NOTES. 



287 



mere impulse. " We see men and move- 

 ments praised up to the skies which are 

 full of dubious elements, half evil and half 

 good, and other men and other movements 

 as passionately censured which, again, are 

 full of the same double character, half good 

 and half evil. . . . The result undoubtedly 

 is, that we give sympathy in the gross where 

 only discriminating sympathy would be 

 beneficial, and blame in the gross where 

 only discriminating blame would be bene- 

 ficial. And, as a natural consequence, we 

 hatch all sorts of unhealthy eagerness to do 

 what cither ought not to be done at all, or 

 else ought not to be done except by very 

 carefully selected people, and all sorts of 

 equally unhealthy eagerness to run down 

 modes of action which in the right hands 

 may be wise aud good, though in the wrong 

 hands they are pernicious in the highest de- 

 gree." 



NOTES. 



Mr. A. H. Allen, in a paper on oils, read 

 in the American Association, said that shark 

 and fish oils are often unsaponifiable, and 

 hence are not fatty ethers. He believed 

 them to contain cholesterine, like cod-liver 

 oil. The fixed oils can be separated into 

 groups, but we know no process for sepa- 

 rating a mixture of lard and cotton-seed 

 oil. 



Professor A. R. Leeds reported to the 

 Chemical Section of the American Associa- 

 tion that his most careful analyses had giv- 

 en as the composition of human milk : al- 

 buminoids, varying from "5 to 4"25 per cent ; 

 lactose, from 4*1 to 7'8 percent; and fat, 

 from 1*7 to 7"6 per cent. The appearance 

 and specific gravity of the milk, he said, 

 never indicate its composition. 



M. Fatal has come to the conclusion 

 that the rise in temperature to which the 

 spontaneous combustion of coal-dust is due, 

 is produced by the absorption of atmos- 

 pheric oxygen. He finds that lignite is ig- 

 nited at 300° C, anthracite at 50o°, and 

 other varieties of coal, in powdered form, at 

 intermediate temperatures. 



Dr. Borsch reported last year to the 

 Meteorological Society at Berlin that three 

 observers, working respectively at Berlin, 

 Breslau, and Konigsberg, to determine the 

 differences of longitude between the three 

 cities, noticed at the same moment abnor- 

 mal deviations in the air-bubbles of their 

 levels, which could be attributed to nothing 



else than movements of the ground. They 

 afterward learned that some of the central 

 parts of the Asiatic continent had at that 

 very time been shaken with violent earth- 

 quakes. The supposition that the devia- 

 tions noticed were connected with these 

 shocks was confirmed by the fact that they 

 were more marked at the eastward stations. 



For the many millions of dollars that 

 have been expended upon astronomy during 

 the past two or three centuries, results have 

 been obtained, says Professor E. C. Picker- 

 ing, of Harvard College Observatory, whose 

 value it is impossible to estimate. Apart 

 from the knowledge it has given us of other 

 worlds and of the laws governing the uni- 

 verse, it has furnished us information re- 

 garding this world which has been of enor- 

 mous practical importance. It has secured 

 safe and certain communication between 

 distant countries, accurate maps, and the 

 precise determination of time. The pecun- 

 iary value of these results would many times 

 repay the total expenditure made for astro- 

 nomical purposes. 



A new edition of Professor Ferrier's 

 "Functions of the Brain" is announced. 

 The book has been nearly rewritten, and 

 will include the results of new investigations 

 by the author, and of investigations made by 

 others during the last ten years. 



The .Rev. George Brown, missionary in 

 the New Britain Islands, read a paper in the 

 British Association in which he said that 

 the results of fourteen and a half years of 

 labor in Samoa among Polynesians, and in 

 New Britain among Papuans, in reducing 

 the languages and studying the manners and 

 customs of the people, had convinced him 

 that the Polynesian race was descended from 

 the great Papuan stock with an Asiatic ad- 

 mixture. Mr. Fellows remarked upon this 

 that if they went back far enough, a com- 

 mon origin would be found for all people. 

 It was, therefore, desirable that some time 

 of common origin should be fixed. 



Mr. R. Warrington reported to the Brit- 

 ish Association that the results of his later 

 experiments at Rothampstead showed a far 

 deeper diffusion of the nitrifying organism 

 in the soil than had been concluded from 

 the earlier experiments. The power of pro- 

 ducing nitrification was now found to exist 

 generally down to three feet from the sur- 

 face. Below this point the occurrence of 

 the organism became less frequent, though 

 at five and six feet about half the trials re- 

 sulted in nitrification ; with soil from seven 

 and eight feet no nitrification was obtained. 

 The considerable difference between the ear- 

 lier and later results was to be attributed to 

 the employment of gypsum in the later so- 

 lutions. 



