J20 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



ate effects are anything but pleasing to the 

 beholder. The feathers soon begin to fall, 

 giving the bird very much the appearance 

 of molting ; in a short time, however, new 

 feathers make their appearance, and it is 

 then, as they attain full growth, that they 

 exhibit the curious tints observed. 



Professor C. W. Clatpole, of Antioch 

 College, Ohio, has recently been examining 

 the Schliemann collection of antiquities in 

 the South Kensington Museum in London, 

 and he concludes that the names attached 

 to some of the objects in the collection be- 

 tray a rather unwarrantable use of the im- 

 agination. Among others, the little hour- 

 glass-shaped pebbles labeled " Minerva Or- 

 naments," and hitherto regarded as idols, 

 are in his opinion nothing more than " Tro- 

 jan net-sinkers," being almost identical in 

 form and appearance with the "net-sink- 

 ers " frequently found on the shores of our 

 lakes and rivers. 



Dr. James Prescott Joule has received 

 the Albert Medal from the Society of Arts, 

 for having, as the award reads, established, 

 after most laborious research, the true rela- 

 tion between heat, electricity, and mechani- 

 cal work. 



Dr. Paul Broca, the distinguished 

 French anthropologist, was taken ill at the 

 session of the French Senate of July 8th, 

 and died the following night. He was fifty- 

 six years old, and had lately been elected a 

 life-member of the Senate. 



Holland has lost its leading chemist by 

 the death of Professor G. J. Mulder, of 

 Utrecht, which took place in May last. Pro- 

 fessor Mulder was born in 1802, and, pre- 

 vious to taking the chair of Chemistry at 

 Utrecht in 1841, served as Professor of 

 Botany and Chemistry at the Rotterdam 

 Medical School. He made a variety of re- 

 searches and discoveries in the chemistry of 

 vegetable physiology, and in animal chemis- 

 try proved the presence of carbonic acid as 

 a normal constituent of the blood, ne was 

 the author of numerous works, and the edi- 

 tor from 1842 to the time of his death of 

 the only chemical journal of Holland. 



M. Camille Flammarion has been award- 

 ed the Monthyon prize of the Paris Academy 

 of Sciences for his new work on " Popular 

 Astronomy " (" Astronomic Populaire "). 



Letters recently received in England 

 from Mr. Whymper state that he has found 

 very extensive glaciers on the mountains 

 Cayambe, Sarauscu, and Cotocachi, and had 

 previously discovered other glaciers on Chim- 

 borazo, Sincholagua, Antisana, Cotopaxi, Ili- 

 niza, Carihuairazo, and Quilindaiia. Many 

 of these glaciers are as large as the largest 

 Alpine ones, and the upper four thousand 



feet of Cayambe, Antisana, and Chimborazo 

 are almost completely enveloped by them. 

 Mr. Whymper is contributing largely to our 

 knowledge of these mountains, for the last 

 edition of the " Encyclopaedia Britannica" 

 mentions the glacier of the mountain Altar 

 as the only real glacier known to exist in 



the Ecuadorian Andes. 



t 



The entire absence of scurvy during the 

 voyage of the Vega is attributed by Profes- 

 sor Nordenskjold to the free use of a little 

 berry that springs out of the ice and snow 

 during the summer. It bears profusely, 

 and has a taste like the raspberry, but more 

 acid. The fruit is dried and mixed with 

 the milk of the reindeer, and can be carried 

 in a frozen state for thousands of miles. 

 It appears also that the party were never 

 wholly without daylight, having two hours 

 of it during the shortest day, although the 

 sun was not above the horizon. 



The Custos of the Berlin Agricultural 

 Museum, Dr. L. Wittmacht, has lately been 

 engaged in the examination of some partly 

 carbonized seeds which were found by Yir- 

 chow and Schliemann in their excavations. 

 Among them were a vetch (Ervum Ervilia, 

 L.), field-beans, and peas. The discovery 

 of the peas is the more interesting because, 

 according to several authors, peas were un- 

 known to the ancient Greeks. A remark- 

 able seed was a hard wheat, extremely 

 small grained, very sharp, closely pressed, 

 extraordinarily flat on the furrowed side. 

 The grains are wholly different from those 

 of every wheat hitherto known, and are 

 especially distinct from the thick-bellied 

 grains of the Egyptian mummy-pits and of 

 the lake-villages. 



A practical test of the efficiency of the 

 electric light in naval operations was made 

 recently on board two vessels of the British 

 navy at Gibraltar. During the practice, 

 which was continued for nearly an hour, 

 every hole and cranny on the western face 

 of the rock was searched out and illuminated 

 with the clearest distinctness, and every 

 boat and vessel in the bay underwent a 

 similar minute examination. Only a limited 

 surface could, however, be illuminated at a 

 time, so that the process of search was 

 somewhat slow. 



M. Boiteau has reported to the French 

 Academy of Sciences that the application of 

 sulphide of carbon as a cure for the phyl- 

 loxera has proved thoroughly successful. 

 Diseased vines, which were treated with this 

 substance two or three years ago, look even 

 better now than they did before they were 

 attacked ; and it seems established that the 

 sulphide has no damaging effect on the pro- 

 ductiveness of the soil. The only drawback 

 to the use of the substance is its scarcity 

 and consequent high price. 



