288 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Oyster-cultcrk is carried on actively and 

 with yearly increasing returns at Arcachon 

 and Auray in France. Fifteen thousand of 

 the 37,500 acres of the bay of Arcachon are 

 now covered with oyster-beds, which yield 

 300,000,000 oysters a year. The oyster-beds 

 at Auray, on the coast of Brittany, are 

 less important than those of Arcachon, but 

 they furnished 70,000,000 oysters in 1885. 



The Hon. Carroll D. Wright has reported 

 upon convict-labor that the system of hand- 

 labor under public account is the best. The 

 facts show that the contract system is ob- 

 jectionable though it is the most profitable 

 one, and sustain the complaints that are made 

 against it. Mr. Wright believes that none of 

 the disadvantages arising under the contract 

 system or the piece-price modification of it 

 could be urged against the plan he recom- 

 mends, and the adoption of it would reduce 

 the effects of convict-labor on rates of wages 

 to a minimum. 



According to a report from the Inter- 

 nal Revenue Office, there are in the United 

 States 37 oleomargarine-factories, and 266 

 wholesale and 3,537 retail dealers in that 

 product who paid special taxes in Novem- 

 ber, December, January, and February last. 

 During the same months, 12,645,740 pounds 

 of oleomargarine were manufactured, and 

 152,797 pounds were exported. 



The jubilee of Professor Otto Struve was 

 recently celebrated at the Pulkova Observ- 

 atory, and was honored by the attendance 

 of many delegates from learned societies 

 and scientific institutions. 



It is related, as among the incidents of 

 the Charleston earthquake, that a young 

 girl who had lost her power of speech from 

 infancy, through severe illness, found it 

 suddenly restored in the terror of the shock. 

 Her first use of the recovered faculty was 

 to scream for fear ; but, finding she was able 

 to scream, it took but a step to discover that 

 she could also frame words. 



If the stories that are told are true, the 

 negroes at Charleston showed during the 

 earthquake how the power of old habits 

 would cling to them, notwithstanding the 

 great changes that have taken place in their 

 condition. After having been trained for 

 twenty years in the cultivation of self-reli- 

 ance and the recognition of their parity 

 with the whites, it is said that, when the 

 earthquake came, next to their dependence 

 on the Deity was conspicuous the trust they 

 put in the white people ; and, whenever they 

 caught sight of a white face in the darkness 

 and confusion, " they would turn to it as to 

 that of an angel." 



The tenth annual meeting of the Ameri- 

 can Society of Microscopists will be held in 

 Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, beginning August 

 30th. 



President Harrington, of the Ottawa 

 Field Naturalists' Club, has suggested a 

 test of what we really know about objects 

 with which we imagine ourselves well ac- 

 quainted. " Sit down with paper and pen," 

 he says, " and try how much you can write 

 about some species with which you are fa- 

 miliar, and you will probably be surprised 

 to find how little there is regarding it of 

 which you are entirely certain. Unless your 

 memory for details is much better than mine, 

 I fear your history will be far from exhaust- 

 ive. It is easy to believe that you are fully 

 acquainted with a certain form, that you 

 know where and when it appears, and its 

 manner of life and reproduction, but when 

 you attempt to record these, doubts begin 

 to flit through your mind, and your knowl- 

 edge seems less assured." 



We noticed some months ago that Cap- 

 tain Willard Glazier claimed that he had 

 discovered in 1881 the true source of the 

 Mississippi River in a lake, hitherto unex- 

 plored, a short distance above Itasca Lake, 

 to which he gave his own name. The va- 

 lidity of the discovery was disputed ; the 

 Minnesota Historical Society took it up for 

 examination ; and its report by the Hon. 

 James II. Baker demonstrates that Captain 

 Glazier's claim is of the most fraudulent 

 character. The lake, the true name of 

 which is Elk Lake, is not new, but was 

 known to Schoolcraft and Nicollet, was 

 marked on their maps, and has been marked 

 upon every map of respectable pretensions 

 since 1832. Mr. Henry D. Harrowcr has 

 also established the same facts in a pam- 

 phlet published by Ivisou, LTakeman & Co., 

 in which he shows by parallel columns that 

 Captain Glazier stole a considerable part of 

 his narrative bodily from Schoolcraft. The 

 reports afford a convincing exposure of an 

 attempted imposture, which was as silly as 

 it was impudent. 



It has been observed in Ottawa, Canada, 

 that the introduction of the electric light in 

 street illumination has facilitated the col- 

 lection of entomological specimens, particu- 

 larly of rare species, as insects of all kinds 

 are attracted to the lamps in large numbers. 



OBITUARY NOTES. 



Dr. Grothe, of the Polytcchnical School 

 at Delft, died on the 10th of February, in 

 the eighty-first year of his age. 



M. Tiiollon, astronomer at the obser- 

 vatory in Nice, died April 8th, after a long 

 illness, at the age of fifty years. His name 

 was associated with many important discov- 

 eries in spectroscopy, the most notable of 

 which, perhaps, was that of the means of 

 distinguishing between telluric and solar 

 rays. 



