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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



nudity, was of the best. " It challenges our 

 treatment of to-day, for it gave out-of-door 

 life without stint, permitted the greatest ac- 

 tivity, and employed neither mechanical, 

 chemical, nor manual restraint. . . . Nothing 

 could be truer to Nature and the daily 

 manifestations of the insane than the ac- 

 count of the recovery of the king ; the 

 coming out of chaos or self-absorption ; the 

 looking upon things about him and seeing 

 them gradually assume their correct pi'opor- 

 tions ; the return of the understanding ; the 

 full return of reason ; and then a heart over- 

 flowing with thankfulness, thankfulness that 

 only those feel who have walked long in the 

 valley of the shadow of death. If we take 

 this chapter from the sacred canon, and 

 study it with some knowledge of the far-ofE 

 past, and in the light of insanity as mani- 

 fested to us to-day, we shall discover that it 

 is one of the most beautiful and concise de- 

 scriptions of the premonition, the onset, the 

 course, and the termination of a case of in- 

 sanity that is recorded in any language." 



Aluminnm Violins. Describing the alu- 

 minum violins before the American Asso- 

 ciation, Mr. Alfred Springer said that the 

 sound-boards from that metal are analogous 

 to those made of wood, and differ from the 

 sound-boards made from other metals. They 

 are analogous to wood, because they do not 

 produce secondary tones that are not in har- 

 mony with the prime tones. Such secondary 

 tones are found largest in elastic metals of 

 fine uniform consistence, because the mass 

 of such metals gives them a tendency to con- 

 tinue in any particular state of motion. The 

 author had found that his experience with 

 aluminum during the past three years was 

 attended with many difficulties. For in- 

 stance, he could find no satisfactory solder 

 with which to fasten the plates, and was 

 obliged to resort to rivets. In order to over- 

 come the essential condition of uneven thick- 

 nesses of belly and back he was obliged to 

 resort to sheet metal, ribbed and arched, and 

 he found that in the aluminum instruments 

 there were not the uncertainty and lack of 

 individuality to be observed in those manu- 

 factured of wood. The wooden ones, how- 

 ever, were superior, and the reason the old 

 wooden instruments were better than new 

 ones was not in the elasticity of the wood or 



the composition of the varnish, but in the 

 peculiar warping of the wood to a higher 

 arch. He never saw a good old instrument 

 that was not warped. Immediately after the 

 lecture an aluminum violin was produced and 

 played on. The tones were very full and 

 resonant. 



NOTES. 



We owe our readers an apology for the 

 absence of the illustration from the article 

 on Pithecoid Man, printed in the December 

 Monthly. The writer of the article sent a 

 photograph with his manuscript from Ger- 

 many, and after the number was printed we 

 discovered that the picture had been copy- 

 righted in this country. The o^vner of the 

 copyright refusing to permit us to publish 

 the illustration on any terms, we were obliged 

 to throw it out, and through an oversight the 

 needed correction was not made on the cover 

 of the magazine. 



The importance of forestry is urged by 

 Prof. W. T. Thiselton Dyer on account of 

 the probability thi,t the supply of timber 

 may be exhausted before that of coal. It 

 further appears in view of our complete de- 

 pendence upon the products of the vegetable 

 kingdom for the necessaries of our existence. 



Five genera of mammals living in the 

 south of France are named by M. Mingaud 

 to the Scientific Society of Nimes as nearly 

 extinct. They are the wolf, the genet, the 

 beaver, and the thoroughbi-ed horses and 

 cattle of Camargue ; the last two species be- 

 ing in course of breeding out by crossing. 

 The author considers it important that the 

 natural history museums provide their collec- 

 tions with typical specimens of these ani- 

 mals. 



The programme of the winter's lectures 

 of the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, for 

 the season now beginning, promises a lecture 

 on every Friday evening from November 2d 

 to April 5th. The subjects are various, and 

 the lecturers are masters of them. They in- 

 clude illustrations of travel, bacteriology, 

 the coal mine, the photochromatoscope, 

 watch manufacture, the relation of forests to 

 the surface of the country, the metallurgy of 

 aluminum, electricity and its applications to 

 different arts, the mineral resources of the 

 United States, sanitary engineering, and 

 other topics. 



M. FoREL recently showed the Scientific 

 Society of Lausanne some curious balls of 

 animal hair which had been agglomerated by 

 the waves, and were scattered over the 

 beach of the Gulf of Morges, near the great 

 tanneries. In some places these balls are 

 numerous enough to form a continuous stra- 



