HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



113 



the same vessel will at once display the formation 

 of ozone if it actually occurs. 



The Domestication of Apes. — In the Revue 

 ■d' Anthropologic, Madame Climence Royer, the 

 French translator of Darwin, discusses the ideas of 

 M. Meunier on this subject. She believes that 

 properly trained apes might be good workers though 

 they lack perseverance. In general intelligence she 

 places them higher than dogs, horses or elephants. 

 But they must be expensively fed on fruit, bread and 

 eggs in great quantities, and thus the cost of educa- 

 ting a few generations would absorb much capital 

 before any profitable return would be available. 

 Besides this, the climate of Europe is commonly 

 fatal to them. When they are subjected to much 

 exposure they become victims to pulmonary con- 

 sumption. Madame Royer is of opinion that the 

 experiment should be made in tropical climates, 

 where apes might be taught to labour in connection 

 with the cultivation of coffee, cocoa, and cotton. 



At the old Anthropological Society, which was 

 formed about fifty years ago, and held its meetings at 

 the Hunterian Museum, Windmill , Street, Hay- 

 market, I heard an interesting account from one of 

 the members of the domestic usefulness of the large 

 Barbary Ape which, he told us, was employed as a 

 nurse for negro and even white infants. These 

 foster-mothers were devotedly attached to the 

 children, and the children preferred the nursing of 

 the apes to that of their own mothers, on account of 

 the activity of the apes in climbing trees and swinging 

 with the infants in their arms. I am sorry to be 

 unable to remember any further particulars of the 

 locality, but perhaps the publication of this piece of 

 gossip may bring forward the details required from 

 others who have witnessed the proceedings. 



I may add that there is one branch of industry for 

 which many species of monkeys are well fitted, viz., 

 the gathering of fruit from high trees, cocoa-nuts, for 

 example. As this is their natural occupation they 

 might be as easily trained to perform it in the service 

 of man, as hawks have been similarly educated. 

 This, of course, in tropical and sub-tropical countries. 



The Malstrom. — In the number of Cicl et Terre, 

 March 1st, is a short article on this popular myth ; 

 for although there is a current between the small 

 island of Moskenres and the still smaller islet or rock 

 of Vaero (two of the Loffodens), which is fairly de- 

 scribed as a Malstrom or millstream, the stories de- 

 scribing a horrible whirling chasm in the sea are pure 

 inventions. On my first visit to this region in 1856, 

 I innocently asked the captain of the old steam packet 

 " Constitutione " whether we were near the dread- 

 ful whirlpool. He replied with cool irony that, being 

 only a Norwegian sailor that had spent his life in the 

 neighbourhood, he could tell me nothing about it, but 

 referred me to English and French geography books, 



as the source from which Norwegians like himself 

 obtained all the information they possessed respecting 

 it. He might subsequently have learned further 

 particulars had he consulted the " Leisure Hour " of 

 November 1S83, wherein there is an account of the 

 visit of an American captain, who ran along the 

 edge of the whirlpool "in one of its calmer in- 

 tervals." He estimates its diameter as about a mile 

 and a half, describes it as "foaming, tumbling, and 

 rushing to its vortex," hissing, roaring, and dashing, 

 presenting " the most awful grand and solemn sight " 

 he ever experienced. He was near it about eighteen 

 minutes and in sight of it two hours. He " should 

 not doubt that instant destruction would be the fate 

 of a dozen of our largest ships were they drawn in at 

 the same moment." 



The writer in del et Terre describes the simple 

 current to which these absurd stories have been 

 attached in nearly the same terms as I did in 

 " Through Norway with a Knapsack." It is simply 

 a run of the tide through a channel with a sloping 

 bottom. The only times when it is at all dangerous, 

 even to a fishing boat, is during severe storms or 

 complete calms. In the latter case the boat having 

 no way through the water does not answer to her 

 helm, and therefore is at the mercy of the current, and 

 thus may strike some of the rocks which there 

 abound. With a gale blowing against the stream 

 the navigation is also difficult and dangerous for 

 sailing vessels. The name by which the current is 

 best known in Norway is the Moskostrbm. There 

 are many other similar currents in the neighbourhood, 

 the most formidable of which, far more so than the 

 legendary Malstrom, is the Saltstrom, which is also 

 a tidal current running through the narrow inlet by 

 which the Indrc Saltenfjord, a considerable inland 

 lake, communicates with the sea. 



RECENT ARTICLES AND PAMPHLETS 

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 ("The Entomologist," April). — " Science and the 

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