POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



427 



go to sleep by reading the order to do so ; 

 the orders would retain their power when he 

 had not seen the patients for weeks ; in fact, 

 he had been repeatedly called upon to give 

 them new pieces of paper when the original 

 talisman had worn out. A captain's wife, in 

 the habit of taking sea voyages and being 

 sick, was now regularly relieved by the au- 

 thor's suggestion. 



Usefnl Bacteria. — It is true, says Dr. H. 

 W. Conn, in a paper on Some Uses of Bac- 

 teria, that bacteria are occasionally injurious 

 to us, but it is equally true that they are of 

 direct benefit to us ; particularly useful are 

 many of them to the farmer. There are the 

 yeasts, for instance — not bacteria, but micro- 

 scopic plants closely related to them — the 

 fermenting agents by the aid of which we 

 make bread, wine, and beer. Cider having 

 been fermented by yeast into an alcoholic 

 liquid — hard cider — is further changed in 

 time by the agency of bacteria into vinegar. 

 These bacteria grow on the surface of the 

 hard cider, forming a sort of scum which is 

 the "mother" of vinegar. In the ensilage 

 management of silos, the whole process of 

 procuring proper and sweet ensilage is one 

 of properly managing bacteria growth. Dur- 

 ing the ripening of cream and the develop- 

 ment of the aroma that gives its flavor to 

 butter, bacteria are growing within it " with 

 absolutely inconceivable rapidity " to pro- 

 duce the precious changes. But, " if the 

 butter-maker owes something to bacteria, 

 the cheese-maker owes everything to them. 

 The butter-maker can not get the proper 

 aroma without the agency of bacteria, but 

 the cheese-maker can not get anything. By 

 them unpalatable fresh cheese is converted 

 into ripened, strong, pungent, well-flavored 

 cheese. The quality of the cheese depends 011 

 the kind of bacteria that are planted in it, and 

 the selection of these bacteria or the method 

 of introducing them constitutes one of the 

 arts of cheese-making, in which much is yet 

 to be learned ; and there is another art in 

 keeping out the noxious bacterium, tyrotox- 

 icon, which poisons the cheese. Bacteria are 

 the powerful agents through which dead an- 

 imal and vegetable matter is removed by de- 

 cay. Bacteria also have an important agency 

 in plant life, by promoting the decomposition 

 of compounds from which plants are fed. Of 



special importance is one particular kind of 

 organism known as " the nitrifying organ- 

 ism," which produces nitric acid. But this 

 is not the end of the agency of bacteria in 

 plant life. They are not only of value in 

 ripening your fertilizers and in keeping up 

 this constant growth of Nature, but we have 

 learned . . . that at the very foundation the 

 growth of plants is absolutely dependent 

 upon these organisms, and similarly in the 

 future the continuance of the vegetable 

 world must be also dependent upon them." 



Prehistoric Fish Weirs. — The stone im- 

 plements, potsherds, and other objects found 

 by Dr. H. T. Cresson in the mud near the 

 mouth of Xaaman's Creek, Claymont, Dela- 

 ware, form the subject of a special paper in 

 the records of the Peabody Museum. The 

 objects were found in close association with 

 the decayed remains of stakes or piles, indi- 

 cating an aboriginal structure of an unknown 

 character. This structure (or structures) Dr. 

 Cresson conjectures to have been originally 

 fish weirs. Herein he agrees with Prof. H. 

 W. Haynes, who deems it safe to consider 

 them fish weirs rather than the remains of a 

 pile-dwelling people. This confirms the words 

 of the fisherman who first brought the stone 

 implements to notice, when he suggested 

 that " the Indians in old times used to hitch 

 their canoes to them and spear fish, and that 

 was the reason why their darts, axes, etc., 

 were found there." Fish weirs have been 

 mentioned by certain early explorers on this 

 continent, and remains resembling such 

 structures have been referred to by more 

 modern writers. 



The Ribs of the Gorilla and of Man. — 



Describing the articular processes of the go- 

 rilla as compared with those of man, Prof. 

 Struthers said, in the British Association, that 

 in the gorilla the chest was planted a verte- 

 bra lower than in man. The seventh pre- 

 sented all the characters of the normal sixth, 

 the eighth all the characters of the seventh. 

 In man he had seen the whole chest a verte- 

 bra too high. He had met with three cases 

 of a rib more than usual. It was common 

 enough in the human body ; instead of the 

 ordinary twelve you had one more at the neck 

 much more commonly than below. In the 

 cases of three out of fourteen gorillas the ex- 



