FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



H3 



do so, and the patients would make 

 much more rapid recoveries. I think 

 that injection ought to be insisted upon 

 as early as possible in every case that 

 is at all severe or likely to prove so, 

 and I think that the medical man who 

 does not employ antitoxine and who 

 loses a large proportion of his cases is 

 incurring a responsibility which is al- 

 most criminal. The earlier a patient is 

 injected the greater is the chance of 

 recovery, and the more rapid is the re- 

 covery." 



Among the leading principles of for- 

 estry, as defined by the chief fire war- 

 den of Minnesota, are that the best 

 agricultural land should not be devoted 

 to forest while wood and timber can be 

 profitably grown on soil that is unfit 

 for farming purposes; that the manage- 

 ment should be continuous, and no 

 more timber should be taken out of the 

 forest in one year, or in a series of ten 

 or twenty years, than grows in the en- 

 tire forest in the same period; that the 

 cutting of timber should be in blocks 

 or strips, so as to facilitate reproduction 

 on the clear areas by seeds falling from 

 the trees left standing; and that the 

 forest, when young, must have in num- 

 bers vastly more trees than when it is 

 mature. To make good timber, the for- 

 est, when young, must be crowded so 

 as to secure height growth. Mixed 

 wood, managed on forestry principles in 

 the Black Forest of Germany, has per 

 acre, at the age of twenty years, 3,960 

 trees; at the age of one hundred years, 

 262 trees. 



A NEW process for the production of 

 a textile material is thus described in 

 Industries and Iron: "It consists of 

 ' squirting,' in a fashion similar to that 

 of making electric incandescent carbons, 

 pure gelatin in threads of about one 

 thousandth part of an inch in diameter, 

 the thread being taken away on revolv- 

 ing tapes. The threads are wound up- 

 on reels and exposed to formalin va- 

 por, which exercises a most remarkable 

 effect on the gelatin, rendering it in- 

 soluble in any medium yet applied to it. 

 The tensile qualities of the thread are 

 also increased, while, in opposition to 

 that produced under the Lehner process 

 (which is simply forming nitrated cellu- 

 lose into threads for weaving), it is 

 capable of taking up any dye desired; 



and it is, of course, impervious to any 

 hygroscopic influence. 



NOTES. 



Prof. E. C. Pickering, of the Harvard 

 College Observatory, announces the discov- 

 ery by Mrs. Fleming of a new variable star 

 in Sagittarius. It was found on eight of the 

 photographs in her large collection. On 

 March 8, 1898, it was of the fifth magnitude, 

 and on April 29, 1898, of the eighth magni- 

 tude. A plate taken on March 9, 1899, shows 

 it still visible and of the tenth magnitude. 

 Its spectrum resembles that of other new 

 stars. The entire number of new stars dis- 

 covered since 1885 is six, of which five have 

 been found by Mrs. Fleming. 



Because of the great loss by fire which 

 occurs every year in the Russian villages, the 

 government is making efforts to induce the 

 peasantry, says the Saturday Revieic, to em- 

 ploy some less dangerous material than straw 

 thatch for the rooting of their izba^. There 

 has already been a large increase in the 

 use of shingle, and this has led to a consid- 

 erable importation from Belgium and Ger- 

 many, and also from the United States, of 

 simple and inexpensive shingle making ma- 

 chines, for use in rural districts. German 

 manufacturers, whose "commercial intelli- 

 gence department" is remarkably well in- 

 formed, are now making redoubled efforts to 

 meet the immense demand anticipated. An 

 improved and inexpensive hand fire engine is 

 also being provided. Roofing felt or paper 

 is very generally used under the shingle, and 

 the demand for this is also increasing. 



A FOURTH specimen of the Notornis Man- 

 telli, a bird of New Zealand supposed to 

 have become extinct, was captured in August 

 last, and has been prepared for the museum 

 by Mr. W. B. Benham. The first specimen 

 was obtained, recently slain, by Mr. W. 

 Man tell, in 1849, and is preserved in the 

 Biitish Museum ; the second was killed by 

 Maoris in 1851, and is in the Colonial Collec- 

 tion ; and the third, now in the Dresden 

 Museum, was taken in 18Y9. All these 

 birds were found in a single denuded region 

 of the country. The present specimen was 

 caught by a dog in the bushes near Lake Te 

 Anan, still in the same region, and is a very 

 fine young female. 



A PLANT growing in the dense jungles of 

 Langsuam, Siam, was described by H. Waring- 

 ton Smyth, in an address to the Royal Geo- 

 graphical Society, as having the property of 

 setting up a great irritation in the skin of 

 any person coming in contact with it. " It 

 has a large, broad leaf, and the Siamese de- 

 clare that, after being badly stung by it, the 

 only remedy is the heat of a fire ; to bathe 

 in a stream, which is the natural impulse, is 

 considered absolutely fatal. A spot on the 



