POPULAR MISCELLANY 



381 



State during the ten years ending with 

 1869, 17.21 per cent, were iUiterate, and 

 81.83 per cent, had never been apprenticed. 

 "All observers will admit," remarks the 

 author, " that there is not as much intelli- 

 gence and skill working on the farms now 

 as there was twenty years ago. The fears 

 of the farmers were not that their sons 

 would know too much, but that they would 

 do too little. It was not book-farming, or 

 wisdom with work, they feared ; but mak- 

 ing hay in the shade, or farming by the 

 fireside ; plucking geese in the courts, 

 preaching for practice, pills for pumpkins, 

 the pen and yard-stick for the plough and 

 harvest-fork. The change has not been 

 from prison to school so much as from hon- 

 est labor to idleness and crime. Everything 

 else being equal, mental culture raises the 

 standard of morality ; but we would choose 

 a community of industrious and illiterate 

 members, rather than one of idle and liter- 

 ary habits, for a high standard of mo- 

 rality." 



Latest Phase of the Spontancons-Gea- 

 cration ControTcrsyt Dr. Bastian, of Lon- 

 don, having submitted to the Paris Acad- 

 emy of Sciences the results of certain ex- 

 periments which, as he maintains, decisive- 

 ly confirm his theory of spontaneous gen- 

 eration, Pasteur criticised the English in- 

 vestigator's methods and conclusions, and 

 asked for the appointment of a commission 

 to determine on which side the truth lies. 

 At the same time he expressed a wish that 

 Dr. Bastian should in like manner ask the 

 London Royal Society to appoint a similar 

 commission. According to the terms of 

 M. Pasteur's challenge, Dr. Bastian must 

 obtain, in the presence of competent judges, 

 bacteria in sterile urine on the addition of liq- 

 uor potasScB in suitable quantities, the liquor 

 potassse being prepared from pure potash 

 with pure water; or, if made from impure 

 materials, it must be submitted to a tem- 

 perature of 230 for twenty minutes. Dr. 

 Bastian has accepted the challenge, and 

 has applied to the Royal Society for the ap- 

 pointment of the commission. The French 

 commission is already constituted : it con- 

 sists of Milne-Edwards, Dumas, and Bous- 

 singault. The Lancet justly complains 

 against this selection, on the ground that 



all of the three commissioners are more or 

 less strong supporters of Pasteur's view. 

 Their bias must inevitably indispose them 

 toward Bastian's arguments. The Lancet 

 asks why Fremy or Trccul, or some other 

 man without bias either way, was not placed 

 on the commission. The Academy has ap- 

 parently made a mistake in this matter ; 

 perhaps when the comments of the Lancet 

 are brought to the notice of the members, 

 a change will be made in the commission. 

 The Royal Society has not yet named the 

 members of the English commission. 



Action of the Retinal Nerves. Some 

 years ago, while suffering from indisposition, 

 Prof. Tait observed that, whenever he awoke 

 from a feverish sleep, the flame of a lamp, 

 seen through a ground-glass shade, assumed 

 a deep-red color, the effect lasting about a 

 second. He supposes that the nerve fibrils 

 of the retina also slept, and that, on awak- 

 ing, the green and violet nerves resumed 

 their functions a little later than the red. 

 This observation of Tait's is recalled by 

 Prof. Ogden N. Rood, in the A^nej-ican 

 Joiirnal of Science, who adds an analogous 

 observation of his own, going to show that 

 after nervous shock the green nerves (to 

 adopt the theory of Young) receive their 

 activity later than the red, and probably 

 later than the violet nerves. Having taken 

 chloroform at the hands of a dentist, he 

 observed with surprise, on regaining con- 

 sciousness, that the operator's face was 

 very red, and the next instant that his hair 

 was of a purplish-red hue. The illusion per- 

 sisted for a second or two. Prof. Rood 

 then gives an instance of chronic effects of 

 similar character which were observed for a 

 couple of weeks continuously, during con- 

 valescence from typhoid fever. In this case 

 white objects appeared of a not very intense 

 orange-yellow ; here the activity of the 

 green and yellow nerves was diminished 

 relatively to that of the red. 



Though 



Food of the Water-Tortoise. 



proverbial for its sluggishness, the water- 

 tortoise, according to a writer in Science Gos- 

 sip, appears to have a special relish for the 

 natural food of the cat. Keeping a couple 

 of them in an aquarium, but uncertain as to 

 the kind of food best suited to their needs. 



