690 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



more numerous, the proportion being 62*9 1 

 per cent, to S'Z'OQ per cent. Mantegazza is 

 inclined to suppose that at a period more 

 or less remote the third molar will disappear 

 from the human jaw. 



A New Plant. — A botanical discovery of 

 considerable interest is announced in a let- 

 ter, written by Dr. Beccari, from Sumatra. 

 It is a gigantic aroid, which can only be 

 compared with the Godwinia discovered by 

 Seewann in Nicaragua. Dr. Beccari is as 

 yet unable to determine the genus, but he 

 believes it to be a Conophallus. The tuber 

 of one plant was 1'40 metre in circumfer- 

 ence, and two men were hardly able to carry 

 it. From the tuber, as in the genus Amor- 

 phophallus, only one leaf is produced, which 

 in form and segmentation does not differ 

 much from that genus. But the dimensions 

 are very different indeed. The stalk at the 

 base in one instance was 90 centimetres in 

 girth, was slightly less at the apex, and 

 reached the height of 3-5 metres ; its sur- 

 face was smooth, of a green color, with nu- 

 merous small, white dots. The three branch- 

 es into which it was divided at the top were 

 each as large as a man's thigh, and were 

 divided several times, forming altogether a 

 frond not less than 3-1 metres long. The 

 whole leaf covered an area of 15 metres cir- 

 cumference. The spadix of a plant found 

 in fruit had the stalk-dimensions just given ; 

 the fruit-bearing portion was cylindrical, '75 

 centimetres in girth, 50 centimetres long, 

 and was densely covered with olive-shaped 

 fruit 35 to 40 millimetres long, and 35 milli- 

 metres in diameter, of a bright-red color, 

 each containing two seeds. 



idvantagcs of Oral Teacliing.— It would 

 not be easy to compress within equal space 

 a greater amount of practical common sense 

 than we find in a i-ecent communication en- 

 titled " Our Schools," printed in " The Ex- 

 aminer." " I believe," writes the author, 

 *' that one of the great stumbling-blocks to 

 boys is want of oral teaching, in a popular 

 style, particularly among little boys. It is a 

 notorious fact that the grown-up world gen- 

 erally learns geography and history by means 

 of newspapers and reading accounts of cur- 

 rent events with the aid of the maps which are 

 published from time to timeforthe purpose. 



and, if boys were taught in the same popular 

 manner at the commencement of their educa- 

 tion, it would do lasting good. We must all 

 remember the dreary toil of mastering geog- 

 raphy by learning a quantity of details out 

 of a book about the number of inhabitants, 

 names of rivers, the trade, the religion, and 

 manners and customs of any country, with- 

 out any means of impressing facts on the 

 mind, while history becomes a positive tread- 

 mill when left to a boy's private reading. 

 When the Prince of Wales went to India, if 

 any one with an attractive manner of talking 

 had taken a series of cartoons simply show- 

 ing the rivers, the principal cities and moun- 

 tain ranges, and some of the pictures pub- 

 lished in the illustrated papers, he could, by 

 arousing deep interest, have made the way 

 easy for acquiring a fuller, more complete 

 knowledge. The same mode of teaching 

 would apply to the late European wars, the 

 Indian famine, or any other great national 

 event or calamity. We do this kind of thing 

 in business matters every day of our lives 

 in committees, on trials, and in all important 

 transactions. It should be the same with 

 boys ; they should be interested in their 

 subject before being set to master its drier 

 details, which would, by this very introduc- 

 tion, lose much of their dryness." 



Eetentive Memories. — A number of in- 

 stances of great retentiveness and accuracy 

 of memory are recorded by a writer in 

 " Chambers's Journal." Among the names 

 mentioned is that of Dr. Robert Chambers, 

 whose power of memory was very extraor- 

 dinary. For example, on a certain occasion 

 he was heard to say, " This day forty-seven 

 years ago, at twenty minutes past two o'clock, 

 I was passing " such a number of such a 

 street, and met such and such a one. The 

 author finds in Sir Walter Scott and in 

 Charles Dickens a Uke accuracy of memory, 

 and to this attributes no small share of theh- 

 success as story-writers. Then a case is 

 cited from one of Dr. Carpenter's writings 

 of a clergyman who, on visiting Pevensey 

 Castle, felt convinced he must have seen it 

 before, and that when he did there were 

 donkeys under the gateway, and some peo- 

 ple on top of it. On inquiry he ascertained 

 that he had been there with a picnic party, 

 who made the excursion on donkeys, when 



