NOTES. 



287 



A RACE between bees and picceons took 

 place at Hamme, Westphalia, in July, 1888. 

 Twelve bees, Laving been rolled in flour to 

 mark them, and twelve pigeons belonging to 

 a fancier in the village, were let loose at 

 Ehynern, about a league away. The first 

 bee reached home a quarter of a minute be- 

 fore the first pigeon, and the rest of both 

 squads arrived at the same instant a few mo- 

 ments afterward. 



One of the most obvious benefits of the 

 present popularity of out -door games, like 

 lawn - tennis, among women, is that ic will 

 compel attention to the provision of more 

 free-fitting and hygienic dress. These games 

 can not be played with tight-fitting and peg- 

 heeled shoes. Hence, looser shoes with rea- 

 sonable heels are worn for this game, and 

 are coming into more general use for ordi- 

 nary wear. Loose-fitting robes are also ne- 

 cessary in lawn-tennis, and their advantages 

 for other occupations are likewise becoming 

 apparent. 



According to Prof. Oliver J. Lodge, the 

 two main destructive aspects of a lightning- 

 flash are its disruptive or expanding or ex- 

 ploding violence, and its heat. The heating 

 effect is more to be dreaded when the flash is 

 slow and much resisted ; the bursting effect 

 when conducted well, except at a few places. 

 A noteworthy though obvious thing is, that 

 the energy of the discharge must be got rid of 

 somehow. The question is, how best to dis- 

 tribute it. The disruptive result is well shown 

 by the effect of lightning on trees. It is as 

 if every cell were burst by the expansion in 

 the path of the discharge. The effect on con- 

 ductors is, however, just as marked. 



Arsenic is still too freely used in goods 

 designed for the decoration of rooms. What 

 might have proved a serious epidemic if the 

 goods had not been removed was started re- 

 cently in a civil-engineering college in Eng- 

 land from the brilliantly colored cretonne 

 and muslin hangings of some of the stu- 

 dents' rooms. Even such colors as black 

 and dark blue, in which the presence of ar- 

 senic is not likely to be suspected, have 

 sometimes been found unsafe. 



The order of the Rising Sun has been 

 conferred by the Mikado on Prof. John 

 Milne, of the Imperial University of Tokio, 

 Japan. 



A CASE is reported by IT. Mallins, in 

 which a skin-disease was transmitted from a 

 cow to a family of children who used the 

 milk. In the cow the disease took the form 

 of a rash, mostly dry, all over the body. 

 In the children it showed itself first in small, 

 blister-like vesicles on the tongue and mu- 

 cous membrane of the mouth, followed in 

 three weeks by a limited number of vesicular 

 eruptions on various parts of the body, 

 which formed sores and left dark-red scars. 



A SURVEY of the Nicobar Islands has 

 been made by Colonel Strahan, of the In- 

 dia Survey. The total area of the group is 

 618 square miles, and its culminating point 

 is 2,105 feet above the sea. The scenery is 

 of " indescribable beauty." Several rivers 

 are navigable by boats for some miles, of 

 which the Galatea, fringed with a luxuriant 

 tropical vegetation and presenting occasional 

 glimpses of distant mountains, runs through 

 a i-egion only sparsely inhabited, by a tribe 

 so utterly barbarous as to be despised by 

 their fellow-barbarian Nicobarese of the 

 coasts. The inhabitants as a rule are allied 

 to the Malays, of good physical development 

 and a reddish-brown color, are unconquer- 

 ably lazy, and show great talent for learning 

 languages. 



It has been observed that pure sesquiox- 

 ide of iron, added in small quantities to car- 

 bonate of lime, communicates to it the prop- 

 erty of fluorescence after calcination in the 

 air. 



The British Kegistarar-General has pub- 

 lished statistics bearing upon the increase 

 in the death-rate from cancer during thirty- 

 five years, and upon the geographical dis- 

 tribution of the disease. The increase in 

 England and Wales in the ten years 18*71- 

 '80, as compared with the decade 1851-'60, 

 was equal to sixty-two per cent among male 

 and forty-three per cent among female pa- 

 tients. Cancer appears to prevail most ex- 

 tensively in London and its environs — possi- 

 bly by reason of the attractions offered to 

 patients by its hospitals — and in Devonshire 

 — possibly on account of the health-resorts. 



The English " Sporting and Dramatic 

 News," while it admits the desirability of 

 revising the rules of foot-ball so as to make 

 it less rough and dangerous, pleads for the 

 retention of the sport, because it is essential- 

 ly a poor man's game. It needs no costly 

 outfit, and does not call for very serious trav- 

 eling expenses. But for the very reason 

 that the bulk of foot-ballers are, compara- 

 tively speaking, poor men, they should be as 

 exempt as possible from injury, for they 

 can not afford to be laid up. 



The process of unliming hides and skins 

 in tanning has been a slow and disgusting 

 one, consisting in soaking the skins in a bath 

 of manure in water, called bate. A new 

 method comes from Australia, and consists 

 simply in utilizing the power of dissolving 

 lime possessed by water charged with car- 

 bonic-acid gas. The process has been pat- 

 ented and applied in England. A half-hour's 

 soaking in the carbonic-acid bath is said to 

 cleanse the skins so thoroughly that after 

 scraping they absorb the tan with extreme 

 readiness, and yield a very flexible and fine- 

 grained leather. The inventor computes that 

 at least one third of the time of leather-mak- 

 ing is saved by his process. 



