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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



American Associations, and has already en- 

 rolled one hundred and fifty members. Its 

 first bulletin contains a paper on the fevers 

 of Algeria, which affords the most satisfac- 

 tory evidence that a great improvement has 

 been made in the sanitary condition of the 

 country, by the operation of the hygienic 

 measures which have been carried out by 

 the civil and military authorities, consisting 

 of the clearing of the ground, drainage, 

 plantations of trees, etc. During the thirty 

 years from 1845 to 1875 the death-rate of 

 the European population fell from 50 to 38 

 per thousand inhabitants. The diminution 

 of mortality is shown in a still more strik- 

 ing degree in the army, where it fell from 

 77'8 per thousand men between 1837 and 

 1846, to 123 per thousand in 1876, and 12"5 

 in 1877. These proportions are very near 

 to the rate of mortality in the interior of 

 France itself, which was equivalent to ten 

 deaths among a thousand effective men dur- 

 ing 1876. 



Professor Boyd Dawkins, F. R. S., of 

 Owens College, Manchester, has engaged to 

 deliver a course of lectures on " Primitive 

 Man," at the Lowell Institute, Boston, in 

 October and November of this year. 



M. Raoul Pictet recently delivered a 

 lecture in Paris on " Cold and its Applica- 

 tions to Science and Industry," in the course 

 of which he struck a medal with fifteen kilo- 

 grammes (or thirty-three pounds) of solidi- 

 fied mercury. 



The case mentioned by Dr. Coues of a 

 breed of one-toed hogs has a parallel in 

 that of a one-toed deer, the feet of which 

 were recently presented to the California 

 Academy of Sciences. The third toe is de- 

 scribed as the only one used for progression, 

 though there were different degrees of de- 

 velopment in the respective feet. 



Mr. Thomas Ball, F. R. S., F. L. S., died 

 at Selborne, Hampshire, England, on March 

 13th, aged eighty-seven. He was for a long 

 time Professor of Zoology at King's College, 

 and the writer of several works on natural 

 history. The last eighteen years of his life 

 were spent at the breakers at Selborne, the 

 former home of Gilbert White the natural- 

 ist, which he purchased, and made the re- 

 pository of numerous memorials of White, 

 that, with the house and grounds, were al- 

 ways kept open to visitors. 



A commissioner of the London " Morn- 

 ing Post," who has been examining the con- 

 dition of the Riviera between Cannes and 

 San Reno, reports the existence of an inter- 

 esting state of things in that famous health 

 resort. There are no sewers ; cesspools are 

 universal, and so placed as to be sources of 

 danger to the inmates of the houses ; pub- 

 lic water-supply there is none, and the rain- 



water drains, which are also conduits for the 

 cesspools, have slight gradients, are never 

 flushed, and are generally the sources of 

 foul emanations ; and, to cap all, the beaches 

 and promenades near the sea are soaked 

 with sewage which also chokes the almost 

 tideless bays. 



Arthur Jules Morin, born in Paris, Oc- 

 tober 17, 1795, died in that city on the 7th 

 of February last, in his eighty-fifth year. 

 Besides a brilliant military career, in which 

 he reached the position of artillery general 

 of division, he was distinguished as an in- 

 vestigator, chiefly in the field of mechanics. 

 He also possessed executive abilities of a 

 high order, and held for thirty years the di- 

 rectorship of the Conservatoire des Arts et 

 Metiers, which, under his administration, 

 became the leading school for the artisan 

 classes in Paris. He was president of the 

 commission for the first Universal Exposi- 

 tion held in the French capital ; in 1862 

 was elected President of the French Society 

 of Civil Engineers, and has been a member 

 of the French Academy of Sciences since 

 1843. 



Mr. C. W. Siemens, pursuing his obser- 

 vations on the influence of the electric light 

 on vegetation, finds that, by its use, the 

 growth and ripening of fruit may be great- 

 ly hastened. At a recent meeting of the 

 Royal Society of London, he exhibited two 

 pots of strawberries which had been grown 

 in the usual way until the fruit-buds ap- 

 peared, when one was exposed to daylight 

 during the day and the electric light at 

 night, the other being left to the influence 

 of ordinary daylight alone. The former, or 

 the one exposed to continuous light, bore a 

 bunch of large, red, fragrant berries, while 

 on the other the berries were still green with 

 the exception of one, that bore a slight red 

 spot. 



Dr.William Sharpet, M. D., F. R. S., the 

 eminent physiologist, died in London, April 

 11th, at the age of seventy-eight. He gradu- 

 ated in medicine at twenty-one, practiced a 

 short time, and then went to the Continent 

 for the purpose of continuing his studies. 

 Subsequently he returned to Edinburgh, and 

 began to lecture on anatomy; and, five years 

 later (1836) was appointed to the chair of 

 Anatomy and Physiology of the University 

 of London (now University College), which 

 he occupied for thirty-eight years. During 

 this period he became celebrated as a teach- 

 er and original investigator, and, though not 

 a. voluminous writer, his contributions have 

 always held a high place in the literature 

 of these departments of science. He was 

 for some years Secretary of the Royal So- 

 ciety, and, from 1840 to 1S63, Examiner in 

 Anatomy and Physiology to the University 

 of London. 



