THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The Marquis of Lome, in his presiden- 

 tial address before the Royal Geographical 

 Society, cited, ic illustration of the rapidity 

 with which Africa is being opened up, the 

 journey of Mr. Thomson to the capitals of 

 Sokoto and Gando, the two great negro 

 kingdoms of the Central Soudan. In four 

 months from the date of his leaving Liver- 

 pool, Mr. Thomson, proceeding by way of 

 the Niger, reached the capital of Sokoto 

 with a party of one hundred and twenty 

 West Coast negroes. He then negotiated 

 a treaty of great commercial and political 

 importance, and three months later was 

 again in England, the whole journey hav- 

 ing only occupied seven months. Twenty 

 years earlier, it would probably not have 

 been made in less than double that 

 time. 



M. Pradanovic, of Pesth, has devised a 

 way of driving stakes by means of dyna- 

 mite. He puts a plate of iron about four 

 inches thick on the top of the stake, and 

 on this he places his charge of dynamite. 

 With a single cartridge, containing fifty- 

 five grains of dynamite, he obtains five 

 times as much force as with the average 

 pile-driver. One of his iron plates is good 

 for about twenty-five explosions. 



Sir. William Dawson observed in the 

 British Association that as the result of his 

 studies of the footprints of a species of limu- 

 lus, it appeared that a number of impres- 

 sions — protichnitesandcliinactichnites — and 

 supposed fossil fucoids, maybe really tracks 

 of crustaceans, and probably of trilobhes 

 and limuloids. 



The British Association passed a reso- 

 lution expressing its solicitude that the ex- 

 posed mummies of the Egyptian kings be 

 carefully preserved against decay ; and re- 

 quested the owner of Stonehenge to take 

 measures to secure that remarkable antiqui- 

 ty against dilapidation. 



The British Association received two 

 invitations to visit Australia, or send a depu- 

 tation there — one to Sydney, to assist in the 

 celebration of the centennial of the first set- 

 tlement of New South Wales, and the other 

 t" Melbourne. The General Committee de- 

 cided to depute a number of representative 

 members to attend the meeting of the Aus- 

 tralian Associations in that year. The meet- 

 ing for 1888 was appointed to be held in 

 Bath. Sir Henry Roscoe was appointed to 

 be the president of the meeting for 18S7, 

 which is to be held in Manch< 



The British Government has decided to 

 authorize the growin;; and curing of to- 

 bacco in the United Kingdom. In Europe, 

 generally, the cultivation of this plant has 



greatly decreased during recent years. The 



acreage in the Netherlands is at present 

 not more than about half what it was ten 

 or twelve years ago. The decrease has been 

 considerable, but not to so great an extent, 

 in Belgium. In Austro-Ilungary 8,768 acres 

 less were under cultivation in 1S84 than two 

 years before ; in Germany, 12,000 acres less 

 in 1883 than in 1881. In Italy, 8,202 acres, 

 and in France, 32,800 acres, were grown 

 last year. In America, on the other hand, 

 the crop rose from 199,752,655 pounds in 

 1850, to 472,661,117 in 1880, for the grow- 

 ing of which 638,841 acres were required. 

 The crop of 1883 was 451,545,641 pounds 

 from 638,739 acres. 



OBITUARY NOTES. 



Maurice Girard, formerly Professor of 

 Physics in the College Rollin, France, died 

 in September. He was a naturalist of cory 

 siderable merit, and an eminent entomolo- 

 gist ; and was the author of a number of 

 scientific and popular -scientific books, in- 

 cluding a "Treatise on Entomology" and 

 " The Metamorphoses of Insects " in the 

 " Library of Wonders." He was connected 

 with M. Tissandier's "La Nature" from its 

 beginning. 



Alexander Kratotkin, a man who has 

 done some good work for science in Russia, 

 died at Tomsk on the 6th of August, forty- 

 five years of age. He translated Mr. Spen- 

 cer's " Principles of Biology " and Clerk- 

 Maxwell's "Theory of Heat" into Russian, 

 and for several years contributed to Russian 

 periodicals reviews of the progress of as- 

 tronomy. In 1874 he was exiled to Minus- 

 Binsk, in East Siberia, and there helped 

 to organize a local museum, and carried 

 on meteorological observations for several 

 years. His most important work was a 

 critical investigation of all our present 

 knowledge of the stellar systems and the 

 constitution of stellar groups, for which he 

 made most thorough studies, but which he 

 did not live to complete. 



M. Pacl Soleillet, an adventurous 

 French African explorer, has recently died, 

 at the age of forty-four years. He went to 

 Algeria when twenty-five years old, and 

 spent a large part of his life in explorations 

 of the interior, particularly of the Sahara. 

 He started on a journey to Abyssinia in 

 1883. 



Dr. James G. Wakley, editor of the 

 London " Lancet," died at his home near 

 Chert sey, August 30th. He was the young- 

 i t son of the late Thomas Wakley, founder 

 of the " Lancet," and had himself been 

 editor of that journal since 1862. 



