POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



507 



temperate latitude, is ever covered with a 

 mantle of snow. And yet during twenty 

 centuries no historian, no traveler, no sa- 

 vant, no poet, names it, or so much as al- 

 ludes to it. As the sun describes his daily 

 track, that peak throws its shadow upon 

 at least three countries possessing different 

 languages, but still it was profoundly ig- 

 nored." The same author informs us of a 

 map of the region round about Mont Blanc, 

 published in the second half of the six- 

 teenth century, but which gives no hint as 

 to the existence of the mountain, which, 

 nevertheless, is visible from all sides at dis- 

 tances of sixty leagues. 



Earthquakes in Japan. It is a well- 

 known fact that the number of earthquakes 

 in any given region liable to such disturb- 

 ances is greatest in that part of the month 

 when the moon cooperates the most effec- 

 tively with the sun in producing an attrac- 

 tion upon the earth. 



Out of forty-eight earthquakes, observed 

 in the years 1875 and 1S76, I find that 

 thirty-seven occurred on one of the five 

 days immediately preceding, or on one of 

 the five days immediately following, full 

 moon : in other words, that in a period of 

 twenty-eight days there were only eleven 

 earthquakes falling within a limit of seven- 

 teen days, while on the remaining eleven 

 there occurred thirty-seven a dispropor- 

 tion too great not to be taken into account. 



I may add that, thus far, the shocks ob- 

 served in 1877 are even more noticeably in 

 accordance with the above facts. 



W. E. Parson. 

 Tokio, Japan, November 3, 18T7. 



An Agricultural Detective Agency. We 



have received the "Bulletin" for October 

 of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment 

 Station at New Haven, containing analy- 

 ses of thirty-one specimens of fertilizers. 

 This " station" is prepared to test all kinds 

 of fertilizers, seeds, cattle-foods, etc., free 

 of charge, for the use and advantage of 

 citizens of Connecticut. The establishment, 

 therefore, is clearly one of great public 

 utility, and deserving of generous support. 

 Farmers are too often the victims of char- 

 latans, who palm off upon them their worth- 

 less fertilizers, insect-destroyers, seeds, etc., 



at prices enormously in excess of their real 

 value. This agricultural station will in time 

 put a stop to such fraud in Connecticut. 

 As an instance of the sort of work to be 

 expected from the very competent chemists 

 who make the analyses, we may cite the first 

 table given in the present circular. Here, 

 two kinds of fertilizing compositions are an- 

 alyzed, and shown to possess about the same 

 value as harbor-mud, but the purchaser was 

 made to pay a very high price, indeed, for 

 this mud, when dubbed " composition for 

 vegetables," or " composition for grass." 



A New Species of Monkey. There are 

 now in the Alexandra Palace, London, six 

 live specimens of a monkey new to science, 

 the Macacus geluda, a native of the moun- 

 tains of Abyssinia, where it lives at an eleva- 

 tion of from 7,000 to 8,500 feet above the 

 sea-level. One of these monkeys is an adult 

 male. It is hairy over the whole of the 

 body, with the exception of a pink patch 

 free from hair on the chest, and a space 

 around the throat of the same color. When 

 the animal becomes angry or excited, these 

 pink patches turn bright-red. The nostrils 

 are high up from the upper jaw, and the 

 upper lip is so mobile that it is often turned 

 up so as to show the whole of the upper 

 teeth and gums. The tail is long and thick, 

 and ends in a tuft resembling somewhat a 

 lion's tail. The color of the hair is brown, 

 except around the breast, where it is gray. 

 The bare part of the chest shows two male 

 indications of teats. The female has not 

 such long hair as the male, and on the bare 

 spot in front are two well-developed teats. 

 The young monkey takes one in each hand, 

 and sucks from both at once. While these 

 animals have rejected all fruits, they have 

 eaten Indian-corn and grass, taking the 

 grass, pulling it apart, and making it into 

 little balls. In their native habitat, these 

 monkeys sleep in caves, and in London 

 they sleep in a large box, the old male re- 

 maining on guard near the entrance. 



Invention of the Torpedo. Perhaps the 

 earliest of all torpedoes was that invented by 

 David Bushnell, of Connecticut, a little over 

 one hundred years ago. Bushnell's idea 

 was, to fix a small powder-magazine to the 

 bottom of a vessel, and to explode it by a 



