HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



107 



years, and is not yet beaten, though the fight has 

 been heroic, and one of which the whole nation may 

 well be proud, for it has shown all other nations how 

 to deal with similar foes. The best men of science 

 throughout France have done their best to study the 

 habits of the phylloxera, and the means of battling 

 with it. No expense has been spared either by the 

 central or communal governments, and individual 

 peasant proprietors have all co-operated. At present 

 only 500,000 hectares (about 1,250,000 acres) re- 

 main in possession of the enemy, instead of more 

 than double that number. The methods of fighting 

 still employed are : first, submersion of the whole of 

 the land until the invaders are drowned— this is 

 the most effective, but is only applicable in low- 

 lying levels ; second, carbon bisulphide, which kills 

 effectually both by its direct contact and its vapour ; 

 third, potassium sulpho-carbonate. In 1885 submer- 

 sion was applied to 24,339 hectares ; carbon bisul- 

 phide to 40,585 hectares; and the sulpho-carbonate to 

 5,227. Only those who know the amount of skilled 

 labour that is expended upon a hectare of vineyard, 

 with its thousands of sticks to support the vines, can 

 appreciate the devastation that has occurred,; the 

 struggle that has so long continued, and the persever- 

 ance with which it is maintained. The " commercial 

 depression " of which we are complaining so loudly 

 has been a mere flea-bite compared with the ruin of 

 the greatest and most profitable of all the industries 

 of France which this little pest has effected. That 

 such a visitation, falling on the agricultural labourers 

 of France, has been borne so bravely by them, is a 

 clinching proof of the success of the system of peasant 

 proprietorship which there prevails, and which has 

 converted every rustic, even the very poorest, into a 

 capitalist with a sufficient reserve to battle against 

 such a calamity. 



The Teeth of the Coming Man. — In the 

 ■" Popular Science Monthly " (Appleton & Co., New 

 York) is an article in which the writer, Oscar Schmidt, 

 discusses this subject. He states, in the first place, 

 that our present jaws display a reduced dentition ; 

 that the ancestors of man possessed a fuller number 

 of teeth than we have ; that in the course of our 

 " geologico-zoological development " we have lost on 

 cither side, above and below, two incisors, two pre- 

 molars, and one molar. This loss of teeth has come 

 about simultaneously with the shortening of the jaws, 

 which, as we all know, protrude so remarkably in 

 the anthropoid apes. The writer agrees with the 

 prediction of Cope, who describes the progressive 

 dentition of the man of the future as follows : — 



Man of the present, and lower races of the future. 



Incisors, _ ; canines, - ; premolars, - ; molars, 3. 

 21 23 



The next stage of progress is to reduce us (that is 



the higher races descended from the readers of 

 Hardwicke's Science-Gossip) to — 



Incisors. - ; canines, - ; premolars, - ; molars, 3. 

 21 2 J 3 



A stage further will bring our successors to — 



Incisors, - ; canines, - ; premolars, - ; molars, 2 . 

 1 1 2 '2 



(The thick figures indicate larger teeth.) 



Mr. Schmidt assumes that, as we advance intellect- 

 ually and morally, we shall devote less and less of our 

 energies to the business performed by the teeth, and 

 thus continue the deterioration which commenced 

 with the invention of cookery. 



In the Phrenological Museum of Edinburgh there 

 is a large collection of the skulls of savage tribes, 

 of ancient Britons, and other ancient people. They 

 are remarkable for the perfect preservation of the 

 teeth, the absence of decay. Some of the skulls 

 of ancient Britons are of old men, with the teeth 

 ground down till their crowns are quite smooth and 

 level, and must have stood but very little above the 

 gums : none are absent, and all are packed close 

 together. There is no doubt that we are going on 

 worse and worse, and that the business of the dentist 

 is progressively developing. It may be that this is 

 the period of transition : that when we reach the 

 climax of losing all our teeth on reaching manhood 

 and womanhood, and take to artificial teeth as a 

 matter of course, like boots and shoes, the consequent 

 contraction of the jaw will be transmitted to our off- 

 spring, and with it the final reduction of dentition and 

 ultimate extinction of the profession of dental surgery, 

 owing to the sound growth and firm fitting of the 

 fewer teeth in the smaller jaw. 



Seeing the Invisible.— I may add to what I 

 stated on this subject in the March number, that stars 

 as Taint as the 15th and 16th magnitude have been 

 photographed, and that photographic maps of the 

 heavens are in the course of preparation which will 

 quite supersede the old catalogues of stars hitherto so 

 laboriously produced by eye-observation and position- 

 measurement. To determine accurately the move- 

 ments that are taking place among the so-called 

 " fixed stars," such photographic maps will be taken 

 at different periods and compared. In some that 

 have been already taken in the Milky Way, from 

 1080 to 2160 to the square degree are distinctly 

 shown, with an exposure of one hour. Besides this 

 the principle of photographic enlargement has been 

 applied to the primary images of Saturn, and will 

 doubtless be further applied to the other planets. 

 Whether this will bring out further details of the 

 surface of the planets, and whether more may be 

 learned of the details of lunar landscape remains to 

 be seen. One thing is already established, viz. that 

 those who have not the privilege of using powerful 

 telescopes will have that of examining at their leisure 



