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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The Dullness of Anglo-Saxon Cities. — 



Mr. Frederic Harrison has made a complaint 

 that English cities all over the world — with 

 which American cities are classed — are dull 

 and unattractive. The brightness of the 

 life — at least among the better-endowed 

 classes — which is recorded of the ancient 

 cities of Greece and Rome, is not to be 

 found in them ; and the exhilarating vitality 

 of Continental cities is likewise absent from 

 them. They are healthy and rich beyond 

 comparison with all other places, except, 

 perhaps, ancient Rome, of corresponding 

 importance, but, according to the summary 

 of Mr. Harrison's lecture, they are dull 

 abodes, usually wanting in beauty, seldom 

 adorned with really admirable public build- 

 ings, filled with homes that give no pleasure 

 to the eye, and over a great part of their 

 area squalid, monotonous, and dingy. There 

 are few festivals, and little real civic com- 

 mon life ; the best classes withdraw their 

 interest and declare the cities intolerable; 

 the masses, except in their personal security, 

 derive but little benefit from the organiza- 

 tions amid which they live. Life for the 

 majority is deprived of the pleasantness 

 which attaches to life in the country, and 

 gives no compensations except those which 

 are derived from the presence of great num- 

 bers. Mr. Harrison thinks that the size of 

 the great cities is a drawback to their pleas- 

 antness, and this may be, to some extent, 

 true; but a more satisfactory way of ac- 

 counting for the condition may probably be 

 found in the spirit of speculation which 

 seeks to make money out of everything, 

 preferring it to enjoyment, and plants noi- 

 some factories, with steam-engines and va- 

 pors, and racket, as near to all large centers 

 of population as it can get them. 



Effects of Petrolenm Emanations on 

 Health. — The influence of petroleum emana- 

 tions upon health have been investigated by 

 M. Wiecyk in the Carpathian region, where 

 the workmen have to breathe an atmosphere 

 that is tainted with carbureted hydrogen, 

 carbonic acid, ethylene, various hydrocar- 

 bons, carbonic oxide, and sulphureted hy- 

 drogen. Cases of asphyxia are not rare. 

 The affections ordinarily incident to long- 

 continued work are tinglings in the ears, 

 dazzling, beating of the arteries of the head. 



syncopes, and hallucinations, usually of pleas- 

 ant character. The first feeling on breath- 

 ing the vapors is one of lightness in the 

 breast and greater freedom in respiratory 

 movements ; but this is soon succeeded by 

 palpitations and general weakness. Diseases 

 of the chest, particularly tuberculosis and 

 epidemic and infectious disorders, are rare ; 

 a consequence, probably, of the antiseptic 

 qualities of the vapors. 



Andaman Island Myths. — The Andaman- 

 Islanders, according to Mr. J. A. Farrer, in 

 the " Gentleman's Magazine," believe the 

 rat, crow, fish, eagle, heron, jungle-fowl, 

 shark, porpoise, and various other animals, 

 to be transformed ancestors, and have a 

 definite legend to account for the transfor- 

 mation in each case. A certain fish, armed 

 with a row of poisonous barbs on its back, 

 is a man who committed murder in a fit of 

 jealousy ; and a tree-lizard retains the very 

 name by which the victim was known as a 

 man. The first human being of all fell into 

 a creek and was drowned, when he was 

 transformed into a whale and became the 

 father of cetaceans. He capsized and 

 drowned his wife and grandchildren while 

 they were in a boat looking for him, and she 

 was transformed into a crab, and his grand- 

 children into iguanas. 



The White Monntain of Manehnria. — 



Mr. H. E. M. James, of the Indian Civil Serv- 

 ice, and two companions, have made a jour- 

 ney through the Chang-pei-shan Mountains 

 of Manchuria, and visited the sources of the 

 river Sungari, thus penetrating to a district 

 which had not previously been reached by Eu- 

 ropeans. At Maoerh-shan, on the Yaloo, they 

 found their progress up the river barred by 

 impracticable precipices, while the few colo- 

 nists of the upper valley had to depend upon 

 the river when frozen in winter for inter- 

 communication. They, therefore, changed 

 their course to the valley of another stream. 

 The Pei-shan, or White Mountain, from which 

 the region they visited derives its name, 

 proved to be an extinct volcano, with a blue 

 pellucid lake filling the bottom of the cra- 

 ter, and surmounted by a serrated circle of 

 peaks rising about 650 feet above the sur- 

 face of the water. The sides of the mount- 

 ain, which are steep, are composed entirely 



