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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



stump. It measured seven feet six inches 

 across at the base, which had been much 

 broken by the plow, tapering to five feet 

 two inches twelve feet higher up. Beyond 

 this the central part of the trunk was miss- 

 ing, but the outer parts continued as two 

 parallel arms, in line with the lower part of 

 the trunk, to a total length of twenty-six 

 feet. The silicification was perfect, and the 

 rings of annual growth were plainly shown. 

 An average of seventeen annual rings to the 

 inch was determined, and the age of the 

 tree when it fell was approximately esti- 

 mated at six hundred years. Fragments 

 split lengthwise and those broken directly 

 across showed beautifully the structure of 

 wood, and this is more minutely defined un- 

 der the microscope. The orange- colored 

 sand bed in which the trunk was buried, and 

 the grounds of lighter yellow that overlie it 

 near by, are known to have at least a local 

 wide distiibution. 



NOTES 



The general character of London weather 

 is rather strikingly brought out by the rec- 

 ords of the Greenwich meteorological depart- 

 ment for 189*7. The total record of sunshine 

 for 1897 was 1,54.3 hours, divided as follows : 



January 19.8 



February 34.1 



March 12>t.4 



April 144.7 



May 251.6 



June 178.3 



July 252.7 



August 219.8 



September.... 114.5 



October 111.7 



November, ... 41.7 



December .... 50.3 



The mean temperature for the year was 

 50.3° ; highest, 90.2° on June 24th ; lowest, 

 23.3° on December 24th. The rainfall was 

 about seventeen inches, being seven inches 

 less than the preceding fifty years' average. 



It is shown in a paper by Mr. Henry C. 

 Mercer that the mediaeval art of Fravtur or 

 illuminative writing was systematically prose- 

 cuted in Pennsylvania as late as 185-i, and 

 that survivals of stated instruction in it can 

 be traced to the winter of 1896-'97. Illumi- 

 nated song books, title-pages to small song 

 books, rewards of merit on loose leaflets, bap- 

 tismal certificates, and marriage and burial 

 registers constitute the chief specimens of 

 this sort of work. 



The working of certain factors of evolu- 

 tion upon a human race is illustrated in Mr. 

 G. A. Dorsey's paper on the Geography of the 

 Tsimshian Indians. Although the members 

 of this tribe to-day are only a remnant of the 

 stock as it existed in 1850, they seem to be 

 holding their own in point of population, while 

 some of the other coast stocks are diminish- 



ing very rapidly. They are nearly all Chris- 

 tianized, wear European clothing, and work 

 in the salmon canneries during the summer 

 months. Yet their ultimate absorption and 

 extinction are only matters of time. The new 

 villages, and especially the canneries, are 

 bringing the different stocks of the coast into 

 more and more intimate relations, and this re- 

 sults in the disappearance of pure types. The 

 introduction of the Chinese element may fur- 

 ther complicate matters. 



M. Deniker, of the Museum of Natural 

 History in Paris, has received from Corea 

 three hundred and seventy-five specimens of 

 roots, seeds, fruits, etc., represented in the 

 pharmacopoeia of the country as sovereign 

 remedies against various diseases. There are 

 also among them powders of soapstone, sand, 

 and other mineral substances. All are en- 

 veloped in complicated wrappers inscribed 

 with Corean and Manchu formulas. A man- 

 uscript containing a list of a hundred and 

 ten medicines which can be manufactured 

 with the drugs has also been sent to the 

 museum. It gives, in connection with each 

 formula, the name of the disease for which 

 the remedy is to be administered. There 

 are remedies for cold in the head, indiges- 

 tion, headache, ill humor on getting up in the 

 morning, and indisposition after " making a 

 night of it." 



A SPECIES of ant in Victoria, Australia, is 

 described by Mr. J. C. Goudie, which keeps 

 in close confinement a mealy aphis that feeds 

 on the stems of eucalyptus, around and over 

 which it constructs a dome of pieces of grass, 

 etc., that holds the aphis imprisoned and 

 keeps other ants away. In front of the door 

 of this covering, if it has one, two sentinel 

 ants are posted, which vigilantly guard the 

 opening. Each inclosure generally contains 

 from three to a dozen aphides, and about as 

 many ants. When the author broke into 

 some of these structures to inspect them 

 more closely, the ants at once seized their 

 aphides and carried them off. 



Sir Gardner Wilkinson observed more 

 than fifty years ago that the ancient Egyp- 

 tians had a keen appreciation of the comic, 

 and published a considerable number of draw- 

 ings from the monuments that fully estab- 

 lished the correctness of his view. Further 

 illustrations of the fact, given by Herr Emil 

 Brugsch Bey, are published in French and 

 German papers as new discoveries. A new- 

 ly exhumed papyrus of the twenty second dy- 

 nasty contains humorous sketches of cats and 

 rats, in which the cats act like rats and rats 

 like cats. In one design, a rat dressed as a 

 grand lady is served by a servant cat, who 

 offers her a mirror. In the next scene a rat 

 poses as a young Egyptian dandy, while his 

 valet cat dresses his beard and adjusts an im- 

 mense wig upon his head. In a third scene 

 a cat is officiating as nurse to a young rat. 

 All the pictures are colored. 



