THE ALUMNI JOURNAL. 



245 



Survival of the Fittest.— Attention has been 

 called, says the Engineering- and Mining Jour- 

 nal, to the disastrous results, both direct and 

 indirect, of the enormous inroads of electricity 

 in street railway traffic, displacing horses, and 

 to a lesser degree in mine haulage replacing 

 mules. The effect on the farmers who raise 

 horses and mules, and the grain necessary for 

 their subsistence, and on the railways which 

 transport this grain, is looked at as a very se- 

 rious matter. As is usually the case, however, 

 the favorable balance is more than maintained 

 by increased activity in other lines, due directly 

 to the same causes. The production of copper, 

 for instance, is enormously increased by the de- 

 mands of the manufacturers of electric appara- 

 tus and its transportation, together with the 

 carrying of the finished products, makes an 

 enormous freight tonnage. The auxiliary lines, 

 so to speak, such as mica mining, asbestos min- 

 ing, iron mining, and the metallurgical pro- 

 cesses producing iron, steel and copper, have 

 all received their share of the impetus due to 

 electrical development. So, while the farmer 

 may suffer in furnishing the supplies for horses 

 and breeders, still he would gain in the general 

 growth of industry requiring more men and 

 more material of various kinds. Every im- 

 provement hastens the death of some industry 

 unfit to survive, while it creates many new 

 wants and increases the general prosperity. — 

 The Electrical World. 



New Astronomer at Lick.— Professor Wil- 

 liam J. Hussey, of Standard University, Illinois, 

 will succeed Professor Barnard as astronomer at 

 Lick Observatory. The appointment of Barn- 

 ard's successor comes within the province of 

 the regents of the university. 



Provision is made in the Missouri Botanic 

 Garden for the furtherance of advanced research 

 in botany and cognate sciences, and facilities 

 are freely given to professors of botany and 

 other persons wishing and competent to per- 

 form such work. The garden is rich in native 

 and exotic species of plants and horticulturists' 

 varieties under cultivation. The herbarium in- 

 cludes nearly two hundred and fifty thousand 

 species, fairly representative of the vegetable 

 life of Europe and the United States with speci- 

 mens from other regions, and is supplemented 

 by a large collection of woods ; and the library 

 is representative of the present condition of the 

 science in its various departments, and contains 

 besides nearly five hundred botanical volumes 

 prepared before the period of Linnaeus. Botan- 

 ists wishing to pursue their studies here are in- 



vited to communicate on the subject with Prof 

 William Trelease, director, St. Louis.— The 

 Popular Science Monthly. 



According to Dr. Dupont, a physician o f 

 Paris, writing in the Annates d s Hygiene f'ub- 

 ligue, a safe and effective method of purifying 

 water by chemical action has been discovered. 

 Dr. Dupont notes that hitherto the methods of 

 purifying drinking water have been by filtra- 

 tion and by the action of heat. Filtration is the 

 oldest and least effective method. Even filtra- 

 tion through porous porcelain, the most effect- 

 ive substance known, cannot always be trusted, 

 especially after the apparatus has been long in 

 use. Dr. Dupont does not assert that boiling 

 fails to destroy noxious germs, but he says that 

 it often leaves in the water organic matter that 

 might be dangerous to health, and that boiling 

 makes water less digestible by robbing it of its 

 gases. He instances a case in which water from 

 the Seine has been found, after boiling, to con- 

 tain more microbes than before. 



M. Girard, director of the Municipal Labora- 

 tory of Paris, and Dr. Bordas, a pupil of Prof. 

 Brouardel, have recently presented to the Acad- 

 emy of Sciences, through the chemist Friedel, 

 a communication on the purification of water 

 by chemical action. The chemicals used are 

 permanganate of lime and binoxide of mangan- 

 ese. The permanganate of lime, coming in con- 

 tact with organic matter and micro-organisms, 

 destroys them and decomposes itself into oxy- 

 gen, oxide of manganese and lime. Then, to 

 carry off the surplus of permanganate and com- 

 plete the purification, the water is poured over 

 binoxide of manganese. Oxygen in the nascent 

 state is thus freed, and it burns up any remain- 

 ing germs. There remains then in the appara- 

 tus inferior oxides of manganese, which hasten 

 to reoxidize themselves and furnish again a cer- 

 tain quantity of binoxide of manganese. The 

 water, as thus finally purified, contains a little 

 lime in the form of a bicarbonate and traces of 

 oxygenated water. 



A very small quantity of permanganate of 

 lime is used for this process. Not more than 

 1.3 grains Troy to about a quart of water taken 

 from the Seine at a point near Paris resulted in 

 the production of perfectly pure water, as 

 wholesome as spring water. Dr. Dupont says 

 that if the process can be made successful on a 

 large scale the question of purifying water is 

 settled. Water containing 100,000 colonies of 

 microbes per cubic centimetre can thus be puri- 

 fied, and ice placed in water with permangan- 

 ate of lime is also quickly sterilized. 



