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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



■with germs, most of them harmless so far as 

 we know, but some of them may be just as 

 bad as any that can be in shellfish. If we 

 were to insist on breathing filtered air and 

 eating nothing but sterile food, washed down 

 with antiseptic drinks, we should probably 

 die of starvation or something worse, if we 

 did not go mad first with the constant anx- 

 iety." The report holds that our object 

 should be to get our oyster beds as healthy 

 as possible, but not to insist upon conditions 

 that would make it impossible to rear any 

 oysters at all. 



The Hon. Carroll D. Wright, United States 

 Commissioner of Labor, has been elected a 

 member of the Institute of France, and an 

 honorary member of the Imperial Academy 

 of Science of Russia. 



At the annual meeting of the Indiana 

 Academy of Science the following officers 

 were elected for the year 1898: President, 

 C. A. Waldo, Purdue University ; vice-presi- 

 dent, C. H. Eigenmann, Indiana University ; 

 secretary, John S. Wright, Indianapolis ; as- 

 sistant secretary, A. J. Bigney, Moore's Hill 

 College ; press secretary, George W. Benton, 

 Indianapolis; treasurer, J. T. Scovell, Terre 

 Haute. 



A btory is told in the Electrical Review 

 of London to the effect that Augurelli, in the 

 sixteenth century, believing or pretending to 

 believe that he had discovered the art of mak- 

 ing gold, dedicated a treatise which he wrote 

 on the subject to Pope Leo X. The Pope re- 

 ceived him with much ceremony and spoke 

 with an appearance of great cordiality, and he 

 flattered himself that he was going to receive 

 a very liberal reward. At the close of the in- 

 terview Pope Leo took a large purse out of 

 his pocket and presenting it to him said, 

 "As you are able to make gold, I can not 

 offer you a more useful and fitting present 

 than a purse to put it in." 



The people living along the river Tura, in 

 the Russian government of Tomsk, to collect 

 the platinum that abounds in the river sands, 

 hitch a sort of a plowshare to the rear of 

 a raft. This plows up the water, as they 

 express it, and the sands of the bottom are 

 led into a wooden conduit, whence they pass 

 into a tub furnished with pine branches, 

 among which the metal settles by virtue of 

 its high specific gravity. The exploiters are 

 said to find this method of washing prof- 

 itable. 



The carpet industry at Osaka, Japan, ac- 

 cording to the British consul at Hiogo, gives 

 employment to about ten thousand children 

 and youth of both sexes from seven to six- 

 teen years of age. The carpets are made of 

 jute, with designs imitating those of Persia 

 and Turkey. About four thousand eight hun- 

 dred square yards of goods are produced a 

 day. 



The Philadelphia Mycological Center is a 

 club, of which Captain Charles Mcllvaine is 

 president, for the study and testing of mush- 

 rooms. Its second Bulletin, for September, 

 1897, gives descriptions, with the results of 

 testings, of twenty-one species. Most of these 

 species were found to be good eating, but 

 cautions are given respecting a few of them. 

 The "Center" seems to be prospering, for 

 the Bulletin gives the names of fifteen new 

 members in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New 

 York, and Massachusetts. 



The Hon. Ralph Abercrombie, meteor- 

 ologist, whose death at Sydney, Australia, 

 June 21st, has been mentioned in the 

 Monthly, was born in 1842, and was al- 

 ways in delicate health. Having entered 

 the British army in 1860, he was stationed 

 at Quebec in 1864, and while there ob- 

 tained leave of absence and visited General 

 Grant. He was obliged to give up his com- 

 mission in 1869, and after this the mainte- 

 nance of his health became a serious care 

 with him. His meteorological studies began 

 at an early period, and his first book — Seas 

 and Skies in Many Latitudes — embodied ob- 

 servations made by him while in the military 

 station at Quebec. His most distinguished 

 service to meteorology was probably the 

 preparation, in conjunction with Professor 

 Hildebrandsson, of Upsala, of the new 

 classification of clouds, which was adopted 

 by the International Meteorological Congress 

 of 1896. He was author of works on the 

 Principles of Forecasting, of the book on 

 Weather in the International Scientific Se- 

 ries, and of many contributions to scientific 

 societies. During his seven years of illness 

 at Sydney he made grants of money for the 

 production of essays on meteorological sub- 

 jects, three of which have been published. 



The record of recent deaths among men 

 of science includes the names of Arthur Kam- 

 mermann, attached to the observatory at 

 Geneva since 1881, in his thirty-sixth year; 

 Ernest Giles, Australian explorer ; Thomas 

 Jeffrey Parker, professor of biology in the 

 University of Otago, and author of works on 

 biology, at Dunedin, New Zealand, November 

 7th ; Prof. Francesco Brioschi, mathemati- 

 cian and president of the Accademia dei Lin- 

 cei in Milan, December 13th, aged seventy- 

 two years ; James Holm, professor of physics 

 in the South African College, Capetown, aged 

 twenty-eight years ; Dr. Oscar Stumpe, as- 

 tronomer, at Berlin, aged thirty-five years ; 

 Dr. Eduard Lindemann, scientific secretary 

 of the Observatory of Pulkova, Russia, in 

 his fifty-sixth year ; Prof. E. L. Taschenburg, 

 author of contributions to Economic Ento- 

 mology, January 20th, aged seventy-nine 

 years ; M. Ernst Bazin, inventor of the roller 

 steamer ; and Dr. Samuel Newth, formerly 

 principal of New College, St. John's Wood, 

 England, and author of books on natural 

 philosophy. 



