NOTES. 



863 



good manners and language, cleanliness and 

 neatness, cheerful obedience to duty, con- 

 sideration and respect for others, honor and 

 truthfulness in word and act ; and not only 

 that regard had been paid in classifying 

 them as to their health, age, and mental ca- 

 pacity, but that the dull and delicate had not 

 been at any time within the preceding year 

 unduly pressed. And all this in five hours " 

 for three hundred children ! Miss Lupton 

 adds instances of actual and serious over- 

 pressure which had come under her own ob- 

 servation. 



NOTES. 



The true source of the Mississippi River 

 has been determined, as he claims, by Cap- 

 tain Willard Glazier, who led an expedi- 

 tion in search of it in 1881, to be a lake a 

 few miles south of Itasca Lake, and not less 

 than three feet above it, in latitude 47° 13' 

 25". Captain Glazier's party proceeded in 

 canoes via Leech Lake to Lake Itasca, and, 

 accompanied by an old Indian guide, pushed 

 down to the new lake, which is of consider- 

 able size, and is named after the discoverer, 

 Lake Glazier. It is 1,578 feet above the 

 Atlantic Ocean. The length of the Missis- 

 sippi, calculated to it, is 3,181 miles. The 

 lake has remained in obscurity so long on 

 account of the wild condition of the country, 

 and because it is out of the usual route of 

 the fur-trade. 



Some very satisfactory experiments in 

 the purification by artificial aeration of the 

 water supplied the city have been reported 

 to the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia. On 

 comparison with the ordinary supply, the 

 percentage of oxygen in the aerated water 

 was seventeen greater than before; the 

 amount of carbonic acid was fifty-three per 

 cent; and of total dissolved gases, sixteen per 

 cent more. " The percentage of free oxy- 

 gen," says the report, " represents the excess 

 over and above what was required to effect 

 the oxidation of the dissolved impurities." 



Dr. John Anthony, who has had much 

 experience in Egypt and Asia Minor, re- 

 gards the difference between a dromedary 

 and a camel as largely a matter of speed. 

 The former bears about the same relation to 

 the latter as the trotting-horse to the cart- 

 horse. The dromedary is credited with 

 trotting about twenty miles an hour, while 

 a regular camel or burden-bearer can not be 

 forced more than some four or five miles an 

 hour. The Egyptian camel and the drome- 

 dary have one hump. Dr. Anthony never 

 saw a " Bactrian " or two-humped camel 

 till he was east of the Crimea. 



Professor E. Cohn, of Breslau, has pub- 

 lished some interesting observations made 

 by the naturalist Leeuwenhoek on micro- 

 scopic organisms in the cleanings of his 

 teeth in 1683, or more than two hundred 

 years ago. The observer distinguished sev- 

 eral kinds of organisms, and described them 

 so precisely that they would be easily rec- 

 ognizable. One resembled a rod — the ba- 

 cillus ; others, bending in curves, the bac- 

 teria; a third kind, creeping in snake- 

 fashion, a vibrio ; another kind, extremely 

 minute, and resembling a swarm of flies 

 rolled up in a ball, was evidently the micro- 

 coccus. Leeuwenhoek marveled that these 

 things could live in his mouth. Two re- 

 markable circumstances about this story 

 are, that Leeuwenhoek used the imperfect 

 instruments of his time with wonderful 

 skill, and that so long a time elapsed be- 

 fore any progress was made in the study of 

 bacteriology. 



Dr. a. L. Frothingham, 29 Cathedral 

 Street, Baltimore, has issued a prospectus 

 for the " American Journal of Archaeology," 

 to be published quarterly and devoted to 

 the study of the whole field of archaeology, 

 Oriental, classical, early Christian, mediae- 

 val, and American, and to serve as the offi- 

 cial organ of the Archaeological Institute of 

 America. It will be illustrated. Professor 

 Frothingham will be assisted by Professor 

 C. L. Norton, of Harvard College, as advi- 

 sory editor, and by Dr. A. Emerson, Mr. T. 

 W. Ludlam, Professor Allen Marquand, Mr. 

 A. R. Marsh, and Mr. C. C. Perkins, as spe- 

 cial editors. The subscription price will be 

 three dollars and fifty cents a year. In ad- 

 dition, subscriptions are invited from the 

 friends of archffiological studies for the for- 

 mation of a reserve fund to meet the deficit 

 which must occur during the first few years 

 of the " Journal's " existence. 



According to the statements of Profess- 

 or Poleck, of Breslau, the " house-fungus " 

 {Merulius lacrymans), which has recently 

 become so extensively spread in Europe, is 

 most destructive to wood that contains most 

 mineral matter. The richer the wood in 

 phosphates and potash compounds the more 

 does the fungus flourish. Now, pine-wood 

 felled in the sap contains five times as much 

 potash and eight times as much phosphoric 

 acid as wood felled in the winter. Hence, it 

 is better, for the preservation of the wood, 

 to cut the trees late in the winter season. 



M. Olzewski reports that having o1> 

 tained more considerable quantities of dif- 

 ferent liquefied gases, he caused liquid ni- 

 trogen to bcil under a pressure of sixty mil- 

 limetres at —214° C. ( — 353° Fahr.), when 

 it became partly solidified. At the pressure 

 of four millimetres, the ebullition, which 

 took place at —225° C. ( — 363° Fahr.), de- 

 termined the complete solidification of the 



