NOTES. 



383 



principle of instruction in this school is 

 " to make knowledge concrete, practical." 



RoTiTals and Religions Insanity. In a 



paper by G. H. Savage, M.D., of the Bethlehem 

 Hospital for the Insane, London, on " Reli- 

 gious Insanity and Religious Revivals," the 

 lists of cases admitted to the hospital dur- 

 ing the four months April to August, in the 

 three years 1875, 1874, and 1873, are com- 

 pared. The result does not show any in- 

 crease of insanity traceable to the recent 

 religious excitement in England. Indeed, 

 the author sees no reason for regarding reli- 

 gious insanity as a peculiar, well-defined spe- 

 cies of mental disease. According to him, 

 it is simply an accident of education, tem- 

 perament, or sex, whether certain subjective 

 feelings develop themselves into a morbid 

 religious idea, or into an illusion of being 

 persecuted and annoyed by others. " Many 

 persons," he adds, " verging on insanity 

 in fact, in the melancholy stage of the dis- 

 ease seek religious consolation, and, not- 

 withstanding this, go mad ; they would 

 probably have gone mad in any case, and 

 the most that can be said against the ser- 

 vice is that it precipitated the attack." But 

 to return to the figures. In 1875, from 

 April to August, there were admitted to 

 Bethlehem 42 male patients, and of these 9 

 suffered from religious insanity. During the 

 same time 55 women were admitted, of 

 whom 8 had religious delusions. That was 

 21.4 per cent, of the men, and 14.5 percent, 

 of the women. During 1874, in the same 

 period, 30 male admissions gave 6 religious 

 cases, and 47 female cases gave 16 that is, 

 16.6 and 34 per cent, respectively. In 1873, 

 28 male admissions gave 4 rehgious cases, 

 or 14.2 per cent. ; 28 female admissions 

 gave 8 religious cases, or 28.4 per cent. 



NOTES. 



We have received from Prof. W. S. 

 Barnard the following correction of a state- 

 ment in his article on " Opossums and 

 their Young," published in the December 

 Monthly : " In your December number I 

 stated that the delivery of young opossums 

 had never been witnessed. To the contrary 

 see observations of Mr. J. G. Shute, in the 

 ' Proceedings of the Essex Institute,' vol. 

 iii., page 288, to which my attention has 

 just been called. The female curves her 



body until the sexual orifice is opposite the 

 pouch, which opens by muscular contrac- 

 tion to receive the young, without any as- 

 sistance from the paws or lips." 



The largest telescope ever yet attempted 

 is now in course of construction in Dublin 

 by Mr. Grubb. It is intended for the new 

 Observatory of Vienna. The object-glass 

 will have an aperture of over twenty-six 

 inches, and the focal length is to be about 

 thirty-two feet. 



In the American Journal of Science and 

 Arts for November Prof. Marsh has a short 

 illustrated paper describing the remains of 

 several fossil birds obtained from the Creta- 

 ceous of Kansas, and possessing teeth. 



We learn from the Scientific American 

 that the excavations at Hell-Gate were com- 

 pleted about the end of July. The work 

 now in progress consists in the boring of 

 holes for the charges of nitro-glycerine. 

 This was to have been completed before the 

 end of the year 1875, and then two or three 

 months more would be occupied in inserting 

 the charges. 



A ccRiocs race of sheep, living on an 

 island in Englishman's Bay, coast of Maine, 

 are described in Forest and Stream. They 

 are nearly as wild as deer. Their principal 

 winter food is sea-weed, chiefly dulse ; they 

 also eat the branches of nearly all the trees 

 which grow on the island. 



In very early times the pine appears to 

 have been the principal forest-tree of Den- 

 mark. At present the beech occupies this 

 position, and the pine is no longer indige- 

 nous in the countiy. Next after the beech 

 comes the birch, then the alder, the aspen, 

 the hazel, etc. An examination of the vege- 

 table debris of the bogs of Denmark shows 

 that the pine was followed immediately bv 

 the sessile-fruited variety of the oak, and 

 this in turn by the beech. 



In illustration of the influence of nutri- 

 tion on the habits of plants, Mr. Meehan, 

 of Philadelphia, cites the case of two species 

 of Euphorbia, which, though usually pros- 

 trate, he found assuming an erect growth 

 when their nutrition was interfered with by 

 a small fungoid parasite. A similar fact 

 was observed in connection with the com- 

 mon purslane, one of the most prostrate of 

 all procumbent plants, which, under similar 

 conditions, also became erect. 



Dr. Nicolas von Konkolt finds in the 

 train of meteors the spectrum-lines of so- 

 dium, magnesium, carbon, strontium, and 

 possibly lithium,while the nucleus invariably 

 gives a continuous spectrum, in which the 

 yellow, the green, or the red predominates, 

 according to the color, blue being very rare, 

 and violet never seen. 



