144 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Mr. G. TnoMANN, of the United States 

 Brewers' Association, has published a pam- 

 phlet to show that beer is a perfectly whole- 

 some drink. In support of his assertion, 

 he alleges that while brewers drink more 

 beer, and drink it more constantly, than 

 other people, the average death-rate among 

 them is lower by forty per cent than that 

 of corresponding urban populations ; that 

 their health is unusually good, with compar- 

 ative freedom from diseases of the kidneys 

 and liver ; and that on the average they 

 live longer and preserve their physical ener- 

 gies better than the average workmen of 

 the United States. Mr. Thomann produces 

 doctors' certificates showing a mean annual 

 death-rate of 7*5 per 1,000 among 960 brew- 

 ery-workmen, against 12 '5 of urban popula- 

 tion ; and he talks of men drinking an aver- 

 age of ten pints of beer a day. 



A new process in manufacturing iron has 

 been tested at Pittsburg and at Southwick, 

 Staffordshire, England, in which the metal 

 undergoes a chemical change that is claimed 

 to greatly improve the quality and test of 

 the iron to whatever class it may belong. 

 The new process is said to facilitate the 

 running of the metal, and also increase its 

 Strength. 



Mr. Rtsetn, in a recent letter, has ex- 

 pressed his opinion of railways in a brief 

 but most energetic manner. He says : 

 "They are to me the loath somest form of 

 deviltry now extant, animated and deliber- 

 ate earthquakes, destructive of ail wise so- 

 cial habit, or possible natural beauty, car- 

 riages of damned souls on the ridges of their 

 own graves 



t 



A limited edition of the first volume of 

 a series of selected morphological mono- 

 graphs, by members of Johns Hopkins Uni- 

 versity, is about to be issued from the pub- 

 lication agency of that institution. The 

 series will be under the editorial direction 

 of Professor W. K. Brooks. The coming 

 number will contain three papers by Pro- 

 fessor Brooks, and one paper by E. B. Wil- 

 son. Only one hundred copies in all of the 

 volume will be issued. 



A bulletin of miscellaneous informa- 

 tion has been started at the Royal Gar- 

 dens, Kew, to be published occasionally, 

 and contain notes on economic products 

 and plants to which the attention of the 

 staff of the gardens may have been drawn, 

 or which may have been made the subject 

 of particular study there. 



Mr. John Murray, of the Challenger 

 Expedition, recently said, in the Royal So- 

 ciety of Edinburgh, that ho questioned 

 whether any country in the world, taking 

 its size into consideration, could show a 



better record of scientific work or a 

 greater mass of scientific literature than 

 Scotland during the past ten or twenty 

 years. 



Medals and prizes are to be given this 

 year, by the Royal Society of New South 

 Wales, for the best communications em- 

 bodying fruits of original research on the 

 silver-ore deposits of New South Wales ; 

 on the origin and mode of occurrence of 

 gold-bearing veins and of the associated 

 minerals ; on the influence of the Austra- 

 lian climate in producing modifications of 

 diseases ; and on the infusoria peculiar to 

 Australia. 



According to a paper read by Mr. John 

 Murray, before the Royal Society of Edin- 

 burgh, 2,243 cubic miles of rain fall annu- 

 ally on areas with inland drainage. Such 

 areas extend to 11,486,350 square miles. 

 The land draining directly to the ocean 

 has an area of 44,211,000 square miles, of 

 which 38,829,750 square miles have ten 

 inches or more of rainfall. The mean dis- 

 charge from this area into the ocean is 

 6,569 cubic miles annually. The total 

 weight of substances carried by this 

 means to the ocean is more than 5,000,- 

 000,000 tons each year. 



OBITUARY NOTES. 



Captain James B. Eads, the distinguished 

 engineer, died of pneumonia at Nassau, New 

 Providence, March 8th. He was widely 

 known as the constructor of several works 

 of great merit. Among them were the first 

 eight ironclad gunboats owned and used by 

 the United States, the bridge over the Mis- 

 sissippi River at St. Louis, and the system 

 of jetties for deepening the channel of the 

 mouth of the Mississippi. He had project- 

 ed a plan for a marine railway across the 

 Isthmus of Tehuantepec for carrying vessels 

 from one ocean to the other, and was elab- 

 orating its details and seeking means for 

 executing it at the time of his death. A 

 sketch of his life and works, revised by 

 himself, with a portrait, was published in 

 " The Popular Science Monthly " for Feb- 

 ruary, 1886. 



Dr. Gustav Heinrioh KiRcnExr-AUER, 

 first Burgomaster of Hamburg, and an emi- 

 nent naturalist, is dead. 



Dr. Julius Luttiuh, astronomer, and 

 Professor Jean Louis Trasenster, both died 

 on the 3d of January, 1887. 



Mr. Alexander Borodin, Professor of 

 Chemistry in the Medico-Surgical Academy 

 at St. Petersburg, and an eminent musical 

 composer, died February 27th. 



