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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Animal Life in Word and Picture," which 

 is to be published in elegant style, and of 

 which the first volume, the " Mammalia," is 

 ready. 



Dr. a. N. Randolph has made experi- 

 ments on the behavior of the mixture of 

 hydrocarbons called petrolatum, or, com- 

 monly, vaseline, in the digestive tract, by 

 which he has learned that it passes from 

 the system wholly unchanged. It is, there- 

 fore, valueless as a food-stuff, while it is at 

 the same time entirely unirritating to the 

 digestive tract. 



Mr. a. V. Adrianof has contributed to 

 the Russian Geographical Society an ac- 

 count of a people living in the basin of the 

 river Kemtsik, called the Sayanians, or Sa- 

 yantsi, who display a remarkable capacity for 

 mixing with neighboring races without being 

 merged. Many of their burying-places are 

 of considerable antiquity, and are cither 

 marked by conical cairns or are flat areas 

 surrounded by a circular row of stones. The 

 stones are sometimes plain, but often cov- 

 ered with inscriptions, and bear in some in- 

 stances rude representations of the human 

 figure. In the immediate neighborhood of 

 the tombs may be observed the remains of 

 the sacrifice, the victim usually being a 

 horse. Similar sacrifices are still offered, 

 at which the flesh of the slaughtered horse 

 is eaten, and the head and skin are raised 

 on a pole. 



A PAPER by Mr. F. Cope Whitchousc, 

 stating his reasons for believing Fingal's 

 Cave in the Island of Staffa to be of artificial 

 construction, accompanied by photographs 

 illustrating his views, was presented to the 

 French Academy of Sciences at its meeting of 

 December 1st, by M. Daubrey, the geologist. 



M. Eugene Foucault, a French anti- 

 quary, has found in Drittany a bronze axe, 

 with the handle attached — the first speci- 

 men of the kind known to have been found 

 in France, and probably in the world. The 

 tool is furnished with a cutting edge on one 

 end, and a kind of hammer-cap on the other. 



Peofessor Landois, of Miinster, reported 

 to the recent scientific assembly in Germany 

 on his examinations of the viscera of West- 

 phahan woodpeckers, for the estimation of 

 the economical influence of the birds. They 

 showed that those particular woodpeckers 

 at least were decidedly useful and beneficial. 

 Their food consists, summer and winter, of 

 both animal and vegetable matter, but the 

 latter is mostly the seeds of coniferous 

 plants. The abundance of aphides and lar- 

 vae of diptera found in the entrails showed 

 that the birds made a very extensive slaugh- 

 ter of minute insects. The simple percus- 

 sion on the bark of the trees does no harm, 

 and their nesting is rather beneficial than 

 otherwise, for it anticipates the destructive 



life that would otherwise be hatched in the 

 hollows. 



OBITUARY NOTES. 



Professor Benjamin Silliman, of Yale 

 College, died in New Haven, January 14th, 

 of dropsy induced by heart-disease, after 

 having been ill since the 6th of October. 

 He was in the sixty-ninth year of his age. 

 He had been connected with Yale College 

 as a teacher or professor since he graduated 

 in 1837. He had been identified with the 

 Yale (or Sheffield) Scientific School, which he 

 organized, from its beginning. He was one 

 of the Trustees of the Peabody Museum of 

 Natural History, and was a member of nu- 

 merous scientific societies on both sides of 

 the Atlantic. A portrait and sketch of Pro- 

 fessor Silliman were published in " The Popu- 

 lar Science Monthly" for February, 1880. 



Mr. Alfred Ttlor, F. G. S., of Carshal- 

 ton, England, a business man, who also found 

 time to contribute to the advancement of 

 science, died December Slst, more than six- 

 ty years old. He was a brother of E. B. 

 Tylor, the anthropologist, and had been the 

 friend and the companion, in some of his 

 earlier geological excursions, of the late 

 Professor Edward Forbes. He was inter- 

 ested in questions of physical geologj', in- 

 cluding the formation of valleys, the erosive 

 action of rivers, and the origin of gravels 

 and other superficial deposits, on which sub- 

 jects he was a frequent writer. He was also 

 interested in questions of archa3ology and 

 anthropology, and had enjoyed the pleasure 

 of discovering some remarkable Roman re- 

 mains on his own premises. 



Mr. James Napier, of Glasgow, who has 

 been long identified with chemistry and the 

 manufacturing arts, especially with electro- 

 metallurgy, died, near the close of last year, 

 at about seventy-four years of age. He was 

 the author of " Ancient Workers in Metal," 

 " The Manufacturing Arts in Ancient Times," 

 " Old Ballad Folk-Lore," and of many mem- 

 oirs in the "Proceedings" of the Philo- 

 sophical Society of Glasgow. 



M. Jules Bertin, a French forest-in- 

 spector, and author of several books on for- 

 estry, died in December last, at Boulogne. 



Mr. Searles V. Wood, a British geolo- 

 gist, distinguished chiefly for his investiga- 

 tions of the newer Pliocene and glacial de- 

 posits of the eastern counties, died in De- 

 cember. He was author of several papers 

 relating to his special subject in the Geologi- 

 cal Society and the " Geological Magazine." 



The death was announced, early in Jan- 

 uary, of M. Victor Dessaignes, a French 

 chemist, who was distinguished for his deli- 

 cate researches in organic chemistry. He 

 was eighty-five years old. 



