NOTES. 



127 



cost of constructing and maintaining aqua- 

 ria considerably diminished. This princi- 

 ple is applied in the transportation of living 

 aquarium animals to considerable distances. 

 Take, for example, a fish paciied in damp, 

 freshly-gathered sea-weed. Its gills are 

 kept wet by such very thin films of water 

 that their tliiniiess, otherwise shallowness, 

 enables them to be constantly oxygenated 

 by contact with the atmospheric air. Thus 

 the gill-filaments are kept wet and separate 

 from one another, and the blood flows un- 

 interruptedly through them, being aerated 

 as it does so. 



The Origin of the Potato. Mr. Mee- 

 han, of Philadelphia, has for eight years 

 cultivated Solanum Fendleri, a solanaceous 

 plant which has much in common with the 

 potato {Solanum tuberosum). His object 

 was to ascertain whether the former could 

 be transformed into the latter by cultiva- 

 tion, and so to settle the vexed question of 

 the origin of our common esculent tuber. 

 It was not till last year that the plant be- 

 gan to vary in the direction of the potato. 

 Previously, the tubers were round, about 

 the size of a large bullet, and rugose from 

 the imperfect tube-cells on the surface. 

 Last season, however, the roots began to 

 resemble those of the potato. They were 

 oval and compressed, and one was an inch 

 wide and two inches long, with a clear, 

 semi-transluscent skin, as in the more deli- 

 cate potatoes. Mr. Meehan, however, does 

 not expect to develop potatoes from his 

 wild solanum ; according to him the facts 

 so far obtained do no more than suggest 

 the possibility of the unity of origin of the 

 Solanum Fendleri and the S. tuberosum. 



Caltiration of Jnte in the Sonth. The 



cultivation of jute in the southern portion 

 of the United States seems destined to be- 

 come, at no distant day, a highly-profitable 

 industry. Notwithstanding the many difii- 

 culties and drawbacks of the past season 

 deluging rains, overflows of rivers, and 

 droughts it was expected that the harvest 

 in Louisiana would be satisfactory. In a 

 letter to the Department of Agriculture, 

 Mr. Emile Lefranc, of New Orleans, Presi- 

 dent of the Southern Ramie Association, 

 describes some of the fields as splendid, 

 growing eight feet high, and as thick as 



wheat. The forthcoming report of the De- 

 partment will contain a description, with 

 illustrative drawings, of Lefranc's jute- 

 clcaning machine. This machine will pro- 

 duce over a ton of clean fibre per day, 

 with four attendants only. It cleans jute, 

 ramie, and okra radically, and without 

 waste, and it is believed that hemp and 

 flax may also be treated with it with equally 

 satisfactory results. 



NOTES. 



S. AuGUSTO GuATTARi, of Castcllamare, 

 Italy, has devised an improvement in pneu- 

 matic telegraphs, consisting of an instrument 

 which will serve either as a transmitter or 

 receiver. By means of two such instru- 

 ments, placed at different stations and con- 

 nected by a single air-conducting tube, mes- 

 sages may be transmitted in either direction. 

 There is but one dial, which serves to indi- 

 cate both the signals sent and received, so 

 that the same instrument is made to answer 

 both purposes, thereby dispensing with one 

 of the two required in all other pneumatic 

 telegraphs, and lessening the cost of appa- 

 ratus. The invention has been patented 

 here. 



Dr. John Edward Gray, F. R. S., natu- 

 ralist of the British Museum, died March 6th, 

 in the seventy-fifth year of his age. He was 

 a voluminous writer on zoological and botani- 

 cal subjects. He was connected with the 

 Natural History Department of the British 

 Museum for over fifty years. In addition 

 to his strictly scientific work, he took part 

 in the discussion of various questions of so- 

 cial importance, such as public education, 

 prison discipline, the postage system, and 

 the organization of museums and galleries 

 of art. 



DiKD at Bonn, on the lYth of February, 

 Prof. Friedrich Wilhelm August Argelander, 

 the celebrated astronomer. Deceased was 

 born in 1790, and in 1820 became the ofii- 

 cial assistant of Bessel at the Konigsberg 

 Observatory. From 1845 till his death, he 

 was in charge of the observatory of the 

 Bonn University. His " Celestial Atlas," 

 lately published, ranks among the best works 

 of its kind. 



" The isolated study of any thing in nat- 

 ural history is a fruitful source of error. 

 . . . . No single experiment in physiology is 

 worth any thing." Dr. Jeffries Wtman. 



A MANUAL is to be prepared for the use 

 of the British Arctic Expedition of next sum- 

 mer, consisting of reprints of papers in the 

 transactions of learned societies not other- 

 wise accessible, and other materials, the ob- 



