POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the making of lyddite. It is slightly ex- 

 plosive when heated, is injurious when 

 it comes in contact with an abrasion 

 of the skin, and has been shown by 

 physiological experiments to be a highly 

 improper substance to mix with food. 



A goose market is held regularly in 

 October at Warsaw, Poland, to which 

 about three million geese are brought, 

 most of them to be exported to Ger- 

 many. Often coming from remote prov- 

 inces, many of these geese have to travel 

 over long distances, upon roads which 

 would wear out their feet if they were 

 not " shod." For this purpose they are 

 driven first through tar poured upon 

 the ground, and then through sand. 

 After the operation has been repeated 

 several times the feet of the geese be- 

 come covered with a hard crust that 

 effectively protects them. 



NOTES. 



The first summer session of Colum- 

 bia University, 1900, will open July 2d, 

 instruction beginning July 5th, and 

 will continue till August 10th. The 

 work will be under the general direction 

 of Prof. Nicholas Murray Butler, and 

 will be conducted by a large corps of 

 instructors, in eleven courses, of thirty 

 lectures or other exercises or their 

 equivalent in laboratory or field work, 

 each. The concluding examinations 

 will be held August 9th and 10th. 

 Credits will be given for courses pur- 

 sued at the school in the requirements 

 for a degree at the university, and for 

 a Teachers' College diploma, and in the 

 examinations for teachers' licenses in 

 New York city. 



An International Congress of Medi- 

 cal Electrology and Radiology has been 

 connected with the International Con- 

 gress system of the Paris Exposition, 

 1900, and will be held July 27th to 

 August 1st. The commission is com- 

 posed of representative men from vari- 

 ous universities, institutions, and hos- 

 pitals of France, with Prof. E. Doumer, 

 57 Rue Nicolas Leblanc, Lille, as sec- 

 retary. 



A CUKious fall of " black snow," 

 which was observed at Molding, Aus- 

 tria, at the beginning of the year, was 

 found to consist largely of the insects 

 known as "glacier fleas," which were 



supposed to have come along with a 

 violent snowstorm from some of the Al- 

 pine glaciers. 



How to write 1900 in Roman numer- 

 als is a question of the day that will 

 have to be settled. Three ways are sug- 

 gested by Mr. J. Fletcher Little in the 

 London Times, either of which is cor- 

 rect according to the Roman system. 

 They are MDCCCC, MDCD, and MCM. 

 But when we reach the year 1988, if we 

 use the first of these methods we shall 

 have to write the formidable-looking 

 formula MDCCCCLXXXVIII, whereas 

 if we use the third and shortest method, 

 it will only be MCMLXXXVIII— and 

 that is long enough. The third method, 

 therefore, which may be interpreted as 

 meaning one thousand plus another 

 thousand lacking a hundred, seems to 

 be the simplest. 



Dr. St. George Mivart, Professor 

 of Biology in University College, Ken- 

 sington, died suddenly in London, April 

 1st, aged seventy-two years. He was 

 author of numerous scientific works, of 

 treatises critical of Darwinism and the 

 theory of evolution, and of demonstra- 

 tions of the harmony of Roman Cath- 

 olic dogma with proved scientific facts. 

 His name has been made prominent of 

 late by his recantation of his previously 

 expressed views of the consistency of 

 dogma with science, and the corre- 

 spondence with Cardinal Vaughan 

 which grew out of it. 



An International Congress of Eth- 

 nographical societies has been arranged 

 for by the Ethnographic Society of 

 Paris, to be held in Paris, August 26th 

 to September 1st. 



The Wollaston medal of the Royal 

 Geological Society, London, for the 

 most important geological discoveries, 

 has this year been awarded to Mr. 

 Grove K. Gilbert, of the United States 

 Geological Survey. This is the third 

 time the medal has been awarded to a 

 citizen of this country. 



Among the recently announced pub- 

 lications of John Wiley and Sons we 

 notice a third edition, revised and en- 

 larged, of Allen Hazen's Filtration of 

 Public Water Supplies; a new and re- 

 vised edition of Olof's Text-book of 

 Physiological Chemistry; The Cost of 

 Living as Modified by Sanitary Science, 



