576 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



in the night to steal it away, and, hardly 

 had they touched the skeleton, when bones, 

 dress, and arms all fell into dust, 



M. Gaston Tissandier's " La Nature," 

 of Paris, has just entered upon its four- 

 teenth volume, and, in recording the fact, 

 announces that its career has been one of 

 growing success. It began with a circula- 

 tion of :2,000 copies, and now prints 15,000. 

 It is a beautifully printed and jirofusely il- 

 lustrated journal, whose aim is to direct the 

 studies of French youth, "now eminently 

 industrious and thirsting for knowledge be- 

 cause it has profited by the lessons of a re- 

 cent past," into the channels which will be 

 most beneficial. Besides recording clearly 

 and concisely what occurs in every other 

 field of science, it gives especial attention 

 to the exi>osiiion of new applications of 

 electricity, and of new conceptions and ex- 

 periments in aerial navigation. 



Colonel B. E. Branfill, late of the Sur- 

 vey of India, renjarks as a noticeable feat- 

 ure in the meteorology of the southeast 

 coast of that country the frequent lightning- 

 storms, which occur daily, for weeks to- 

 gether, before the setting in of the south- 

 west monsoon, unaccompanied by rain or by 

 any sound of thunder. They are seen along 

 the coast where the land and sea breezes 

 alternate, and along the line of the Ghats, 

 where the surface-current is thrown up into 

 the upper and opposite current of the at- 

 mosphere. In this region the rare phe- 

 nomenon of interference fringes is very fre- 

 quently to be seen. 



The purpose of ventilating cellars is to 

 make tliem cool and dry. They are often 

 ventilated so as to be warm and damp. This 

 is done when the air admitted to them fro.n 

 without is considerably warmer than the air 

 within them. Coming into the cooler cel- 

 lar, this air, while it raises the temperature 

 of the cellar-air, itself is cooled, and depos- 

 its its moisture, which soon becomes evi- 

 dent as visible or palpable dampness. There- 

 fore, all the ventilation of cellars in warm 

 weather should be done at night ; and the 

 cellar should be kept closed between sunrise 

 and sunset. 



M. Trouvelot, in a paper about the late 

 " new star " in the nebula in Andromeda, 

 discusses the question whether the star has 

 any physical connection witli the nebula. 

 He believes that it has not, liocausc, in pro- 

 portion as the star diminished again in 

 brightness, the nebula acfiuircd its pristine 

 form. Thus the impression was given that 

 Hie change noticed in the appearance of the 

 nebula during the conspicuous visibility of 

 the new star was only apparent, and was 

 due to the superior light of the star having 

 overpowered for a time the surrounding 

 portions of the nebula. 



M. Ch. Tellier, in a recent experiment, 

 raised twenty-five hundred quarts of water 

 in an hour from a depth of twenty feet, 

 with a power generated simply by the natu- 

 ral heat of the sun. 



According to accounts in " Land and 

 Water," the gradual extinction of the buf- 

 falo is being followed up by an alarming 

 increase in the depredations of wolves upon 

 the sheep and cattle ranches. Both the gray 

 wolf and the coyote are fast becoming more 

 numerous. The sheep have suffered for 

 some time from their ravages, and now 

 the cattle are attacked. One pack of gray 

 wolves, within fifty miles of Fort McLeod, 

 has been known to attack and pull down 

 steers two years old. The coyotes follow 

 the fiercer animals, and are satisfied with 

 what they leave, or with the smaller calves. 



OBITUARY NOTES. 



M. Boulet, President of the French 

 Academy of Sciences, died November 30th, 

 of a disease from which he bad suffered 

 long and painfully. His special field of 

 research was in veterinary science, from 

 which he drew many lessons beneficial in 

 their application to human pathology. He 

 appreciated the value of M. Pasteur's labors 

 from a very early stage, and gave them his 

 earnest co-operation ; and his own researches 

 in hydrophobia, epizootics, and their reme- 

 dies and preventives, entitle him to a dis- 

 tinguished place in the annals of contem- 

 porary biology. lie was the author of books 

 on experimental disease and on contagion, 

 and his lectures at the museum have been 

 highly spoken of. 



TnE death is reported of M. Rabuteau, 

 author of valuable researches in experi- 

 mental therapeutics and chemical physiolo- 

 gy. He was particularly interested in the 

 investigation of supposed relations between 

 the chemical composition and the physio- 

 logical action of various bodies. He was 

 for twenty years one of the most active 

 members of the French Biological Society. 



Captain Mangin, the inventor of the sys- 

 tem of optical telegraphy which has recent- 

 ly been introduced for use in the French 

 army, has recently died of apoplexy, at the 

 age of forty-five years. 



Dr. Thomas Andrews, F. R. S., for many 

 years, till 1879, Professor of Chemistry in 

 Queen's College, Belfast, has recently died, 

 in the seventy-first year of his age. lie 

 made early researches into the liquefaction 

 of the gases, presided over the British As- 

 sociation at the (Jlasgow meeting in 1SY6, 

 and in his address predicted the ultimate 

 solution of the question of liquefaction, 

 which was accomplished a year and a half 

 afterward. 



