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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



We want the means of improving it. There 

 arc thousands of intelligent people who have 

 not yet made its acquaintance ; and to reach 

 them we must rely upon the help of our 

 friends, who know what the " Monthly " is 

 worth. We ask each one of our present sub- 

 scribers to detach the list of premiums from 

 his number, and present it to soma read- 

 ing neighbor who can appreciate and ought 

 to have " The Popular Science Monthly." 

 There can be no better investment of money 

 for individual improvement and sound fam- 

 ily education than this. The magazine is 

 worth twice what it costs to any thoughtful 

 man, and when he can get his choice among 

 a hundred sterling books as an extra induce- 

 ment, which virtually reduces the cost of 

 the " Monthly " to three dollars, he ought 

 certainly to be informed of his advantage. 



Dr. Phipson has proposed a new method 

 of solving the question of a cheap house- 

 hold light. He has succeeded, with a com- 

 paratively feeble electric current, in per- 

 ceptibly increasing the phosphorescence of 

 certain bodies which are made faintly light 

 by the rays of the sun. He incloses in a 

 Geissler tube, containing a gas in a more or 

 less rarefied condition, a phosphorescent 

 body, the sulphuret of barium, for instance. 

 By causing a constant current of a certain 

 intensity to pass through the tube, he ob- 

 tains a uniform and an agreeable light, at 

 an expense which he estimates to be less 

 than that of gaslight. 



Dr. Carpenter says the entire absence 

 of sunlight on the deep-sea bottom seems 

 to have the same effect as the darkness of 

 caves, in reducing to a rudimentary condi- 

 tion the eyes of such of their inhabitants as 

 fish and Crustacea which ordinarily enjoy 

 visual power ; and many of these are pro- 

 vided with enormously long and delicate 

 feelers or hairs, with which they feel their 

 way about, just as a blind man does with 

 his stick. 



The use of camomile-flowers for the 

 adulteration of smoking-tobacco has recent- 

 ly been discovered in England, just in time 

 to stop an enormous swindle. The flowers 

 are first deprived of their bitter principle by 

 exhaustion in water, and then colored, sweet- 

 ened, and dried, when they are ready for 

 mixing with cut tobacco. A preparation 

 sold under the name of " The New Smoking 

 Mixture " was found on examination to be 

 about one third tobacco and two thirds cam- 

 omile-flowers. 



Chintamanat Ragoonatha Charry, F. 

 R. A. S., for thirty-five years connected with 

 the Madras Observatory, and for the last 



seventeen years its head assistant, died on 

 February 3, 1880. Besides a large amount 

 of valuable work, the record of which is 

 confined to the observatory, he contributed 

 several papers to the Royal Astronomical 

 Society of London, and was made a Fellow 

 of that body in January, 1872. He was the 

 first and only native of India who, up to the 

 time of his death, had entered the lists as a 

 discoverer of new celestial objects, having 

 detected two new variable stars R. Reticuli 

 in 1877, and V. Cephci in 1878. During the 

 later years of his life he delivered popular 

 lectures on astronomy, explaining the prin- 

 ciples of the science in simple and familiar 

 terms, with a view to the removal of some 

 of the absurd notions and ignorant supersti- 

 tions concerning celestial phenomena that 

 are propagated by the Hindoo astrologers. 



The first volume of " Studies from the 

 Biological Laboratory of the Johns Hopkins 

 University " is announced. It is made up 

 of original papers on physiology, animal and 

 vegetable morphology, and embryology, con- 

 tributed by members of the university, and 

 based on investigations conducted in the 

 biological laboratory and marine zoological 

 station of the institution. The present vol- 

 ume contains 519 pages, with forty plates 

 and illustrations in the text. Price, $3. 50. 

 A volume a year, issued in quarterly parts 

 of about 100 pages, at a dollar each, is con- 

 templated ; or it can be obtained at the end 

 of the year, bound complete, for $5. As 

 they are doing some of the best original 

 work in the country at Johns Hopkins, in 

 these departments, those who wish to keep 

 posted in the latest results of biological in- 

 quiry will do well to procure these publica- 

 tions as they appear. 



Died, March 1 1th, at Bethlehem, Pennsyl- 

 vania, Professor William T. Roepper, aged 

 seventy years. Professor Roepper was born 

 in Germany, came to America forty years ago, 

 and in 1866 was appointed to the chair of 

 Mineralogy and Geology in Lehigh Univer- 

 sity. He gave chief attention to the science 

 of mineralogy, the mathematical relations of 

 crystals and the chemical composition of 

 minerals being subjects of special study. 

 The practical aspects of the science were 

 also of much interest to him, and his ser- 

 vices as an expert were often in request. 



M. G. Carlet, of France, has been study- 

 ing the locomotion of insects and arachnids, 

 and reports as the result of his observations 

 that the walking of insects may be repre- 

 sented by that of three men in Indian file, 

 the foremost and hindmost of whom keep 

 step with each other, while the middle one 

 walks in the alternate step. The walking 

 of arachnids is represented by four men in 

 file, the even-numbered ones walking in one 

 step, while the odd-numbered ones walk in 

 the alternate step. 



