57 6 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of the fever was far less violent than the 

 two preceding. The analysis showed that 

 the suspected quinine sulphate was strongly 

 adulterated with salicine. 



NOTES. 



Large numbers of Trichina spiralis have 

 been detected in cured meats imported into 

 Alsace from America. In Switzerland, too, 

 the discovery has been made that American 

 hams are full of the trichina, and a govern- 

 ment commission has been appointed to 

 decide upon the precautionary measures to 

 be taken. The cantonal authorities arc rec- 

 ommended to warn the people against the 

 use of American hams, especially in the half- 

 raw state, and to arm the police with discre- 

 tionary powers over the sale of the article. 



On the 2d of June the Paris Academy 

 of Sciences elected Professor Huxley to be 

 a corresponding member of the Academy 

 for the section of anatomy and zoology. 

 Professor Huxley received 41 votes out of 

 a total of 49 ; Agassiz received 5 votes, 

 Bischoff 1, aud there were two blank bal- 

 lots. 



A new method of excavating for the erec- 

 tion of telegraph-poles has been devised and 

 put to the test at Titusville, Pennsylvania. 

 A man drives a crowbar into the ground to 

 the depth of four or five feet, and into the 

 hole so made drops a four-ounce cartridge 

 of so-called " electric powder." The fuse 

 having been lighted, the man proceeds to 

 the site of the next pole. In the mean time 

 a dull sound is heard, and a hole about the 

 diameter of a flour-barrel, and four or five 

 feet deep, has been made by the exploding 

 cartridge. 



To meet the convenience of students, 

 and thus remove the sole objection in the 

 minds of professors to the extended use of 

 an admirable series of text-books, Macmil- 

 lan & Co., the publishers of the well-known 

 " Clarendon Press Series of Educational 

 Works," issued under the direction of the 

 delegates of Oxford University, have in 

 preparation a new nett catalogue of those 

 works, as well as of their own educational 

 works, which will be ready early in the fall. 



The utilization of bamboo for paper- 

 making is advocated by a writer in the 

 " Journal of the Society of Arts," who pro- 

 nounces it far superior for that purpose to 

 esparto-grass. Then, too, it can be pro- 

 duced at less cost than esparto. By utiliz- 

 ing the bamboo spontaneously produced in 

 India, or, better still, by cultivating the 

 plant there, an unfailing supply of the fiber 

 might be produced. 



Mr. W. Mattiec Williams, who for 

 more than thirty years has closely studied 

 the subject of the electric light and noted 

 every new development, does not hesitate to 

 affirm that " although as a scientific achieve- 

 ment the electric light is a splendid success, 

 its practical application to all purposes where 

 cost is a matter of serious consideration is a 

 complete and hopeless failure, and must of 

 necessity continue to be so ! " 



The amount of labor performed by bees 

 in collecting honey may be seen from cer- 

 tain calculations made by Mr. Andrew Wil- 

 son. He finds that 125 heads of clover yield 

 approximately one gramme of sugar (about 

 15^- grains), and that 125,000 heads yield 

 one kilogramme (2 - 2 pounds). Now, as each 

 head of clover contains about 60 florets, it 

 follows that the bees must suck 7,500,000 

 distinct florets in order to obtain 2 pounds 

 of sugar. And as honey roughly may be said 

 to contain 75 per cent, of sugar, we have 

 one kilogramme, equivalent to 5,600,000 

 flowers iu round numbers, or say 2,500,000 

 visits for one pound of honey. 



The custom of persons bearing two 

 "Christian names" is of comparatively 

 recent origin in England. An author, who 

 has had occasion to search many volumes 

 of old country records, and who has seen 

 " many thousands and tens of thousands 

 of proper names belonging to men of all 

 ranks and degrees," says that in no in- 

 stance, down to the end of the reign of 

 Anne, has he noticed any person having 

 more than one Christian name. The first 

 instance which occurs in the county rec- 

 ords was in 1717, when Sir Coplestone War- 

 wick Bainfield appears as a justice. The 

 first instances which the same author has 

 met in any other place arc those of Henry 

 Frederick, Earl of Arundel, born 1608, and 

 Sir Henry Frederick Thynne, created a baro- 

 net in 1641. Both of these appear to have 

 been named after the eldest son of James I., 

 who was born in Scotland. William III., 

 who was a Dutchman, was the first King of 

 England who bore two Christian names. 



Professor Stokes, of the University of 

 Cambridge, England, has been elected a cor- 

 responding member of the Paris Academy 

 of Sciences. The German Emperor has also 

 conferred upon him the decoration of the 

 order "Pour le Meiite." 



Dr. Winnecke, of Strasburg, has discov- 

 ered a record of observations made in 1580, 

 or at least thirty years before the invention 

 of the telescope, in which the places of 

 eleven stars of the Pleiades are given. On 

 comparing these with modern observations, 

 it appears that the places were determined 

 with a probable error of only 2' ; hence 

 there can be little doubt that all these stars 

 were seen by the naked eye. 



