840 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



NOTES. 



The Royal Astronomical Society of Lon- 

 don lias awarded a gold medal to Professor 

 Asaph Hall for " bis discovery and observa- 

 tions of tbe satellites of Mars." 



Heinrich Geissler, inventor of sundry 

 ingenious physical apparatus — the Geissler 

 tubes, the vaporimeter, etc. — died January 

 24th, at Bonn, aged sixty-five years. 



Professor J. Lawrence Smith finds 

 that the native irons of Greenland are mu- 

 tually similar, and that they differ from the 

 meteoric irons. He thinks it probable that 

 the native iron may have been brought up 

 from below, like the native alloy of plati- 

 num and iron. 



Professor Daniel Wilson, of Toronto, 

 is of the opinion that in the French Cana- 

 dians there is a liberal infusion of Indian 

 blood. Li the neighborhood of Quebec, in 

 the Ottawa Valley, and to a great extent 

 about Montreal, there is, he believes, hardly 

 a family descended from the original set- 

 tlers who have not some traces of Indian 

 blood. At Ottawa, where the French-Cana- 

 dian element is strong, the traces of Indian 

 blood are discernible in nearly every indi- 

 vidual belonging to that race. 



A DILIGENT observer of the ways of ani- 

 mals, Mr. Sidney Bustcn, says that dogs 

 and horses are, as far as he knows, the only 

 animals sensitive to ridicule, while cats and 

 birds are wholly unaware that they are be- 

 ing laughed at. Certainly dogs, and proba- 

 bly horses, know the difference between be- 

 ing laughed at in derision, as we laugh at a 

 fool, and being laughed at in admiration, as 

 we laugh at a good comic actor — and enjoy 

 the latter as much as they resent the for- 

 mer. Some parrots, however, seem to un- 

 derstand and enjoy the practice of making 

 fun of their human acquaintances. 



In Switzerland, the men conscripted into 

 the army have to undergo an examination 

 in reading, writing, arithmetic, history, and 

 the geography and political Constitution of 

 Switzerland. At the last examination not 

 a single unlettered conscript was found in 

 thirteen cantons, and the proportion of illit- 

 erates exceeded two per cent, in only three 

 cantons, viz., Appenzell, Fribourg, and Va- 

 lais. In these cantons the illiterates did not 

 exceed four per cent, of the total number of 

 conscripts. 



The London " Lancet " denominates the 

 movement for the cremation of dead bodies 

 a "craze," now that steps have been actu- 

 ally taken to dispose of bodies in that way 

 in England. It questions whether time will 

 ever so completely obliterate the "sense of 

 decency " in the people of England that the 



notion of burning the dead will be tolerated. 

 To the Lancet, the idea of cremation is 

 " revolting." 



In London the seven weeks ending Janu- 

 ary 18th was a period of very low temper- 

 ature, and the Registrar-General, in his re- 

 ports, institutes a comparison between the 

 mortality of those seven weeks and the 

 seven weeks immediately preceding them. 

 The result shows that the average weekly 

 number of deaths in the cold period ex- 

 ceeded by 481 the average number in the 

 period of moderate temperature, the annual 

 rates of mortality being equal to 26"8 and 

 19-8 per 1,000 respectively. Among per- 

 sons under twenty years of age the increased 

 mortality due to cold did not exceed 2"8 per 

 1,000 living, and the excess between twenty 

 and forty was only 1'3 per 1,000. Between 

 forty and sixty years the excess was 8'7 per 

 1,000, between sixty and eighty it was 544, 

 and among persons over eighty years of age 

 the excess was equal to 173'0 per 1,000 per 

 year. 



A correspondent of the Hiogo (Japan) 

 " News " writes to that journal that the sect 

 of the Klshi Ilonffanzi are erecting several 

 large buildings in the foreign styles near 

 their temples, to be used for school pur- 

 poses. In addition to the usual Japanese 

 course, English will be taught. The school 

 is intended for educating priests of the sect 

 named, and a select few, when their educa- 

 tion is finished, will be sent as apostles and 

 evangelists to Europe and America, to win 

 to the true faith the inhabitants of those 

 benighted regions. 



Pteratomds Putnamii, or " Putnam's 

 winged atom," is the very appropriate name 

 given by Professor Packard to a creature 

 first described by him, and which is proba- 

 bly the smallest of all known insects. An 

 individual of this species was captured last 

 summer by Mr. J. D. Cox, who gives a full 

 description of it in the "American Natu- 

 ralist." Its body is twelve thousandths of 

 an inch in length, the antennae twenty thou- 

 sandths. It is probably an egg-parasite of 

 the leaf-cutter bee. 



A NEW invention of great interest is an- 

 nounced in "Nature," viz., a real telegraph, 

 an instrument with the aid of which one lit- 

 erally writes at a distance. A writer, say at 

 London, moves his pen, and simultaneously 

 at some other point, Brighton for instance, 

 another pen is moved in precisely the same 

 curves and motions. The inventor is E. A. 

 Cowper. 



An International Exhibition, or World's 

 Fair, will be held next August in Sydney, 

 Australia. This announcement is in itself 

 an evidence of the marvelous development 

 of wealth, industry, and refinement among 

 the antipodes. 



