MISCELLANY. 



505 



guishing fires on shipboard was recently 

 pateated. This apparatus, the " pyrole- 

 tor," as it is called, consists of a small 

 double pump worked by hand, which sucks 

 lip through a tube on each side of it strong 

 muriatic acid, and a solution of bicarbonate 

 of soda; these commingle in a generator 

 forming part of the pump, and the carbonic- 

 acid gas and bicarbonate solution pass at 

 once down a metal pipe to the hold, along 

 whose keelson runs a perforated wooden 

 box which admits of the gas passing through 

 to the burning material. The agent, there- 

 fore, for the extinction of fire, is dry car- 

 bonic-acid gas, wliich has no action on the 

 cargo. The Chemical News describes as 

 follows an exhibition lately given of the 

 working of the " pyroletor : " " The entire 

 hold of a large wooden barge was covered 

 to a depth of several feet with wood-shav- 

 ings and cotton-waste saturated with tur- 

 pentine and naphtha. A temporarily-raised 

 and by no means air-tight wooden deck, 

 with loosely-fitting boards, formed the wide 

 hatchway-covering. The combustible ma- 

 terial having been set on fire, the flames 

 immediately ran along the entire cargo and 

 issued above the temporary deck, which was 

 then covered with boarding. The ' pyrole- 

 tor' having been brought into action, the 

 fire was completely extinguished in four 

 minutes, though nearly half a gale was 

 blowing." It is computed that a 1,200 ton 

 ship requires half a ton of each of the 

 chemicals, costing about $100. 



Pkysical Characters of the British. 



Dr. Beddoe, at the recent meeting of the 

 British Association, advocated the neces- 

 sity, from a practical point of view, not 

 from that of mere scientific curiosity, of 

 obtaining more extensive and accurate in- 

 formation as to the physical characters of 

 man in Britain than could be obtained by 

 private investigations. He desired to in- 

 quire thoroughly and systematically into 

 the rates of growth, average stature, weight, 

 etc., of men and women under normal or 

 abnormal conditions, so as to have a fair 

 starting-point for further investigation and 

 action. Lord Aberdare said that some 

 time since it was ascertained that the Irish- 

 man v/as superior to the Scotchman in vigor, 

 and that the Englishman was lowest of the 



three. This he attributed to the fact that 

 in Ireland and Scotland children were fed 

 on food appropriate to them. He moved 

 that a committee be appointed to collect 

 observations on the subject of the heights 

 and weight of human beings in Great Brit- 

 ain and Ireland, and that a grant of money 

 be made to defray the expenses of such an 

 inquiry. This resolution was adopted. 



Native Home of the Rocky Monntaia Lo- 

 cost. In view of the great interest and 

 alarm excited by the ravages of the grass- 

 hoppers in the West last year. Prof. C. V. 

 Riley, State Entomologist of Missouri, gives, 

 in the last seventy-five pages of his Seventh 

 Annual Report, a very full and interesting 

 account of the natural history of this in- 

 sect, including the plants it feeds on, the 

 parasites that feed on it, and a history of 

 its noted incursions, with the means that 

 may profitably be employed to arrest its 

 depredations. From the section on its "na- 

 tive home " we quote some interesting re- 

 marks concerning the spread of the insect. 



Having in July, 1874, given the opinion 

 that the swarms of that year Avould reach 

 the western counties of Missouri too late to 

 do serious damage, and that they would not 

 extend eastward beyond a line drawn, at a 

 rough estimate, along longitude 17 west 

 from Washington an opinion, by-the-way, 

 that was remarkably confirmed by subse- 

 quent events the professor here proceeds 

 to give his reasons for that conclusion: 



'Bat it will be asked, 'Upon what do you 

 base this conclusion, and what security have we 

 that at some future time the couutry east of the 

 line you have indicated may not be ravaged by 

 these plagues from the mountains ? ' I answer 

 that, during the whole history of tlie species, as 

 I have attempted to trace it in the chronological 

 account already given, the insect never has done 

 any damage east of the line indicated, and there 

 is no reason to suppose that it eviT will do so 

 for the future. . . . 



" ' But why,' it will again be asked, ' will not 

 the young from the eggs laid along the eastern 

 limit you have indicated hatch and spread far- 

 ther to the eastward ? ' Here, again, historical 

 record serves us, and there are, in addition, cer- 

 tain physical facts which help to answer the 

 question. 



" There is some difference of opinion as to 

 the precise natural habitat and breeding-place 

 of these insects, but the facts all indicate that 

 it is by naturea denizen of great altitudes, breed- 

 ing in the valleys, parks, and plateaus of the 

 Rocky Mountain region of Colorado, and espe- 



