POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



141 



is a chance whether the insanity or drunken- 

 ness, say, of the parent, will appear as such 

 in the child or be transmuted in transmission 

 to one or other of the alternate degenerate 

 conditions. The present system of treatment 

 has proved a disastrous failure ; short pe- 

 riods of punishment can have no effect, 

 either curative or deterrent. Everything 

 points in the direction of prolonged or in- 

 definite confinement in industrial peniten- 

 tiaries. 



Oscillations in Latitude. At the recent 

 anniversary meeting of the Royal Society, the 

 president, Sir William Thomson, spoke of the 

 investigation of oscillations of latitude which 

 has been instituted under the auspices of the 

 International Geodetic Union. Comparative 

 observations have been begun at Berlin, and 

 at Honolulu, which is very near the opposite 

 meridian to Berlin. The first several hun- 

 dred determinations of latitude made at 

 Honolulu during three months of a proposed 

 year of observations, compared with the 

 corresponding results at Berlin, showed that 

 the latitude during that time had increased 

 in Berlin and decreased at Honolulu by 

 about one third of a second. " Thus we 

 have decisive demonstration that motion, 

 relatively to the earth, of the earth's in- 

 stantaneous axis of rotation, is the cause of 

 variations of latitude which have been ob- 

 served at Berlin, Greenwich, and other ob- 

 servatories, and which can not be wholly at- 

 tributed to errors of observation." This, Prof. 

 Foerster remarks, gives observationalproof of 

 a conclusion which the author had expressed 

 in 1876, to the effect that irregular move- 

 ments of the earth's axis to the extent of half 

 a second may be produced by the temporary 

 changes of sea-level due to meteorological 

 causes. It is proposed that four permanent 

 stations for regular and continued observa- 

 tion of latitude at places of approximately 

 equal latitude and on meridians approxi- 

 mately 90 apart, be established under the 

 auspices of the International Geodetic Union. 

 The reason for this arrangement is, that a 

 change in the instantaneous axis of rotation 

 in the direction perpendicular to the merid- 

 ain of any one place would not alter its 

 latitude, but would alter the latitude of a 

 place 90 from it hx longitude by an amount 

 equal to the angular change of the position 



of the axis. Thus two stations in meridians 

 differing by 90 would theoretically suffice, 

 by observations of latitude, to determine the 

 changes in the position of the instantaneous 

 axis ; but differential results, such as those 

 already obtained between Berlin and Hono- 

 lulu, differing by approximately 180 in lon- 

 gitude, are necessary for eliminating errors 

 of observation sufficiently to give satisfactory 

 and useful results. 



Swedish Wood and Iron. According to 

 our minister in Stockholm, the two great 

 products of Sweden after agriculture are 

 wood and iron. The Norland is still covered 

 for the most part with an extensive black 

 forest, consisting largely of pine and spruce. 

 Upon the great water-shed called the fjdd 

 or Kblen (the keel of the country likened to 

 a boat turned bottom upward) stand the 

 chief timber forests ; and extensive lumber- 

 ing operations are carried on along the nu- 

 merous rivers and their tributaries that flow 

 thence. At the mouths of most of the rivers 

 are towns which take their names as well 

 as their business and prosperity from the 

 streams where are large saw-mills. Lumber 

 operations are also conducted south of Stock- 

 holm on both coasts, and there is a consid- 

 erable export from Gothenburg; but the 

 great bulk of the timber is cut and sawn in 

 Norland, and eighty-five per cent of the lum- 

 ber exports come from the north of Stock- 

 holm. The Swedish lumber trade has as- 

 sumed its present importance only within 

 the present century, and in fact during the 

 past thirty years. More than one quarter of 

 the wooded area of Sweden, or 14,300,000 

 acres, belongs to the crown. The forests are 

 supervised with great care, and all Sweden 

 is divided into forest districts, and these, in 

 turn, into revirs. Each district is under the 

 supervision of a chief forest inspector, and 

 each revir is guarded by a forest ranger and 

 a number of under-keepers. Our minister 

 thinks that the vast forests of Sweden will 

 be preserved and maintained substantially 

 as they stand to-day, and that Sweden's lum- 

 ber export her greatest source of reve- 

 nue will be maintained and kept good for 

 ages to come. The Swedish iron, celebrated 

 throughout the world, is soft and ductile, 

 and preserves great pliability and strength. 

 It still furnishes the raw material for the 



