NOTES. 



43 1 



In an address before the Medical Society 

 of Pennsylvania, Dr. Thomas J. Mays presents 

 evidence for doubting the view that con- 

 sumption is contagious, and closes by saying 

 that "never was an ignis fatuus pursued 

 which left more promises broken and greater 

 anticipations unfulfilled than the bacillus 

 theory, so far as it stands related to the pre- 

 vention and treatment of pulmonary con- 

 sumption." 



M. Moissan has detected free native flu- 

 orine in the fluor-spar of the variegated vein 

 that occurs in the syenite of Guinchay, near 

 Lyons. He and M. Henri Becquerel have 

 ascertained that the mineral on being crushed 

 exhales a pronounced odor, something like 

 that of chlorine, but more like the odor of 

 fluorine. The gas thus disengaged displaces 

 the iodine in iodide of potassium, so that 

 starch is turned blue on contact with it ; and 

 it re'ains this property after the stone has 

 been heated to 200 C. a temperature at 

 which ozone, to which the action might other- 

 wise be attributed, is destroyed. It does not 

 precipitate silver from its nitrate, as chlorine 

 does. With water it forms a liquor which 

 corrodes glass and attacks silicon at ordinary 

 temperatures. It is fluorine occluded in the 

 mineral. 



In reply to a suggestion that the Ger- 

 mans owe their success to a habit of drudgery 

 acquired in school, the late R. H. Quick, au- 

 thor of Educational Reformers, writes to The 

 Spectator that " without desire or interest 

 the higher powers of the mind can not come 

 into play ; and the habit of painstaking will 

 never be acquired by any amount of ' slav- 

 ing' away against the grain. Drudgery that 

 is self-imposed, or accepted from a sense of 

 duty, or the desire of some foreseen results, 

 is one thing; to be kept slaving away by 

 your schoolmaster is quite another." He 

 combats a statement of The Spectator that 

 " you can habituate yourself to work ten 

 hours a day as easily as eight," and says, " I 

 have known the experiment of ten hours a 

 day tried, and a very inferior quality of work 

 has been the result." 



Some curious instances of individuality 

 in density of population, wealth, mobility, 

 birth, marriage, and death-rate have been 

 discovered by M. Dumont in the small towns 

 of France. With one exception, the eleven 

 rural communes in the outskirts of Caen are 

 being depopulated. Great mobility in the ru- 

 ral population is generally associated with a 

 low birth-rate, great fixity with a high one. 

 Side by side in the same department, and 

 even in the same canton, are very different 

 birth-rates. In one canton the birth-rate was 

 steadily low for many years, and then a re- 

 markable rise took place. Equally curious 

 wants of relation are betrayed between the 

 marriage-rates and fecundity. 



According to an official report, 1,009 

 fathers of families in the province of Quebec 



applied last year for a bounty of 100 acres 

 of crown land which had been offered for 

 every family of twelve living children, and 

 12,447 children were represented in the ap- 

 plications. The new land-owners are to be 

 collected in groups, which may form parishes 

 later on. 



It is intended by the committee of the 

 Royal Society on that enterprise to give the 

 contemplated memorial of the late James 

 Prescott Joule an international character, 

 and to make it contributory to the encourage- 

 ment of research in physical science. A 

 portion of the money obtained will be ap- 

 plied to a medallion portrait, and the rest 

 directly to this purpose, to be used in the 

 manner that may appear to the council of 

 the society most suitable. 



A commission has been appointed by the 

 French Society of Physiological Psychology 

 to investigate the phenomenon in which one 

 imagines he sees or hears an absent person. 



In a paper on Shakespeare's References 

 to Natural Phenomena, Miss E. Phipson, after 

 noticing that the play of Richard III was es- 

 pecially rich in such allusions, pointed out 

 that while most poets only found Nature use- 

 ful for purposes of comparison, Shakespeare 

 was fond of tracing a sympathy between Na- 

 ture and the works of man. While Shake- 

 speare was the richest in this sort of refer- 

 ence, Drayton came nearest to him, and Chap- 

 man followed close. Peele and Greene were 

 essentially artificial in their allusions, and 

 Marlowe almost entirely classical. Shake- 

 speare seemed to love the sun, which to him 

 represented the spirit of good in the world, 

 and to hate the night. 



The Rev. George Brown, Superintendent 

 of Australasian Wesleyan Missions, describes 

 the following curious ceremony which he ex- 

 perienced at Guisopa, on one of the islands 

 of New Guinea: "I was standing among 

 the crowd, when one of the principal men 

 came quietly behind me, and, before I knew 

 what he was up to, he blew a mouthful of 

 chewed betel-nut, masooi bark, and spittle 

 over me, which fell in fine spray over my 

 head, neck, and shoulders. The governor 

 and his party, as I found out afterward, had 

 been treated in the same manner prior to my 

 arrival. I suspected the reason for this pro- 

 ceeding, and so did not say anything to the 

 man. It is done, I think, to guard against 

 any evil spirits who might be accompanying 

 us, and as a sign of amity, and that we were 

 free to remain." 



Certain low castes of the Vaishnava sect 

 in the Kistna district, southern India, bury 

 their dead, according to Mr. A. Rea, in kist- 

 vaens, as follows : " The body is laid hori- 

 zontally in a shallow grave, the earth is 

 heaped over it in a long, narrow mound, and 

 these kistvaens are then placed over it. 

 They do not approach a square as in the an- 



