POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



859 



the Laramie plains and the altitude of 7,000 

 feet is represented by the Wyoming Univer- 

 sity experiment farm of 610 acres in Al- 

 bany County, irrigated from the Pioneer Ca- 

 nal ; the North Platte Valley and the alti- 

 tude of 6,000 feet, by the Saratoga experi- 

 ment farm of 40 acres, also under irrigation, 

 in Carbon County ; the northern part of the 

 State and the altitude of 4,000 feet, by the 

 Sheridan farm of 50 acres, under irriga- 

 tion, in Sheridan County ; northeastern Wy- 

 oming, with the greatest rainfall and the 

 altitude of 4.500 feet, by the Sundanee farm 

 of 49 acres, to be carried on without irriga- 

 tion, in Crook County ; and southeastern 

 Wyoming, the Sybille Valley, and the alti- 

 tude of 5,000 feet, by the Wheatland farm, 

 under irrigation, in Laramie County. This 

 distribution gives a good representation of 

 the agricultural and grazing lands of the 

 State ; but other experiment farms will be 

 established as the station funds permit. 

 Researches are now in progress as to the 

 capacity of gypsum to absorb and retain 

 moisture. Special experiments have been 

 instituted with varieties of grass and forage 

 plants to be grown without irrigation. 



St r\ (Inline and Snake-bite. The treat 

 ment of snake-bite with injections of strych- 

 nine illustrates the antagonistic action of 

 poisons upon one another. Dr. Mueller, of 

 Yackandandah, Victoria, in a case in his 

 practice, used a solution of nitrate of strych- 

 nine in water with a little glycerin, hypo- 

 dermically injected, with a frequency which 

 was determined by the symptoms. When 

 all symptoms had disappeared, the first in- 

 dependent action of the strychnine was 

 shown by slight muscular spasms. The in- 

 jections must be discontinued then, unless 

 the snake-poison reasserts itself. In some 

 cases a grain or more of strychnine was 

 used within a few hours. The two poisons 

 are thoroughly antagonistic, and no hesita- 

 tion need be felt in pushing the use of the 

 drug to quantities that would be fatal in the 

 absence of snake-poison. 



Irrigation in Egypt. According to a 

 note contributed to Nature by Sir Colin Mon- 

 crieff, the problem of perennial irrigation 

 in Egypt has been satisfactorily solved, and 

 that without the aid of the corvee, or forced 



labor. The subject of irrigation is treated 

 under two broad subdivisions the irrigation 

 effected by the Nile flood, when there is rich, 

 muddy water in abundance for a land three 

 times as large as Egypt, and when every 

 one considers it his absolute right to have 

 his fields flooded without the expense or 

 trouble of raising the water artificially ; and 

 the irrigation effected by the Nile at its low- 

 est, in May and June, when it is only by the 

 strictest economy that an area not exceeding 

 one fourth of the whole of Egypt can be 

 irrigated. It has now been made possible 

 to raise the water in the river and divert it 

 into the canals by the completion of a bar- 

 rage or dam at the apex of the Delta. Such 

 a dam was built several years ago, but soon 

 after it was finished it cracked in an alarm 

 ing way, and was not used. It cost origi- 

 nally about 2,000,000, and has now been 

 put in a condition to fulfill the purpose for 

 which it was intended, for the sum of about 

 460,000. This result is contrasted with the 

 estimate of M. Linant, a former Government 

 engineer, in 1872, that it would probably 

 cost more to repair the existing barrage than 

 to build a new one, and proposed pumping 

 instead, at a cost of 465,000 per annum. 

 Drainage for carrying off the superfluous 

 water, which was not provided for in the 

 French plans, is amply effected under the 

 new system. 



Bahama Fairy Tales. The fairy tales of 

 the negroes of the Bahamas, as described by 

 Mr. Charles L. Edwards in a paper on that 

 subject, are strongly localized, and built into 

 a folk lore that is at once peculiar and in- 

 teresting. The negro children are for the 

 most part the medium of perpetuating them, 

 but the conventional negro dialect is consid- 

 erably modified by an intermixture of cock- 

 ney and of correct English pronunciations. 

 The same tale narrated by different persons, 

 and by the same person at different times, 

 will vary in the pronunciation of some of 

 the words, and in unimportant details of the 

 plot. The tales are divided by the narra- 

 tors into " old stories " and " fairy stories," 

 of which the former include the folk lore 

 proper. The fairy stories have generally 

 suffered modification in their transition into 

 Bahama lore, and in some cases it is very 

 difficult to detect the original. The "old 



