NOTES. 



43i 



of Chemistry in the medical department ; Prof. 

 Charles E. Munroe, formerly of the Annapolis 

 Naval Academy and lately of the United 

 States Torpedo Station, Newport, R. I., was 

 elected to the chair of Chemistry in the uni- 

 versity ; Prof. H. Carrington Bolton, of Xew 

 York city, was elected " Non-resident Lec- 

 turer on the History of Chemistry," a position 

 created expressly for him, and the first of this 

 title in the United States. 



Prof. G. C. Caldwell, of Cornell Uni- 

 versity, regards the healthfulness of oleomar- 

 garine as dependent largely on the quality of 

 the material from which it is made ; and finds 

 that there is no positive proof that it has ever 

 been made from unwholesome materials, or 

 that any disease has ever been communicated 

 to man by its use. He is of the opinion that 

 when it is properly made from fresh and clean 

 materials it differs but slightly in healthful- 

 ness from butter. Yet it is not so good as 

 butter ; for when oleomargarine was substi- 

 tuted for butter in a blind asylum at Louis- 

 ville, Ky., the children, although they had no 

 knowledge of the change, gradually ate less 

 and less of the new butter, and finally de- 

 clined it altogether — without making any 

 complaint, or exhibiting any evidence of bad 

 effects on their health. 



According to a description by Prof. Pick- 

 ering, of the Boyden station observatory near 

 Arequipa, Peru, the air is so clear there that 

 stars of the 6 - 5 magnitude are picked out by 

 the naked eye with great ease, and when the 

 moon is not too bright the eleven Pleiades 

 can always be counted. The nebula in An- 

 dromeda forms also a very conspicuous ob- 

 ject, " appearing larger than the moon," while 

 in the thirteen-inch Clark refractor "the 

 whole photographic region of the great Orion 

 nebula, first shown in the Harvard photographs 

 of 1887, is clearly visible to the eye," render- 

 ing it " the most splendid object in the stel- 

 lar universe." 



Sir William MacGregor, British High 

 Commissioner of New Guinea, reports having 

 passed in a recent coasting trip several islands 

 which appeared uninhabited ; but on landing 

 he discovered that this appearance was due 

 to their singular configuration. A narrow 

 belt of gently sloping land led from the sea 

 to a steep wall of coral rock, from three 

 hundred to four hundred feet high, from the 

 summit of which an undulating plateau was 

 seen dipping inland. Here the villages were 

 built, from fifty to a hundred feet below the 

 level of the encircling rim, and sheltered 

 from the trade winds. Sir William consid- 

 ers these islands to be upraised atolls, modi- 

 fied in most cases by subsequent wave action 

 on the shore strips. 



A mountaineering party in the Hima- 

 layas, under the direction of Mr. Conway, re- 

 port having climbed a peak of 20,000 feet 

 and a pass of 18,000 feet in the neighbor- 



hood of the mountain K 2 ; they attempted the 

 ascent of a new peak, which Mr. Conway 

 named the Golden Throne. At 23,000 feet 

 they found that they were on a peak distinct 

 from the Golden Throne, which was still 

 2,000 feet above them. The peak they as- 

 cended was named the Pioneer Peak. It 

 commanded a magnificent view, extending at 

 least 200 miles in one direction. The party 

 suffered from the great altitude, but not se- 

 verely, and could have climbed a thousand 

 feet higher, if not more. 



In an electric heating apparatus devised 

 by M. M. Olivet, of Geneva, a current is sent 

 from the dynamo into receivers of special 

 metallic composition, which become rapidly 

 heated, but without exceeding a certain tem- 

 perature, and a heated air current is set up 

 as with steam heating. 



An English paper has an account of a fog 

 in the valley of Wensleydale, near Leyburn, 

 which resembled a great lake with rising hills 

 on either side, that more thau half filled the 

 valley ; while the hillsides above the level of 

 the apparent flood were reflected with ex- 

 traordinary distinctness in it. The sun was 

 shining brightly at the time, and the mist 

 began to disperse and the mirage to fade 

 away almost immediately. 



Ants, according to the experiments of 

 Mr. H. Devaux, perceive the difference be- 

 tween sugar and saccharine. They swarmed 

 around sugar that was laid out for them, but 

 deserted saccharine as soon as they tasted it. 

 Even sugar became unpleasant to them when 

 it was mixed with saccharine. 



Prop. Otis T. Mason has been surprised, 

 in examining a large collection of American 

 aboriginal musical instruments, to find that 

 not one was peculiar to women, and that 

 those of the men were never played upon by 

 the women. He is seeking fuller information 

 on the subject. 



Cancer has been detected by Prof. Scott, 

 of New Zealand, in specimens of American 

 brook-trout confined in one of the ponds of 

 the Dunedin Acclimatization Society. The 

 author was able to examine several individ- 

 uals, showing the disease in various stages 

 of advancement ; and he gives in his paper a 

 short account of the naked-eye and micro- 

 scopic appearances of the growth. The oc- 

 currence of cancer in animals has been fre- 

 quently observed of late years. 



In the Shattuck Lecture, on the Preven- 

 tion of Disease in Massachusetts, accepting 

 the germ theory of the origin of consump- 

 tion, and in view of the swarms of bacilli in 

 phthisical sputa, Dr. J. F. A. Adams lays 

 down the following rules for precaution 

 against transmitting the disease : (1) Let all 

 sputa be carefully collected and destroyed 

 by fire. (2) Let sputa never be deposited on 

 handkerchiefs, carpets, floors, or any other 



