250 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



white grains mixed together and rounded 

 as if by instant fusion. The wall of the 

 tube is about one-twentieth of an inch thick, 

 and very solid and rigid. In the opinion of 

 Prof. Buckland, lightning is the only agent 

 that could at once supply the heat and force 

 necessary to make these tubes. 



A similar tube, coming from North Car- 

 olina, has been described by Prof. Leeds, 

 of the Stevens Institute. In this case the 

 lightning had penetrated a bed of pure 

 white sand, melting the silex, and forming 

 a hollow shaft two or three inches in diame- 

 ter and four feet long, filled within and sur- 

 rounded without by the pure white sand of 

 the locality. The shaft, however, was discol- 

 ored by finely-divided metallic iron (which 

 does not exist in Nature at the earth's sur- 

 face), and the explanation seems to be that 

 at the immensely high temperature at which 

 silica melts, iron dissociates from oxygen, 

 and that here, dissociation having occurred, 

 the metallic iron, transported by the electric 

 flux from some subterranean depth, became 

 incased in molten sand, and was preserved 

 unoxidized in the vitreous tube. 



The Weakness of a Great Man. The 



vanity of the great botanist Linnajus was 

 extraordinary, as witness the following doc- 

 ument written by his own hand, and enti- 

 tled "The Good Fortune, Services, and 

 Fame of Linnaeus : " " God gave him to wife 

 the woman he most loved, and who cared 

 for the household while he studied. God 

 granted him the largest herbarium in the 

 world, and this is his delight. God honored 

 him with a title (chief physician), orders 

 (knighthood), coat-of-arms (nobility), and 

 a name among the learned. God saved him 

 from a conflagration. No man before him 

 ever pursued his special study with greater 

 zeal, or had more listeners. No man before 

 him was ever more famous thi'oughout the 

 whole world." The same trait of character 

 is seen in "Flora's Body Guard," as Lin- 

 naeus, curiously enough, called the most em- 

 inent botanists of his day : " General, Karl 

 von Linnaeus ; major-general, Bernard Jus- 

 sieu; colonels, Albrecht von Hall and J. 

 F. Gronovius ; lieutenant-colonels, Bur- 

 m.inn, Gleditsch, Ludwig, etc. ; major, J. G. 

 Gmelin;" and so on. A lady having once 

 visited Linnaeus's cabinet, the great man 



made a profound impression on her by giv- 

 ing her some interesting information about 

 each specimen. At last she exclaimed, " I 

 can now understand why Linna;us is so fa- 

 mous in the whole province of Upsala," 

 But Linnaeus, who had expected to hear 

 "all over the world," instead of "in the 

 provhice of Upsala," was hurt by the mea- 

 greness of the lady's adulation, and dis- 

 missed her curtly enough. In order to 

 sound the depths of the great botanist's 

 vanity, an acquaintance once saluted him 

 as the Sun of Botanists, the Jupiter of 

 Scholars, Nature's Secretary, an Ocean of 

 Knowledge, a Traveling Mountain of Eru- 

 dition, and the like. Far from being dis- 

 pleased at such fulsome flattery, Linnaeus in- 

 terrupted the panegyrist at the close of each 

 phrase, embraced him, and again and again 

 called him his best and dearest friend. 



Perception of Color by Bees. To test the 

 faculty possessed by bees of distinguishing 

 between colors, Sir John Lubbock brought 

 a bee to some honey, which he placed on 

 blue paper, and about three feet ofl" he 

 placed a similar quantity of honey on orange 

 paper. After the bee had returned twice 

 he transposed the papers, but the bee re- 

 turned to the honey on the blue paper. 

 After she had made three more visits, al- 

 ways to the blue paper, he transposed 

 them again, and she again followed the 

 color, though the honey was left in the same 

 place. The papers having been again trans- 

 posed, the bee returned to the former site 

 of the blue ; but, when just about to alight, 

 she noticed the change of color, and with- 

 out a moment's hesitation dashed off to the 

 blue. No one, says he, who saw her at that 

 moment, could have entertained the slight- 

 est doubt of her perceiving the difierehee 

 between the two colors. 



Poisoning with Extract of Hemlocli. 



The following is a condensed history of the 

 remarkable case of Frederick W. Walker, 

 who died in Brooklyn, on the 8d of April, 

 from an overdose of extract of hemlock, 

 taken with the hope of controlling the 

 symptoms of an annoying and obstinate 

 complaint. The rare force of will and cool- 

 headedness displayed by the patient in no- 

 ting and detailing the effects of the drug up 



