FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCF. 



431 



It seems that Prof. Fraser, of Edinburgh, 

 who was recently announced as the perfecter 

 of an antitoxine of snake poison, was antici- 

 pated in this discovery by Dr. Calmette, of 

 the Pasteur Institute in Paris. Prof. E. Ray 

 Lankester, in a letter to Nature, says : " In the 

 Annalcs de rimtitiit Pasteur, May, 1894, Dr. 

 Calmette described in full detail his re- 

 searches on snake poison, and demonstrated 

 that not only can animals be rendered resist- 

 ant to cobra (and other snake) poison by the 

 injection into them of graduated doses of the 

 poison (so that rabbits were rendered tolerant 

 of sixty times the lethal dose), but that the 

 serum of such immunized rabbits is found to 

 contain a powerful antitoxine, which can be 

 used successfully as an antidote to snake 

 poison. 



An address, delivered at a presentation to 

 Sir Henry Ackland of a bust and some fifteen 

 thousand dollars which will be employed in car- 

 rying on the work of the Sarah Ackland Home 

 for Nurses, stated that the testimonial had been 

 subscribed for in commemoration of the long 

 and faithful service that Sir Henry Ackland 

 had rendered to the university, city, and 

 county of Oxford, and the part which he had 

 borne in the advance of medical science in 

 England, more particularly in the direction 

 of sanitary reform and preventive medicine, 

 during the forty years of his occupation of 

 the chair in the university of Regius Profess- 

 or of Medicine. 



The west coast of Stromo, Faroe Islands, 

 is described by Dr. Karl Grossmann as giv- 

 ing excellent opportunities for studying 

 "how the erosion by sea and weather takes 

 hold of the gigantic rock walls, which look 

 as if built for eternity. The caves, which 

 are produced at sea level by the washing out 

 of dikes and cracks, have often most fan- 

 tastic forms. Sometimes they are arched 

 like a Gothic vault, resembling Fingal's 

 Cave or Nuremberg architecture ; in other 

 parts we see a flat, horizontal roof, covering 

 mysterious inlets, reminding us of the en- 

 trance to the lethal chambers of the Pha- 

 raohs. In many of these caves seals used to 

 breed, but the irrational way in which the 

 natives slaughtered them has finally driven 

 them away altogether. As we row farther 

 north, we encounter many a fine example of 

 rocks that have been broken off and slid 



down as stacks, which are now separated 

 from the main rock barely wide enough to 

 admit our small boat." 



NOTES. 



The acquisition by States of tracts of 

 forest is urged by the friends of forestry as 

 a measure for the conservation of water 

 powers, the amelioration of climate, the pres- 

 ervation of scenery, and the instruction of 

 the people. Atide from the benefit thus de- 

 rived, it is tirgcd that these forests may be 

 made to yield a fair return upon their cost 

 and maintenance. To illustrate the force of 

 this view, Mr. J. B. Walker, of Concord, 

 N. H., refers to a proposition to form such a 

 park out of the Presidential Range of the 

 White Mountains. The region is already a 

 pleasure ground accessible in twelve hours 

 or less to ten million people. It could be 

 greatly improved and its attractions vastly 

 added to by proper forest development, or, 

 more properly, restoration. 



Darwin's suggestion that the composition 

 of subsoils might be ascertained from the ex- 

 amination of the piles of earth brought up 

 by earthworms from their holes is said to 

 have been utilized in Australia by a miner 

 who was led to digging for a coal vein which 

 he found from seeing traces of coal in the 

 accumulations of land crabs ; and by another, 

 who, acting upon a hint given him by the 

 wombats, found tin ore in the mountains. 



The hot caves of Monsummano, Italy, 

 long neglected, are beginning to receive at- 

 tention again as health resorts. They were 

 discovei'cd in 1849 by quarrymen, and were 

 found to be helpful to those of the men who 

 had suffered from rheumatism. They were 

 visited by Garibaldi and Kossuth for relief 

 from troubles under which they were suffer- 

 ing. They are hollowed in a porous rock, 

 and an air saturated with moisture circulates 

 freely in them at a temperature of about 88° 

 F. The patient who entei's them clad in 

 light robes, soon perspires very freely, and 

 may continue to do so during his whole 

 sojourn of from half an hour to several 

 hours. 



The third International Congress of Psy- 

 chology will be held at Munich, August 4 to 

 1, 1896. It will be opened on the morning 

 of August 4th in the great " aula " of the 

 Royal Univei'sity. All who desire to further 

 the progress of psychology and to foster per- 

 sonal relations among the students of psy- 

 chology in different nations are invited to 

 take part in the meetings. 



In a recent letter to Science, Prof. Ira 

 Remsen describes a curious natural gas reser- 

 voir. A party of skaters in the neighbor- 

 hood of Baltimore were upon a large artificial 

 lake which was covered with remarkably 



