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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



ten persons, none but those who are already 

 acquainted with the methods of zoological 

 work will be accepted as members of the 

 party. A fee of ten dollars will be charged 

 for the use of the laboratory outfit, Board 

 will cost about five dollars per week. 



Mr. J. D. Putnam, Secretary of the Dav- 

 enport Academy of Sciences, has presented 

 to the editor of the " American Naturalist " 

 photographs of two pipes found in a mound 

 situated in Muscatine County, Iowa, one of 

 them representing an animal like a bear, 

 the other an elephant. Were the mound- 

 builders, then, contemporary with the mam- 

 moth on this continent ? In Grant County, 

 Wisconsin, there was lately discovered an 

 elephant-mound that is, a mound fashioned 

 to represent an elephant. 



Heinrich Wilhelm Dove, Professor of 

 Physics in the University of Berlin, and 

 distinguished for his researches in meteor- 

 ology, died at Berlin, April 5th. He was 

 born in 1803 at Liegnitz, Silesia ; studied at 

 the Universities of Breslau and Berlin, and 

 in 1826 took the degree of Doctor at the 

 latter university. In the same year he be- 

 came Assistant Professor of Physics at K6- 

 nigsberg, and a few years later at Berlin, 

 becoming full professor in 1845. He was 

 the author of several important works on 

 meteorology, climatology, electricity, and 

 polarized light. A few years ago he was 

 appointed director-general of all the obser- 

 vatories of Prussia. His work on " The 

 Law of Storms" was translated into French 

 and English. 



Professor J. Lawrence Smith, of Louis- 

 ville, Kentucky, was elected by the Paris 

 Academy of Sciences, on March 31st, a Cor- 

 responding Member in the room of the late 

 Sir Charles Lyell. 



The National Academy, at its meeting 

 in April, adopted a resolution declaring that 

 " provision should be made by State legis- 

 lation for giving instruction in the princi- 

 ples of the metric system in all the element- 

 ary schools of the country, and for making 

 a knowledge of the system a requisite for 

 admission into educational institutions of 

 higher grade ; also that laws ahould be en- 

 acted by Congress, enforcing the use in the 

 domestic mail service of a metric unit of 

 postal weight identical with that already 

 employed in the foreign, requiring the as- 

 sessment of duties upon merchandise im- 

 ported under metric invoices to be made in 

 accordance with a tariff adapted to metric 

 denominations of weight and measure, and 

 expressing the weights of all coins issued 

 from the mints of the United States in 

 grammes and milligrammes, and no long- 

 er in grains and fractions of grains, as at 

 present." 



A French traveler, Charnay, who has 

 explored the east and west portions of the 

 island of Java, claims to have discovered 

 a close affinity between the remains of the 

 civilization introduced by Hindoo Buddhists 

 and that of ancient Mexico. 



In the best schools in Holland there is 

 always, besides the teacher, an attendant 

 who sees to the personal condition of each 

 child upon daily entering the school. The ob- 

 ject of this supervision is to promote among 

 the children a due regard to cleanliness and 

 tidiness, and also, as far as possible, to pre- 

 vent the introduction of contagious diseases. 



Mr. Francis Galton advocates the use 

 of experiments in teaching physical geog- 

 raphy. Erosion of the earth's surface by 

 streams, the formation of sand, gravel, and 

 clay deposits, the formation of deltas at the 

 mouths of rivers, and other phenomena of 

 physical geography, or physiography, he 

 would illustrate with the aid of a can of 

 water and a quantity of sand, gravel, and 

 clay. Most of the great features of physi- 

 cal geography, as glacial action, mountain 

 formation, etc., might be effectually taught 

 by like simple experiments. 



It has been found, by Messrs. Exner and 

 Goldschmidt, that the electrical resistance 

 of pure water uniformly decreases as the 

 temperature rises ; at 99 centigrade it is 

 about one-third of what it is at 20. A 

 similar result is observed with water acidu- 

 lated with sulphuric acid. 



Professor Asaph Hall, discoverer of 

 the satellites of Mars, was, on May 18th, 

 chosen a Corresponding Member of the 

 Academy of Sciences of Paris, receiving 

 thirty-three votes in a total of forty-seven. 

 Among his competitors were Schiapparelli, 

 Respighi, and Warren de La Bue. 



Four volumes of the literary and scien- 

 tific remains of the late Professor W. K. 

 Clifford are announced for early publica- 

 tion, viz., a volume of mathematical papers ; 

 two volumes of essays and lectures ; and a 

 small volume containing three popular lec- 

 tures on " Seeing and Thinking." 



In a report made by the Department of 

 Agriculture of the Italian Government, it is 

 stated that borax used instead of salt in 

 preserving butter imparts to the butter no 

 flavor whatever, while it is entirely innocu- 

 ous. Samples of fresh butter, in which much 

 of the buttermilk was purposely left, have 

 retained their natural fine flavor without 

 change for three months after having been 

 salted with borax. 



M. Paul de Soleillet recently set out 

 from St. Louis, on the Senegal, with the in- 

 tention of reaching Algeria through the Sa- 

 hara. 



