864 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



by a locomotive to the steel works, where the 

 direct conversiou of the fluid iron into open- 

 hearth steel is made. Between seven him- 

 dred and eight hundred tons of iron are thus 

 dealt with every day. 



The Laboratory Fresenius at Wiesbaden, 

 Germany, has recently passed the fiftieth 

 year of its existence and its hundredth term, 

 it having been founded on the first day of 

 May, 1848. Since the death of its founder. 

 Prof. C. Remigius Fresenius, June 11, 1898, 

 it has been carried on by his sons. Dr. 

 Heinrich Fresenius and Dr. Wilhelm Frese- 

 nius, and his son-in-law. Dr. Ernst Hintz, and 

 is to be continued as before. The attend- 

 ance at the winter session, ISOV-'QS, was 

 equal to that of former years. 



Several theories have been proposed iu 

 the attempt to explain the apparent enlarge- 

 ment of the sun and moon when near 

 the horizon. M. D. Eginites, having com- 

 pared the piincipal of them, finds none sat- 

 isfactory, and that the phenomenon is not 

 produced by any of the causes they assign. 

 Any or all of these causes may contribute 

 more or less to it, but not in any great 

 degree, and the real cause is still to be 

 sought. 



Prof. 0. C. Marsh, of Yale University, 

 has recently been elected a foreign member 

 of the London Geological Society. 



Mr. a. Lawrence Rotch, of the Blue 

 Hill Meteorological Observatory, Massachu- 

 setts, has been elected a foreign correspond- 

 ing member of the German Meteorological 

 Society. 



Dead Man's Island — Ma de los Mtierios 

 — at San Pedro, in southern Califoi-nia, a 

 place of historical and scientific interest, is 

 described by Mrs. M. Burton Williamson as 

 "a vanishing island," the whole facies of 

 which has been changed within a few years 

 by the erosive power of waves and tides and 

 winter rains. A few years ago the west side 

 of it could not be reached except by way of 

 the inner harbor or by climbing to the top of 

 the island and descending a precipitous trail. 

 Now the sea has cut an arch through the 

 solid rock, and one can go all round the 

 island at low tide. Within the recollection 

 of peisons now living it has diminished in 

 area one half or more. In science it is fa- 

 mous for its fossil shells (Pliocene and Qua- 

 ternary), of which three hundred species 

 have been found. Some of these have been 

 identified with species still living in the coast 

 waters farther north. 



The tender shoots of ferns may be spo- 

 radically eaten among us, but nowhere that we 

 know of dj they form a regular article of diet 

 in E trope or America. In Japan it is differ- 

 ent, according to the Bulletin of the French 

 Jardin d^ Acciiniataiion, and some of the 

 mountain people derive a large proportion of 



their food in some seasons from ferns. In 

 the spring they eat the young leaves; later in 

 the season, the starch which they extract from 

 the roots. For this extraction they beat the 

 washed roots with a inallet, stir the frag- 

 ments in water, and precipitate the starch, 

 using for reservoirs in the operation hol- 

 lowed tree trunks. The starch obtained is 

 equivalent to fifteen per cent of the root stuif 

 used. 



The buffalo tree hopper is a little grass- 

 green insect of triangular shape which is 

 frequently found upon vegetation, and dis- 

 plays considerable agility in leaping when 

 discovered. It gets its peculiar name from 

 a supposed similarity in shape to the male 

 buffalo. Its thorax is very wide in front, 

 projecting in two strong horns at the sides, 

 and is triangular, leaving the insect rela- 

 tively very narrow in the rear. The hopper 

 does great damage in orchards and gardens, 

 through the cutting up of the limbs by the 

 female in depositing her eggs. C. L. Mar- 

 latt, of the Department of Agriculture, has 

 published a circular relating to it. 



The list of recent deaths includes, among 

 men known to science, the names of Dr. Allen 

 P. Smith, a distinguished Baltimore surgeon, 

 and one of the original trustees of Johns 

 Hopkins University, July 18th; A. H. B. 

 Beale, professor of philosophy and educa- 

 tion in the University of Washington, Killed 

 by a fall, July 1 8th ; Dr. William Pepper, pro- 

 vost of the University of Pennsylvania from 

 1881 till 1894, and afterward professor in it 

 of the theory and practice of medicine, and 

 author of many works on medical and other 

 subjects, at San Francisco, July 2Sth, aged 

 fifty-five years ; Dr. E. L. Sturtevant, an emi- 

 nent scientific agricultuiist, at Framingham, 

 Mass., July 3uth, aged fifty-six years ; Prof, 

 John Caiid, an eminent philosophical writer, 

 at Glasgow, Scotland, July 30th, aged seventy- 

 eight years ; Prof. James Hall, the oldest of 

 American geologists, near Bethlehem, N. H., 

 August 'Zth, in his eighty-seventh year ; Georg 

 Maurice Ebers, an eminent Egyptologist and 

 author of numerous historical novels, near 

 Munich, Bavaria, aged sixty one years ; 

 Adolph Sutro, constructor of the Sutro Tun- 

 nel and deviser of a tidal water power, who 

 made many gifts to education, at San Fran- 

 cisco; M. Emile Roger, retired inspector of 

 mines in France and author of studies con- 

 cerning the respective distances of the 

 planets and their satellites ; Prof. J. C. Fill- 

 more, of Pomona College, California, ethnolo- 

 gist, at Taftville, Conu., on his way to the 

 meeting of the American Association, where 

 he was to read a paper on The Harmonic 

 Structure of Indian Music, August 14th; Dr. 

 Axel Blytt, professor of botany at Chris- 

 tiania, Norway, aged fifty-four years ; Dr. 

 Carlo Giacomiiii, professor of anatomy at 

 Turin, July 15th ; and Dr. Ernest Candez, stu- 

 dent of coleoptera, near Liittich, Jime 20th. 



