XOTES. 



5" 



SpOttiswoode, F. R. S., who, after calling 

 attention to the great number of antique 

 instruments present, dwelt upon the valua- 

 ble services often rendered to science by ear- 1 

 nest students possessed of very inadequate 

 means. " In reviewing," he said, " the series 

 of ancient, or, at least, now disused instru- 

 ments, one thing can hardly fail to strike 

 the attention of those who are accustomed 

 to the use of the modern forms. It is this : 

 how much our predecessors managed to 

 achieve with the limited means at their 

 disposal. If we compare the magnificent 

 telescopes, the exquisite clock-work, the 

 multiplicity of optical appliances now to be 

 found in almost every private, and still 

 more in every public observatory, with 

 those of two centuries past ; or, again, if 

 we look at the instruments with which 

 Arago and Brewster made their magnificent 

 discoveries in polarized light, in contrast to 

 those with which the adjoining room is 

 literally teeming, we may well pause to re- 

 flect how much of their discoveries was due 

 to the men themselves, and how compara- 

 tively little to the instruments at their com- 

 mand. 



" And yet we must not measure either 

 the men or their results by this standard 

 alone. The character of the problems which 

 Nature propounds varies greatly from time 

 to time. First we have some great striking 

 question, the very conception and statement 

 of which demand the highest powers of 

 the human mind. Next follow the first 

 outlines of the solution sketched by some 

 master-hand ; afterward the careful and 

 often tedious working out of the details 

 'of the problem, the numerical evaluation 

 of the constants involved, and the reduc- 

 tion of all the quantities to strict meas- 

 urement. It is in this part of the busi- 

 ness that the more elaborate instruments 

 are specially required. It is for bring- 

 ing small differences to actual measure- 

 ment that the complex refinements with 

 which we are here surrounded become of 

 the first importance. But happily this 

 complication is not of perennial growth. 

 In reviewing from time to time the various 

 aspects of a problem in connection with the 

 instrumental appliances designed for its 

 solution, the essential features come out by 

 degrees more strongly in relief. One by 



one the unimportant parts are cast aside, 

 and the apparatus becomes reduced to its 

 essential elements." 



NOTES. 



The Franklin Institute of the State of 

 Pennsylvania has opened a reception-room 

 at the northwest end of the Machinery 

 Hall, Centennial Exhibition grounds. The 

 following objects of great historical in- 

 terest have been placed in the room : 1. 

 Franklin's electrical machine ; 2 Oliver 

 Evans's steam locomotive - engine, con- 

 structed in 1804; 3. Oliver Evans's high- 

 pressure steam-engine, same date ; 4. Work- 

 ing model of a steam-engine constructed 

 by M. W. Baldwin, presented by him to the 

 Franklin Institute, about the year 1832. 

 Files of the industrial journals may be found 

 here, and visitors will be cordially welcomed. 



Preliminary steps have been taken for 

 holding an international horticultural exhi- 

 bition and botanical congress in London in 

 the year 1879. 



A report made to the Silk-Merchants' 

 Union of Lyons states the silk-crop of Eu- 

 rope in 1874 to have been, in round num- 

 bers, 9,050,000 pounds. The silk imported 

 into Europe amounted to 11,500,000 pounds, 

 most of it (8,000,000 pounds) coming from 

 China. The greater part (6,000,000 pounds) 

 of the domestic silk was produced in Italy. 



A course in Herbert Spencer's " Prin- 

 ciples of Psychology " will be given at Har- 

 vard University during the year 18T6 "77, 

 under the instruction of Prof. James. 



In the Pacific Medical and Surgical Jour- 

 nal a case is recorded of the conveyance of 

 small-pox in a letter from Indiana to Cali- 

 fornia. A man in the latter State received 

 last December a letter from a sister in In- 

 diana, staring that four members of her fam- 

 ily had small-pox. A few days after the re- 

 ceipt of the letter, the man became ill, and 

 the disease developed into a well-marked 

 case of discrete variola. 



In the sugar-plantations of Natal the 

 large python is employed to keep down 

 rats and mice. 



At a late meeting of the St. Louis Acad- 

 emy of Science, Prof. C. V. Riley exhibited 

 cocoons and spinning worms of the com- 

 mon mulberry silk-worm {Sericaria mori) 

 reared on Osage Orange. The worms were 

 a cross between the best French and Japan- 

 ese races, and he had reared them for five 

 years on Osage Orange with no reduction in 

 quantity or quality of silk, and great in- 

 crease of visor and healthfulness. 



