FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



863 



ment was found to be exceedingly fatal to 

 the cattle tick, while in no way injuring the 

 cattle. 



It is reported that Dr. William W. 

 Jacques, of Boston, an electrician and chem- 

 ist, has succeeded in devising a practical 

 commercial process for converting the en- 

 ergy contained in coal directly into elec- 

 tricity. His battery is constructed as fol- 

 lows : In an iron pot is placed caustic soda 

 and heat applied up to 300°, when fusion 

 occurs ; into this fused mass is plunged a 

 stick of carbon, and then air is forced through 

 the solution. By the contact of the air with 

 the carbon stick, in presence of the fused 

 soda, oxidation is produced with no deterio- 

 ration of the electrolyte, and upon connecting 

 the carbon stick and the iron pot by means 

 of a wire, an electric current is generated. 



Electric tanning is thus described in the 

 Journal of the Franklin Institute : The tan- 

 ning pit has a capacity of fifteen thousand 

 litres and is about eighty inches broad and 

 ten feet long. Electrodes of nickeled copper 

 are fixed to the longer walls of the pit, and 

 in the latter the hides are so suspended that 

 the current has to pass right through them. 

 A current of twelve amperes with an E. M. F. 

 of twelve volts is used. The tanning matter 

 consists of oak extract, with a little hem- 

 lock extract added, both of which are cleared 

 and decolorized by a special electrolytic 

 process. By these means Folsing states that 

 he has succeeded in obtaining good leather 

 in seventy-two hours from light cowhides, in 

 five days from heavy cowhides, and in six 

 days from heavy oxhides. 



A BOOK by M. Georges Viret, on Legisla- 

 tion and Jurisprudence concerning useful 

 and injurious insects and insectivorous birds, 

 suggests some curious questions. In it are 

 found the conditions under which bees are 

 personal property, and others under which 

 they are real. When bees are sent by mail, 

 should they be classified as specimens or as 

 letters ? The French law says as letters, and 

 our own postal laws have special provisions 

 for packages of this sort. We learn from 

 the book that when bees go astray on an- 

 other man's land they are not trespassers, 

 unless they are peculiarly malicious, and go 

 about stinging or do some harm to men and 

 animals. A question is suggested by the 



provision in French law which makes steal- 

 ing bees in the daytime a smaller offense 

 than stealing them in the night, the penalty 

 being considerably more severe in the latter 

 case than in the former. Possibly the law 

 depends on the bees to do part of the pun- 

 ishing of the daytime thief. The table of 

 contents of M. Viret's book shows that the 

 law takes notice of nineteen kinds of insects, 

 among which are bees, caterpillars, Colorado 

 beetles, ants, wasps, beetles, cattle flies, olive 

 flies, botflies, phylloxera, the woolly aphis, 

 vine pyralis, grasshoppers, grubworms, and 

 silkworms. Most attention is given to the 

 phylloxera. 



Mr. F. W. True, in the Proceedings of 

 the National Museum, describes an armadillo 

 of the genus Xenurus received from Hondu- 

 ras. He says : " This is the first instance, so 

 far as I am aware, in which any representa- 

 tive of this genus has been found in Central 

 America. . . . The head is short and blunt, 

 and the extremity of the snout entirely naked 

 for a distance of sixteen millimetres. The 

 cephalic shield consists of about thirty-eight 

 comparatively large plates. The ears are 

 margined with a row of small, rounded 

 scales, but otherwise entirely naked. The 

 feet and outer side of the legs are covered 

 with somewhat scattered flat, orbicular scales. 

 The tail has similar flat scales about a milli- 

 metre and a half in diameter, imbedded in 

 the skin at regular intervals ; from the pos- 

 terior margin of each scale one hair is ex- 

 sected. Total length, one foot five inches ; 

 tail, six and a half inches. I have little 

 hesitancy in referring this Honduras speci- 

 men to the Dasypus {Xenurus) hispidus of 

 Burmeister." 



The International Conference organized by 

 the Royal Society to consider the preparation 

 and publication of an International Catalogue 

 of Scientific Literature was opened in London, 

 July 14th. The efforts of the Royal Society 

 to form a record and index of scientific lit- 

 erature date from the middle of the century, 

 when the great authors' index was begun. A 

 subject index to follow the authors' index was 

 decided upon about thirty years ago, but was 

 not started till 1893. As it soon became evi- 

 dent that the Royal Society alone was not 

 competent to accomplish so large a work, 

 the movement to secure international co- 



