FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



431 



serum as a vehicle. In place of using Pas- 

 teur's method of protective vaccination for 

 the animals from which the serum is ob- 

 tained, they, by a process of peptic digestion, 

 attenuate the virus to be used. It is pos- 

 sible by drying to prepare a permanent form 

 of this serum which will, if kept from air 

 and light, remain active for a long period. 

 It is very portable, is readily dissolved, and 

 may be used by any one who is capable of 

 sterilizing a hypodermic needle and syringe. 

 The treatment, therefore, can be commenced 

 almost as soon as the patient has received 

 the bite, and it is not necessary that he 

 should leave his home or his own medical 

 attendant. 



The Meaning of Rate. Attempting to 

 frame a definition of race, Mr. W. M. Flin- 

 ders Petrie remarked in the British Associa- 

 tion that when only a few thousand years 



had to be dealt with, nothing seemed easier 

 or more satisfactory than to map out races 

 on the supposition that so many million peo- 

 ple were descended from one ancestor and 

 so many from another. Mixed races were 

 glibly separated from pure races, and all 

 humanity was partitioned off into well-de- 

 fined divisions. But when the long ages of 

 man's history, and the incessant mixtures that 

 have taken place during the brief end of it 

 that is recorded, come to be realized, the 

 meaning of "race" must be wholly revised. 

 The only meaning that a " race " can have is 

 that of a group of persons whose type has 

 become unified by their rate of assimilation 

 and of their subjection by their conditions 

 exceeding the rate of change produced by 

 foreign elements. If the rate of mixture 

 exceeds that of assimilation, then the peo- 

 ple are a mixed race, or a mere agglomera- 

 tion. 



MINOR PARAGRAPHS. 



The Belgian Astronomical Society, found- 

 ed a year ago, for the advancement and pop- 

 ularization of that science and of meteorol- 

 ogy, has recently become much extended. 

 At the meetings in May, June, and July, 

 1895, papers were read on the history of 

 astronomy at the time of the Renascence, 

 by M. Doiteau ; on the observation of the 

 scintillation of the stars, by M. Vincent ; on 

 the application of the spectroscope to the study 

 of the constitution of Saturn's rings, by M. 

 Stroobant; on the theories of atmospheric 

 circulation, by M. Marchal ; and on other 

 subjects. A co-operative system of observa- 

 tions of shooting stars, clouds, etc., was de- 

 cided upon. An annual volume of the year's 

 results is to be published in November, and 

 a periodical bulletin has been arranged for. 



A French journal, the Chasseur illustre, 

 tells of a Russian gentleman who, wishing 

 to ascertain where the birds go in winter, 

 caught a number and attached to their tails 

 a tube containing his address and a request 

 in four languages that whoever might find 

 the bird again would write him concerning 

 the place and time of the finding. He wait- 

 ed long for an answer, but only recently re- 

 ceived a letter from a European prisoner 

 captured by the Mahdi at the taking of 

 Khartoum, relating that a follower of the 



Mahdi in Dongola had killed one of the birds 

 in November, 1892, and, not being able to 

 read the paper, had brought it to him. The 

 prisoner, in his glad surprise at receiving a 

 letter from Europe in so strange a way, em- 

 braced the first opportunity on regaining his 

 liberty to answer it. 



The influence that the bearing of one 

 man or nation may exert upon another is ex- 

 emplified by what Mr. W. M. Flinders Petrie 

 said in the British Association concerning 

 the condition in the East, where an inter- 

 minable system of reprisals in defrauding 

 and exacting prevails. " The Egyptians are 

 notorious for their avarice, and are usually 

 accredited with being interminable money- 

 gi-abbers ; yet no sooner do they find that 

 this system of reprisals is abandoned and 

 strict justice maintained than they at once 

 respond to it ; and when confidence has 

 been gained, it is almost as common to find 

 a man dispute an account against his own 

 interest as for himself, and scarcely ever is 

 any attempt made at false statements or 

 impositions. Such is the healthy response 

 to straightforward dealing with them." 



The purpose of the new division of agros- 

 tology in the United States Department of 

 Agriculture is investigation and experiment 

 upon grasses and other forage plants, in 



