2 66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Physical Constitution of the Heavenly Bodies, translated by 

 Jane and Caroline Lassell. 



Dr. Huggins was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1865, 

 and has received two of its medals; he was awarded, with Dr. 

 Miller, the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1867, 

 for their conjoint researches, and he was given a second medal of 

 the same society in 1885. He has received doctor's degrees from 

 the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Edinburgh, and Trinity 

 College, Dublin ; and he holds the honors and memberships of 

 other British societies, and of numerous societies in foreign lands. 

 As Rede lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, in 1869, he gave 

 an account of his researches in astronomy by means of the 

 spectroscope ; and as President of the British Association in 1891 

 he delivered an inaugural address, the more definite purpose of 

 which, as defined by the author, was " not to attempt a survey of 

 the progress of spectroscopic astronomy from its birth at Heidel- 

 berg in 1859, but to point out what we do know at present, as dis- 

 tinguished from what we do not know, of a few only of its more 

 important problems." The success of this effort, the Observatory 

 says, was recognized equally by the general public and by those 

 more familiar with astronomy. " Those who were already famil- 

 iar with Dr. Huggins and his work have learned afresh almost to 

 their surprise how closely he has been identified with the ' very 

 remarkable discoveries in our knowledge of the heavens which 

 have taken place during this period of thirty years/ Not that the 

 president materially assists in pointing this moral; rather is it 

 pointed by the facts in spite of him. He is almost too eager to 

 assign credit to others when he might justly have mentioned his 

 own work." 



The manufacture of flints is still carried on at the hamlet of Porcharioux, 

 department of Loir-et-Cher, France, where the stone is abundant and of fine 

 quality. The stones are quarried and roughly broken by the men, and are taken 

 by the women into the house to be finished. A single worker can dress five or 

 six thousand stones in a week. The use to which the flints are applied is not 

 known to M. Belot, who has described the manufacture ; but the business seems 

 to be profitable. The work is attended with danger of lung disorders caused by 

 the dust, a liability which the workers accept philosophically. The business is in 

 the hands of a single family. 



A recent investigation by Mr. Thomas Whitelegge, of Sydney, may cast some 

 light as to the causes which influence marine food supplies. He found that a 

 sudden discoloration of the water in Port Jackson Harbor was caused by the pres- 

 ence of a minute organism which he identified as a species of the genus Qleno- 

 dinium; and, so far as he was able to judge, fully half of the shore fauna was 

 destroyed by the invaders. The bivalves were almost exterminated wherever the 

 organism was abundant during the whole of the visitation. 



