NOTES. 



719 



er within those areas some localities would 

 have more gas than others, according to the 

 inequalities in the distribution of pressure. 

 Mr. Harries invites officers in coal-mines to 

 supply him with observations of the press- 

 ure of gas in their mines, taken once a 

 day, in the morning — at least for the four 

 months ending with December 31st. The 

 information thus supplied will be compared 

 with that furnished by the weather-charts 

 for the same hours. 



Disappearance of an Island. — Accord- 

 ing to the official newspaper of the Faroe 

 Islands, the rock-island of Munken, south 

 of Sumbo, which was one of the most promi- 

 nent landmarks of the group, has sunk. It 

 had stood seventy feet above the level of the 

 sea, but several months ago a large propor- 

 tion of the rock had crumbled away, so 

 that the tide washed over most of its sur- 

 face. The shallow waters around the island 

 formed dangerous currents, with eddies, or 

 maelstroms, which were much dreaded by 

 mariners. Pastor Lucas Jacobsijn Debes, 

 in 1673, gave a graphic description of the 

 maelstrom, with the Sumbo Munken rock 

 rising from amid it, and asserted that the 

 compass lost its polarity there. Pastor 

 Jiirgen Landt, in 1800, also wrote about the 

 maelstrom, and described the island as pre- 

 senting, when seen from the water, the ap- 

 pearance of a ship under full sail ; and from 

 the land, the likeness of a monk, having a 

 neck of red clay, and a head and body of a 

 dark-gray stone, or coarse basalt. On the 

 2Sth of May, 18S5, the Danish Minister of 

 the Marine reported that Munken had fallen 

 in, and so one of the most striking objects 

 in the Faroe group, which had been sailed 

 past and admired by thousands of sailors, 

 and played an important part in geographi- 

 cal literature, had disappeared. 



Laterite and its Odors. — A writer in 

 " Das Ausland " states that in a certain dis- 

 trict of West Africa the soil is largely com- 

 posed of an argillaceous deposit called late- 

 rite, which is very porous and freely pene- 

 trable by water to its lowest depth. As the 

 water penetrates it, the air contained in it 

 is of course driven out. This air being 

 charged with decomposing organic matters 

 washed in by the rain, the emanations after 

 a strong shower are decidedly malodorous. 



As violent storms are not unfrcquent, they 

 are regular and strong enough to attract the 

 attention of the natives, and they give them 

 a name which may be translated meadow- 



stiuk. 



NOTES. 



TnE steel-plate portrait of the late editor 

 of this magazine, published in the present 

 number, is by Mr. Charles Schlect, and is 

 considered by the friends of Professor You- 

 mans a spirited and excellent likeness. 



Mr. W. Stain-ton Moses, lately a vice- 

 president, has withdrawn from the Eng- 

 lish Society for Psychical Research, on the 

 ground that the evidence for phenomena 

 of the genuine character of which he and 

 others have satisfied themselves beyond a 

 doubt, is not properly entertained or fairly 

 treated by it. 



Professor Btrt G. Wilder looks forward 

 to a time when the terms used in anatomy 

 will be simplified and made to agree with a 

 uniform standard. Replying to criticism of 

 the modifications he has himself introduced 

 in such terms, he claims to have endeavored 

 to hasten what seemed to be the natural 

 progress of reform. Very few terms used 

 by him do not occur in the writings of some 

 anatomist of authority. He has selected 

 what seemed to him the best, modified them, 

 when desirable, in accordance with estab- 

 lished etymological rules, and has "always 

 used the same word for the same thing." 

 This he has done consistently and persist- 

 ently ; and whatever new terms he puts forth 

 are first tested in the laboratory and lecture- 

 room. 



There is no doubt, the "Lancet" be- 

 lieves, that woman can, if she will, qualify 

 herself to do anything that a man can do ; 

 for "no physiologist will question the pos- 

 sibility of developing by appropriate stimuli, 

 exercise, and food, any particular part or 

 parts of an organism in such a manner as to 

 make it respond to the demands of its envi- 

 ronment " ; and it must therefore be theo- 

 retically possible that the woman shall be 

 developed in respect to any one or more of 

 her organic potentialities to a level with 

 the male. But she must do so at the ex- 

 pense of some other power, and this is 

 usually at the sacrifice of some function 

 that makes her valuable as a woman. The 

 real question in the matter is, whether it is 

 worth while to pay so great a price for the 

 privilege. 



Fourteen European scholars in China 

 recently had a discussion of the question 

 whether Western knowledge, and particu- 

 larly science, should be conveyed to the 

 Chinese through the medium of their own 



