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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



where they remain till afternoon, when they are 

 taken out, laid lengthwise on the ground, and 

 beaten with a mallet. They are then ranged on 

 end, slanting as before, and in two or three days 

 mushrooms again make their appearance. In 

 Yen-shin the custom is to beat the log so heavily 

 that the wood swells, and this induces mushrooms 

 of more than ordinary size. If the logs are beat- 

 en gently, a great number of small mushrooms 

 grow up in succession. 



TJic Period of Incubation in Hydrophobia. — 

 An apparently well-proved case of hydrophobia, 

 occurring five years after the lesion which occa- 

 sioned it, is reported for the Lancet by Dr. Hulme. 

 The history of the case is as follows : A muscular 

 agricultural laborer, fifty-one years of age, was 

 very slightly bitten in the finger by a mad dog in 

 1872. He had the wound thoroughly cauterized, 

 and, as his health seemed in no way affected, soon 

 forgot all about it. But on Monday, June 25th, 

 in the present year, he complained of a general 

 malaise and pain in the arm to which the bitten 

 finger belonged. The next day this pain had so 

 increased that he gave up work, and, becoming 

 alarmed, sent for a surgeon. By ten o'clock on 

 the Wednesday the man began to be plainly hy- 

 drophobic. When the physician saw him, three 

 hours later, he was sitting up in bed very quietly, 

 but troubled with a terrible misgiving, because 

 he felt frightened at the water in the room. This 

 terror manifested itself when the doctor present- 

 ed the medicine in a fluid state. The glass was 

 nervously seized, and the act of swallowing was 

 attended with convulsive shuddering. The pain 

 soon extended from the arm to the neck, and 

 thence to the diaphragm. Respiration became 

 difficult; saliva was ejected by jerky discharges, 

 and the jaws moved as though the patient were 

 hawking and spitting. The snap and the bark 

 soon followed, and he threw himself on and off 

 the bed with loud, hoarse screams. In his few 

 moments of consciousness he begged his friends 

 not to approach him, lest he should bite them. 

 The incessant paroxysms soon began to tell upon 

 his frame, and the feeling of suffocation grew 

 more severe each moment. Nervous exhaustion 

 came on, but the patient never reached coma, for 

 eleven hours after his seizure he died of suffoca- 

 tion. 



Nicotine- Poisoning. — There occurred recently, 

 in England, a case of fatal poisoning by nicotine, 



which is worthy of record, inasmuch as it may 

 serve as a warning. A child, three years of age, 

 was permitted by his father to use an old wooden 

 pipe for blowing soap-bubbles. The child was 

 then quite well, but an hour later became sick, 

 vomited very much, and afterward became very 

 drowsy and pale. The next day he was worse ; 

 castor-oil was .administered, and he was put to 

 bed. After a bad night, he was very much worse 

 on the following morning, and in the evening 

 medical advice was sought. But to no avail, for 

 the child grew steadily worse, and died after a 

 few hours. The physician said that the deceased 

 was suffering from narcotic poison when he first 

 saw him ; that he was easily aroused, and could 

 answer questions. Two drops of nicotine suffice 

 to kill an adult man, and one drop would kill a 

 large dog ; while a very small quantity would be 

 enough to kill a child. 



The subject of forming an inland sea in Al- 

 geria is still warmly discussed in France. At one 

 of the late meetings of the Paris Academy of Sci- 

 ences, M. Augot said that the dominant winds of 

 Algeria are not those which have hitherto been 

 regarded as such, namely, southeast, south, and 

 southwest, and are not such as would produce the 

 good effects expected from this artificial sea. The 

 favorable winds are to the others in the propor- 

 tion of one to nine. The vapor which they would 

 carry would be borne almost entirely toward the 

 Sahara, without benefit to Algeria. M. Augot 

 further estimates, from observation, that the aver- 

 age layer of water raised by evaporation from the 

 proposed inland sea in twenty-four hours, would 

 be more than six millimetres ; this would require 

 the canal of communication to bring daily at 

 least 78,000,000 cubic metres of water to keep 

 the lake-level constant. 



A mercantile firm in Aberdeen, interested in 

 the herring-fisheries of Scotland, keep a number 

 of carrier-pigeons, one of which is sent out with 

 each boat in the afternoon, and liberated the fol- 

 lowing morning, to carry intelligence to head- 

 quarters of the quantity of herrings taken, posi- 

 tion of the boat, direction of the wind, prospects 

 of the return-journey, etc. If a boat's crew need 

 assistance, a tug can be at once dispatched to 

 their aid. Another advantage of this system is, 

 that the men ashore know exactly what quantity 

 of herrings are to be landed, and so can make 

 preparations for expediting the delivery and cur- 

 ing of the fish. 



