POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



861 



the chief of the important town of Falaba, 

 which defeated the attempts both of Laing 

 and Reade to reach the sources. The cross- 

 ing of the mountains appears, however, to 

 have been a difficult undertalcing, not accom- 

 plished without much determination, aided 

 by good luck. The main source was found 

 on the frontier of Kirsi and Koranka ; in 

 short, near the place indicated on Major 

 Laing's map. 



Animal Deat of Fish. — Surgeon J. H. 

 Kidder, of the United States Navy, made 

 some observations during last summer in 

 connection with the United States Fish Com- 

 mission at Provincetown, Massachusetts, to 

 test the belief which is still held by many, 

 even scientific observers, that fish are cold- 

 blooded — that is, that they take on the 

 temperature of the water which surrounds 

 them, with no power to resist it, and that 

 they develop little or no animal heat them- 

 selves. Observations made in the usual 

 way, by inserting the thermometer into the 

 rectum of the fish, agreed with the gener- 

 ally received opinion, the fish showing in 

 that part but little higher temperature than 

 that of the surrounding water. It was 

 judged, however, that neither the rectum, 

 which is closely exposed to the water, nor 

 the arterial blood, which has passed through 

 the gills where it is exposed and cooled, could 

 have the same value as representing the 

 body-temperature in fishes that correspond- 

 ing parts possess in mammals and birds, but 

 that the degree of heat actually developed 

 in the life-processes should be sought in the 

 venous circulation and the branchial artery. 

 The fish were accordingly opened as soon as 

 possible after they were taken out of the 

 water, and the bulb of the thermometer was 

 inserted into the cavity of the heart, or the 

 branchial artery. Most of the fishes showed 

 a perceptibly higher temperature than that 

 of the water, rising, in the case of the dog- 

 fish, to 12°. A young dogfish, taken from 

 its mother's oviduct, was 20° warmer than 

 the water. The number of observations was 

 not largo enough to warrant a final state- 

 ment of the degree of animal heat present- 

 ed by the several fishes, but they are held 

 to prove that fish develop sufficient heat to 

 warm again, to the extent of from 3° to 

 13°, blood that has been cooled in each cir- 



cuit to the temperature of the surrounding 

 water. An apparent exception to the gen- 

 eral result was offered in the case of blue- 

 fish, which were cooler than the water ; but 

 that was supposed to be because they had 

 come up from a greater depth and a colder 

 stratum of water than that on the surface. 



Sun-Spots and Rainfall.— Mr. E. D. Archi- 

 bald writes in " Nature " that, instead of 

 changes in the condition of the sun neces- 

 sarily affecting every part of the earth in 

 the same way, we have many meteorologi- 

 cal analogies which favor the notion that 

 totally opposite effects may arise in differ- 

 ent parts of the earth from the action of 

 the same primary causes. Thus, it is gen- 

 erally assumed that the same tropical heat 

 which gives the primary impulse to the 

 desiccating northeast trade-wind of sub- 

 tropical latitudes, furnishes the energy 

 which exhibits itself in the almost constant 

 precipitation under the equator. Any vari- 

 ation in the degree of this heat should con- 

 sequently affect places in the region of the 

 trades and in the equatorial calm-belt, in a 

 diametrically opposite manner. The great 

 rainfalls of last autumn in England and India 

 were ascribed by some to the sun's emer- 

 gence from a period of years marked by the 

 rarity of its spots, and shining with in- 

 creased radiations on the southern oceans ; 

 but Mr. Archibald shows that the rainfall 

 of England, between latitudes 50' and 55° 

 north, reached a decided maximum in 1877, 

 a year of extreme spot-minimum, and was 

 very high all through the recent period of 

 unusually marked spot-minimum. A table 

 of the annual mean range of barometric 

 pressure at Calcutta from 1840 to 1878, of 

 which Mr. Archibald gives a summary in his 

 communication, indicates that years of few 

 sun-spots were characterized by higher tem- 

 peratures, greater wind-velocity, and greater 

 range of barometric pressure than those of 

 many spots. 



New Bleaching Preparation. — A method 

 of applying the ordinary bleaching agents 

 (hypochlorites ) in a new way has been invent- 

 ed by Count Dienheim de Brochocki, of Par- 

 is. Instead of immersing the goods to be 

 bleached in an ordinary " chloride-of-lime " 

 vat, and subsequently scouring, the inventor 



