 

 performance of miracles which would not bear too 

 close scrutiny. Standing by the marais, they held 

 branches of the Tii plants, which rendered them 

 imperviable to the fiery tongue of flame by which 

 they were surrounded. Captain Blackett related to 

 me a ceremony he had witnessed some years pre- 

 viously at one of the Leeward Islands. A procession 

 of natives bearing branches of the plant in question, 

 waved them from side to side as they walked with 

 bare feet and legs over red-hot stones, and through 

 fiery flames without any injury whatever to their naked 

 limbs. Captain Blackett, after having watched their 

 mode of proceeding, was convinced that waving the 

 branches they carried counteracted in some way the 

 effect of the heat, which he undertook to test in his 



