MISCELLANY. 



"5 



Dr. Bartlett claims that ozone possesses 

 very important curative properties, has em- 

 ployed it successfully in numerous cases 

 of asthma, hay-fever, typhoid fever, scar- 

 latina, diphtheria, puerperal fever, erysipe- 

 las, etc. He predicts that its introduc- 

 tion will work great changes in the medical 

 treatment of zymotic or malarial diseases. 

 While making due allowance for the enthu- 

 siasm of an inventor, it must be admitted 

 that Dr. Bartlett has produced a machine 

 which does well the work for which it was 

 intended. 



Science in the United States. Sir Wil- 

 liam Thomson, in the presidential address 

 to the Physical Section of the British As- 

 sociation, spoke as follows of the work of 

 some of our American scientific men : 



"I wish I could speak to you of the veteran 

 Henry, generous rival of Faraday in electro- 

 magnetic discovery; of Peirce, the founder of 

 high mathematics in America; of Bach e, and 

 of the splendid heritage he has left to America 

 and to the world in the United States Coast 

 Survey ; of the great school of astronomers 

 which followed Newton, Newcomb, Watson, 

 Young, Alvan Clark, Eutherfurd, Draper, father 

 and son ; of Commander Belknap and his great 

 exploration of the Pacific depths by piano-forte 

 wire with imperfect apparatus supplied from 

 Glasgow, out of which he forced a success in 

 his own way ; and of Captain Sigsbee, who fol- 

 lowed with like fervor and resolution, and made 

 further improvements in the apparatus by which 

 he has done marvels of easy, quick, and sure 

 deep-sea sounding in his little surveying-ship 

 Blake; and of the admirable official spirit which 

 makes such men and such doings possible in the 

 United States naval service. I would like to 

 tell you, too, of my reasons for confidently ex- 

 pecting that American hydrography will soon 

 supply the data from tidal observations, long 

 ago asked of our own Government in vain by a 

 committee of the British Association, by which 

 the amount of the earth's elastic yielding to the 

 distorting influence of sun and moon will be 

 measured ; and of my strong hope that the Com- 

 pass Department of the American Navy will 

 repay the debt to Prance, England, and Ger- 

 many, so appreciatively acknowledged in their 

 reprint of the works of Poisson, Airy, Archi- 

 bald Smith, Evans, and the Liverpool Compass 

 Committee, by giving in return a fresh marine 

 survey of terrestrial magnetism to supply the 

 navigator with data for correcting his compass 

 without sights of sun or stars. I should tell 

 you also of 'Old Prob's' weather-warnings, 

 which cost the nation $250,000 a year, money 

 well spent, say the Western farmers, and not 

 they alone; in this the whole people of the 

 United States are agreed ; and though Demo- 



crats or Republicans playing the ' economical 

 ticket' may for half a session stop the appro- 

 priations for even the United States Coast Sur- 

 vey, no one would for a moment think of starv- 

 ing ' Old Prob ; ' and now that 80 per cent, of 

 his probabilities have proved true, and General 

 Myer has for a mouth back ceased to call his 

 daily forecasts 'probabilities,' and has begun 

 to call them 'indications,' what will the West- 

 ern farmers call him this time next year ? " 



The French Association. The fifth ses- 

 sion of the French Association for the 

 Advancement of Science was opened at 

 Clermont-Ferrand, on the 18th of August. 

 In the opening address, the president, M. J. 

 Dumas, sketched the history of the British 

 Association, pointing out the great services 

 rendered by that body in popularizing 

 science. Similar results are to be expected 

 from the French Association. Of the place 

 occupied by science in modern life, he 

 said : " Natural science is no longer con- 

 tent with the contemplative attitude which 

 sufficed for Newton and Laplace. Science 

 is now mixed up with all the personal acts 

 of our existence ; she interferes in all meas- 

 ures of public interest; industry owes to 

 her its immense prosperity ; agriculture is 

 regenerated under her fostering care ; com- 

 merce is forced to take her discoveries into 

 account; the art of war has been trans- 

 formed by her ; politics is bound to admit 

 her into its councils for the government of 

 states. How could it be otherwise ? Have 

 not mechanics, physics, chemistry, the natu- 

 ral sciences, become intelligent and neces- 

 sary agents for the creation of wealth by 

 labor ? If comfort is more universal, the 

 life of man more prolonged, wealth better 

 distributed, houses more commodious, fur- 

 niture and clothing cheaper, the soldier bet- 

 ter armed, the finances of the state more 

 prosperous, is it not to the sciences that all 

 this progress is due ? . . . Whether we 

 wish it or not, we must needs accept Science 

 as a companion, to possess her or to be pos- 

 sessed by her. If you are ignorant, you are 

 her slave ; if you are skilled, she obeys you. 

 The future belongs to science ; unhappy 

 are they who shut their eyes to this truth." 



Japanese Metallurgy. A writer in the 

 Japan Mail describes as follows the Japan- 

 ese method of obtaining mercury from its 

 sulphide (cinnabar) : The cinnabar is first 



