432 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Professor D. P. Pexhallow, having 

 studied the relation of annual rings to the 

 age of trees, concludes that the formation 

 of rings of growth is chiefly determined by 

 whatever operates to produce alternating 

 periods of physiological rest and activity. 

 In cold climates the rings are an approxi- 

 mately correct, but not always certain, in- 

 dex of age ; but in warm climates they arc 

 of little or no value in this respect. The 

 influence of meteorological conditions in de- 

 termining the growth of each season is most 

 important, particularly with reference to 

 rainfall. Periodicity in rainfall corresponds 

 with periodicity in growth. 



Some of the German journals describe a 

 plant which has lately been discovered to 

 have electrical properties. It is called the 

 Fhylolacca clcdvica. It gives a slight elec- 

 tric shock to the hand when its stalk is 

 broken, and alTects the magnetic needle, 

 disturbing it considerably if brought very 

 near. Its energy varies during the day, be- 

 ing strongest at about two o'clock in the 

 afternoon and falling away to nothing at 

 night. 



M. A. DE Abdadie states that the mer- 

 curial bath at his observatory in France, 

 about a mile and a half from the Spanish 

 frontier, was subjected to extraordinary and 

 almost continuous agitations during all of 

 last winter, beginning with the 1st of De- 

 cember. The oscillations sometimes reached 

 30" and were on one day, the 23d of De- 

 cember, as frequent as four in a second. 

 He believes there was a connection between 

 the oscillations, or the cause of them, and 

 the earthquakes in Spain. 



A LECTfRE on fish-culture, delivered re- 

 cently in Hull, England, by Mr. W. Oldham 

 Chambers, was illustrated by object-lessons 

 of living specimens of the white-fish and 

 other foreign species. 



OBITUARY NOTES. 



James Macfarlane, of Towanda, Penn- 

 sylvania, author of a valuable work on the 

 coal-fields of America, and of the " Geolo- 

 gists' Traveling Hand-book," died suddenly 

 on the 11th of October. He was engaged 

 at the time of his death in the revision for 

 a new edition of the " Geologists' Traveling 

 Hand-book," in which are given descrip- 

 tions of the geological formations along all 

 the railroad routes of the country. 



Mr. Thomas Bland, an eminent conchol- 

 ogist, died in New York on the 20th of Au- 

 gust last, in the seventy-seventh year of his 

 age. He was born in England, and inher- 

 ited a taste for conchology from his mother. 

 He removed to Barbadoes in 1842, and 

 thence to Jamaica. He became superin- 

 tendent of a gold-mine in Now Granada in 



18.50, whence he removed to New York in 

 1852. Here he became associated with Mr. 

 W. G. Binney in the study of our land- 

 shells andintlie publication of works which 

 have greatly elucidated the subject. The 

 catalogue of his scientific writings contains 

 seventy-two titles. 



Edward IIexri vo.\ BAUMHAtjER, Secrc- 

 ry of the Dutch Scientific Society at Haar- 

 lem, and editor of its " Archives," died last 

 year, in the sixty-sixth year of his age. 



Dr. J. J. Baeter, a distinguished au- 

 thority in geodesy, founder of tlie European 

 (JraJnicssxinrt, and president of the Central 

 Bureau of the society, and of the Royal 

 Prussian Geodetic Institute, died September 

 10th, aged ninety-one years. 



W. Woodbury, the inventor of the 

 "Woodbury type process for multiplying pho- 

 tographic pictures, died in Margate, Eng- 

 land, September Sth, from the cflects of an 

 overdose of laudanum, which he was accus- 

 tomed to take to allay sleeplessness. He 

 was fifty-one years of age. Notwithstand- 

 ing the value of his inventions and the great 

 use that has been made of them, it is said 

 that he left his family poor. 



Dr. Nicolas Joly, honorary professor in 

 the Faculty of Sciences and in the Medical 

 School of Toulouse, France, died in that city 

 October 17th, in the seventy-fourth year of 

 his age. He was best known, perhaps, by 

 the controversy which he, with MM. Pouchet 

 and JIussct, carried on with M. Pasteur in 

 1863, on the theory of spontaneous genera- 

 tion, from which M. Pasteur came off with 

 all the honors of victory. He was the au- 

 thor of numerous publications of merit in 

 zoology and prehistoric ethnography ; and 

 was one of the founders of " La Nature," 

 and a frequent contributor to its pages. 



Dr. TnoMAS Davidson, F. R. S., of Muir- 

 house, Midlothian, Scotland, the highest au- 

 thority on British fossil Brachiopoda, died 

 at West Brighton, England, October IGth, 

 in his sixty-ninth year. Up to 1871 he had 

 published forty-nine books and papers, chief- 

 ly devoted to his specialty in paleontology, 

 lie received medals from the Royal and (! co- 

 logical Societies, and from Sir R. Murchison, 

 and a testimonial from the Palcontographi- 

 cal Society in recognition of his labors. 



Charles Robin, a French physiologist, 

 who introduced the study of histology into 

 his cotmtry, died early in October last, in his 

 sixty-fifth year. In announcing his death 

 to the French Academy of Sciences, the 

 president of that body remarked upon the 

 fact that M. Robin had not been able to ac- 

 cept the new facts added by his pupils to 

 the science to which he had given a start, 

 and that he had never been " converted to 

 the doctrines of bacteriology." 



