864 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



apparent to his consciousness that he works 

 out sums mentally with the ease of an ex- 

 pert using slate and pencil. In like man- 

 ner a person of keen sound-phantoms may 

 compose music or make verses. 



Caoutchouc has been extracted from 

 the Sonchis oleraceus, a common weed of 

 the road-sides and barren places in France. 



Madame Zalcska, in the " Revue Scien- 

 tifique," is authority for the statement that 

 the lowest temperature that M. Wroblewski 

 has produced, by allowing liquefied hydro- 

 gen to escape, is — 211° C, or about — 380° 

 Fahr. At this temperature, she adds, nei- 

 ther gases nor liquids exist, but everything 

 is solidified. The metals lose their electric 

 resistance, and the current passes through 

 matter without developing heat in it. 



The tides of the Mediterranean Sea, 

 though linuch reduced, are as real as those 

 of the ocean. Along the littoral of the 

 maritime Alps they average from fifteen to 

 twenty centimetres, with ten and twenty- 

 five centimetres as the extremes. At Gib- 

 raltar, they rise to from 1'tiU to 2 metres; 

 at Trieste, to 0'70 metre ; at Venice, from 

 0-50 to 0-60 metre; and in the Gulf of 

 Gabes from a metre and a half to two me- 

 tres. 



Mr. J. Theodore Bent says that " bind- 

 ing is the spirit of the modern Greek charm. 

 They bind diseases to trees ; they bind fleas, 

 bugs, and lice outside their houses, or rath- 

 er they make ineffectual attempts to do so ; 

 and the shepherds of Donkey's Island (Gath- 

 aronisi) are careful to bind beneath the 

 knee of a ram or he-goat the bone of a fish 

 or hare, which they believe is effectual in 

 preventing the offspring from being carried 

 off by robbers." 



The " Saturday Review," in noticing 

 Professor Milne's book on " Earthquakes," 

 accredits the author with having " prob- 

 ably done more than any man living to im- 

 prove methods and apparatus for observa- 

 tion, and to find a scientific explanation of 

 these crust-movements." 



A company has been formed to applj 

 the water-power of the falls of the Rhine 

 at Schaffhausen to the electrical production 

 of aluminium by the Cowles process. 



The "Saturday Review" finds, in the 

 character of the articles published in the 

 " Sanitarian," evidence that Americans are 

 not a whit behind the English in their ap- 

 preciation of the inestimable value to a 

 nation of due attention to the measures 

 necessary for the preservation of health; 

 but it also learns from one of the articles 

 that both our national and State Legisla- 

 tures "give but scant encouragement to 

 those bodies which take care of the pub- 

 lic health." 



Professor Collett, of Norway, says that 

 the beaver is now extinct in Northern Nor- 

 way, but that about a hundred individuals 

 are still living in some of the southern prov- 

 inces. 



A correspondent of the London " Spec- 

 tator " objects to the wires now used in- 

 stead of the old thread for stitching books, 

 that in any but an extremely dry climate 

 they are liable to rust and eat through the 

 paper which they are supposed to fasten. 



OBITUARY NOTES. 

 General William B. IIazen, Chief Shr- 

 nal-Officer of the War Department, died in 

 Washington, January 16th, in the fifty-sev- 

 enth year of his age. His death was unex- 

 pected, although he had been in bad health 

 for a long time. He was born in West Hart- 

 ford, Vermont, in 1830, and entered the 

 Academy at West Point in 1851. After 

 graduation, in 1865, he served for five years 

 in the Indian campaigns of the West, At 

 the beginning of the civil war he was as- 

 sistant instructor of infantry tactics at West 

 Point. Entering active service as a captain 

 in the regular army, he recruited the Forty- 

 first Regiment of Ohio Volunteers and com- 

 manded it. He served through the war in 

 the West under Buell, Rosecvans, Thomas, 

 Grant, and Sherman ; participated in the 

 principal battles of their campaigns, and 

 was officially recognized, by promotion or 

 brevet, several times, for conspicuous serv- 

 ices. He was appointed Chief Signal-Officer 

 in 18S0, and distinguished himself in that 

 capacity by his effort to enlarge and extend 

 the weather-service. 



M. Edouard Ernest Blavier, a dislin- 

 guished French electrician, died on the 14th 

 of January, in the sixty-second year of his 

 age. ne was inspector-general of the tele- 

 graphic lines, Director of the Superior School 

 of Telegraphy, and Vice-President of the In- 

 ternational Society of Electricians. He was 

 the author of contributions to the learned so- 

 cieties, the "Telegraphic Annals," a "Course 

 in Telegraphy," which is an authority on 

 the subject, and a " Treatise on Electrical 

 Magnitudes and their Measure in Absolute 

 Unities." 



Mr. John Arthur Phillips, who died 

 suddenly on the 4th of January, was a chem- 

 ist of considerable distinction for his re- 

 searches in connection with mineralogy and 



metallurgy. 



Mr. Thomas Moor.E, who was a prolific 

 writer on botanical and horticultuaral sub- 

 jects, and was for many years Curator of the 

 Botanic Garden of the Society of Apotheca- 

 ries at Chelsea, England, died on the 1st of 

 January, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. 

 He was best known for his numerous publi- 

 cations on ferns. 



