256 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



find at the Maryland Academy of Sciences, 

 says that each of the skulls was pierced 

 at its vertex with a hole about an inch in 

 diameter ; tliis was apparently done some 

 time after death. 



Dr. Guillaume-Benjamin Duchesne, re- 

 cently deceased, was born at Boulogne-sur- 

 Mer, in 180(5 ; graduated M. D., at Paris, in 

 1831. He practised medicine for a while 

 in his native town, and in 1842 came to re- 

 side in Paris. He was one of the founders 

 of electrotherapy. He studied with eminent 

 success the play of the facial muscles in the 

 expression of the passions, and his observa- 

 tions and experiments were of great service 

 to Mr. Darwin in the composition of his 

 work on the " Expression of the Emotions." 

 Not to mention his numerous contributions 

 to medical journals, he was the author of 

 several published works, among them a 

 " Treatise on Localized Electrization ; " 

 " Researches on the Muscles of the Feet ; " 

 " Mechanism of Human Physiology ; " 

 " Anatomy of the Nervous System ; " 

 " Physiology of Movemsni," etc. 



On comparing the statistics of the Ger- 

 man universities for the summer semes- 

 ter of 1874 with those of the same semes- 

 ter of 1875, the AUgemeine Zeitung finds a 

 decrease in the number of medical stu- 

 dents; it has fallen from 6,190 to 6,039. 

 One of the causes of this is the fact that 

 now Jewish students devote themselves, in 

 great numbers, to the study of jurispru- 

 dence. Until lately, the legal career could 

 hardly be said to "be open to Jews in Ger- 

 many, and hence a great number of them 

 studied medicine. 



The California Peat Company are man- 

 ufacturing peat-fuel at Roberts's Landing, 

 San Joaquin County, at the rate of from 

 fifty to one hundred tons per day. A re- 

 cent trial of the product in the furnace of a 

 steam-boiler is said, by the Scientific and 

 Mininff Press, to have been thoroughly sat- 

 isfactory in its results. 



The authorities of Tufts College have 

 lengthened their philosophical course to 

 four years, at the same time giving the 

 student greater freedom in the choice of 

 studies. 



According to the American Railway 

 Times, the first suspension-bridge was con- 

 structed by James Finley over Jacob's 

 Creek, on the turnpike between Uniontown 

 and Greensburg, Pennsylvania, in 1796. 



The first shipments of tin from Tasmania 

 have arrived in England. This tin is pro- 

 nounced by the Mining Journal to be of ex- 

 cellent quality, soft and of very good color. 

 It is free from even a trace of wolfram, so 

 often found in combination with tin. 



The two-hundredth anniversary of An- 

 tony van Leeuwenhoek's discovery of infu- 

 soria was celebrated on September 8th at 

 Delft, his birthplace. All the natural his- 

 tory associations of Holland were repre- 

 sented on the occasion, and a fund was es- 

 tablished for a Leeuweuhoek gold-medal, 

 worth six hundred marks, to be awarded to 

 distinguished microscopists. The first re- 

 cipient of this medal was Prof. Ehrenberg, 

 of Berlin, the oldest microscopist of Eu- 

 rope, aud Leeuwenhoek's legitimate suc- 

 cessor. 



A TRIAL-TRIP was recently made on a 

 Scotch railway with a Scott-Moncrieff tram- 

 way-car, worked by compressed air. The 

 vehicle resembles a common railway-car, 

 but is a little higher, the reservoir of air 

 being on the roof The initial pressure 

 was two hundred pounds, and the speed at- 

 tained ten miles per hour. The car was 

 fully under control ; the speed could be in- 

 creased or reduced at pleasure, and the 

 operations of starting, stopping, and re- 

 versing, were readily performed. The esti- 

 mated cost of the power is three half-pence 

 per mile, as against seven pence per mile 

 for horse-power. 



The cells in a large mushroom, weigh- 

 ing four and a half pounds, were found by 

 Worthington G. Smith to number 106,596,- 

 000,000,000. Each of these is furnished 

 with a coat or cell-wall, and contains within 

 itself protoplasm, water, and other materi- 

 als. These cells are so extremely light 

 that in one species of fungus it takes 

 1,624,320,000,000 to weigh an ounce troy. 



The British Association this year makes 

 grants of money amounting to nearly 1,500 

 in aid of scientific research. For the pros- 

 ecution of researches on " British Rain- 

 fall," the Association voted 100, and a 

 like sum respectively for the exploration of 

 Settle Cave and Kent's Cavern, for a record 

 of the progress of zoology, and an exami- 

 nation of the physical characters of the in- 

 habitants of the British Isles. The sum of 

 75 was voted in support of Dr. Dohrn's 

 zoological station at Naples, and 200 for 

 compteting and setting up in London Sir 

 W. Thomson's tide-calculating machine. 

 The number of beneficiaries is in all twen- 

 ty-seven. 



It is proposed to hold, in 1877, at the 

 Palais de I'lndustrie, Paris, an exposition 

 of all the applications of electricity to art, 

 science, and household use. The enterprise 

 is zealously patronized by men of high dis- 

 tinction in the world of science and of in- 

 dustry. The necessary funds have been 

 guaranteed. The committee in charge have 

 their temporary headquarters at No. 86 Rue 

 de la Victoire, Paris. 



