5 12 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



"so far from being a source of danger, the 

 electric telegraph must be regarded rather 

 as a cause of safety, as a network of lines 

 spread over a country tends to prevent an 

 accumulation of electricity at any partic- 

 ular point, by continually and silently dis- 

 charging it to the earth. This is particularly 

 the case in districts where every pole has 

 an earth-wire fixed to it, running from the 

 top to the bottom. That these wires effect- 

 ually discharge a lightning-flash has been 

 seen in cases where the wires have been ter- 

 minated within a few inches of the top of 

 the pole : a lightning-flash striking one of 

 these destroyed the portion of pole above 

 the wire, but at the point where the wire 

 commenced all damage ceased." 



NOTES. 



Under the head of " Commercial MaDias," 

 we referred last month to the banking en- 

 terprise of a lady at Madrid. The Econo- 

 mist of December, 187(5, reports further on 

 the case, as follows : " The extraordinary 

 banking at Madrid, by a lady who paid 

 twenty per cent, interest monthly on de- 

 posits, has ended in a manner which has 

 long been expected. She disappeared a few 

 days back with a sum of three million and a 

 half of francs ($700,000), out of five million 

 and a half ($900,000) she had received from 

 6,700 depositors. The difference had been 

 returned in interests." 



Recent additions to the museum of the 

 Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences embrace 

 a small collection of European Lepidoptera, 

 presented by Prof. Zeller, of Stettin ; a few 

 rare specimens from the Museum of Com- 

 parative Zoology, and a collection of Cal- 

 ifornia Geometrce from Prof. Behrens, of 

 San Francisco ; also a collection of butter- 

 flies and moths from Mr. John D. Shepard, 

 taken on the Wahsatch Mountains, twenty- 

 five miles south of Salt Lake City. 



An association of ladies has been formed 

 in Boston, entitled the Boston University 

 "Women's Educational' Society, for the pur- 

 pose of promoting the higher education of 

 women. The Society proposes to aid needy 

 students by gifts and loans, and also to 

 found resident and traveling fellowships, to 

 encourage original research, and in general 

 to afford to young women all the educational 

 facilities now accessible only to young men. 

 A fund amounting to $40,000 has already 

 been accumulated. 



A small coleopterous insect (Anthrenus 

 scrophvlarice) common in Europe, but hith- 

 erto unknown in the United States, has 



made its appearance in the neighborhood 

 of Albany. The larva of this insect is a 

 great destroyer of clothes, furs, natural-his- 

 tory collections, etc., and at Albany much 

 damage has been done by it to carpets. 



The Litchfield Astronomical Observa- 

 tory, of Hamilton College, of which Prof. 

 C. H. F. Peters has been for nearly twenty 

 years the very efficient director, has lately 

 been enlarged. Efforts are being made to 

 retain the services of Prof. Porter as as- 

 sistant astronomer. 



Died, October 19th, at the age of fifty- 

 four years, Carl Jelinek, for thirteen years 

 director of the Vienna Central Institute for 

 Meteorology and Magnetism. His papers 

 on Austrian meteorology are held in verv 

 high esteem, and his " Introduction to Me- 

 teorological Observations" has reached the 

 third edition. 



The American Chemist for September 

 announces the discovery of a new element 

 by Dr. George A. Koenig, of the University 

 of Pennsylvania. From a mineral resem- 

 bling schorlamite, occurring at Magnet 

 Cove, Arkansas, he obtained, in the place 

 of titanic acid, a white oxide, which differs 

 from the former very materially, and he re- 

 gards the existence in it of a new metal as 

 highly probable. 



The subscription for a monument to 

 Liebig in Germany has reached the sum of 

 140,000 marks, and the lists are now closed. 

 Giessen and Munich claim the statue each 

 for itself. It has been decided that both 

 towns shall have the same memorial, which 

 will be cast in bronze, the sum collected 

 being sufficient to cover the double ex- 

 pense. 



Williams College will next summer 

 send an exploring party to the Rocky Moun- 

 tains, under the lead of Prof. Sanborn Ten- 

 ney, Professor of Natural History. The party 

 will consist of fifteen students, who, during 

 the remainder of the college year, will re- 

 ceive special instruction to fit them for the 

 performance of their respective duties. 



The statue of Faraday, the commission 

 for which was placed in the hands of the 

 late sculptor Foley, and which was far ad- 

 vanced by him in the full-sized model at the 

 time of his death, has been completed in 

 marble by one of the disciples of the de- 

 ceased artist, and is now aw r aiting arrange- 

 ments for erection. 



In an article on the scurvy which broke 

 out among the sled-parties of the British 

 Polar Expedition, the Sanitary Record says 

 that never were the plainest results of past 

 experience and the best-established rules of 

 naval hygiene more recklessly and disas- 

 trously set at naught than in these sled-ex- 

 peditions. 



