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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



der the control of the diver. A solution of 

 caustic soda, distributed through the pores 

 of a mass of* spongy India-rubber and con- 

 fined in a close case, is provided for the dis- 

 position of the carbonic acid. A proper 

 arrangement of tubing causes the whole of 

 the exhaled air to pass through this case 

 and its soda. A single charging with soda 

 answers for a week of daily use of the ap- 

 paratus. Mr. Fleuss exhibited his confi- 

 dence in his apparatus by putting it on and 

 going under water for the first time in his 

 life, and remaining there for more than an 

 hour. 



NOTES. 



Professor William K. Kedzie, formerly 

 Professor of Chemistry and Physics in the 

 Kansas State Agricultural College, and Pro- 

 fessor of Chemistry in Oberlin College, died 

 at Lansing, Michigan, April 14th, in the 

 twenty-ninth year of his age. As Chemist 

 of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture, 

 he performed valuable analyses of the soils, 

 minerals, and vegetable products of Kansas. 

 He planned the laboratory of the Kansas 

 Agricultural College, and was the principal 

 originator of the Natural History Society of 

 the Michigan Agricultural College. His chief 

 published writings are a work on the geolo- 

 gy of Kansas and a number of articles con- 

 tributed to the Kansas Academy of Science. 



Soundings of the Niagara River below 

 the falls have been taken by a party of 

 United States engineers. A line, cast out 

 as near to the falls as they could be ap- 

 proached in a small boat and near to the 

 shore, gave 83 feet. Farther down the 

 stream the line told off 100 feet, and at the 

 inclined railway 192 feet. The average 

 depth of the swift drift, where the river 

 suddenly becomes narrow with a velocity 

 too great to be measured, was 153 feet. 

 Immediately below the bridge, where the 

 whirlpool rapids set in, the depth was com- 

 puted to be 210 feet. 



The death is announced of Dr. J. G. 

 Mulder, Professor of Chemistry in the Uni- 

 versity of Utrecht, in his seventy-eighth 

 year. 



Professor Nicholas Zinin, the eminent 

 Russian chemist, died early in the present 

 year, in the sixty-eighth year of his age. He 

 was fifteen years a professor in the Univer- 

 sity of Kazan, after which, from 1848 to 

 1 874, he was Professor of Chemistry in the 

 Imperial Academy of Medicine at St. Peters- 

 burg. 



The Summer School of Zoology of the 

 Johns Hopkins University is established on 

 an island near the mouth of Chesapeake 

 Bay, for a term of six weeks. The place 

 abounds in living organisms in such variety 

 that the student has an opportunity of study- 

 ing representatives of nearly all the larger 

 groups of animals, and is free from nioscpii- 

 toes and extreme heat. 



A second specimen of the archseopteryx 

 is on deposit in the Geological Museum at 

 Berlin, with the expectation that it will be 

 purchased. It was bought from its former 

 owner for five thousand dollars by Herr Sie- 

 mens, of Berlin, to prevent its being brought 

 to this country. 



M. Chevreul, who is now in his ninety- 

 fifth year, has begun his course in chemistry 

 at the Paris Museum of Natural History, 

 with as much apparent zest and energy as 

 he exhibited fifty years ago, when he first 

 entered upon the duties of his chair. 



Gelose is the name of the most valuable 

 constituent of the substance known in com- 

 merce as China moss. It has the property 

 of absorbing and solidifying into a colorless 

 and diaphanous jelly five hundred times its 

 weight of water, and is capable of forming 

 ten times as much jelly by weight as the 

 best animal gelatine. 



Professor David Thomas Ansted, au- 

 thor of several works on geology and its 

 applications, died May 20th. He was born 

 in London in 1814, was appointed Professor 

 of Geology in King's College, Cambridge, in 

 1840, and afterward Lecturer on Geology at 

 other institutions, Assistant Secretary to 

 the Geological Society, and editor of its 

 quarterly journal. 



Pertinent to the discussion concerning 

 the fertility of hybrids, it is stated that the 

 fertility of the progeny of the hare and the 

 rabbit has been established for several gen- 

 erations. The hybrids are known in France 

 as leporides, and have been constituted by 

 Haeckel into the species Lepus Huxlcyii. 



The death of Professor Wilhelm Schim- 

 per, the distinguished Alsatian botanist, is 

 announced. He was best known through 

 his works on the mosses, in which depart- 

 ment he was one of the leading authorities. 

 He was also author of an important treatise 

 on vegetable paleontology, and of several 

 works on Alsatian botany and geology. 



The death of Dr. Rudolph H. C. C. 

 Scheffer, director of the botanical gardens 

 at Buitenzorg, Java, which took place March 

 9th, causes a loss which will be felt by a 

 large circle of botanists throughout the 

 world. He had been director of the gar- 

 dens for twelve years, and was in communi- 

 cation with every home and colonial insti- 

 tution. 



