NOTES. 



719 



and was suffering much pain. A piece, six 

 centimetres long, was taken from the great 

 nerve of a rabbit's thigh so as to include the 

 natural bifurcation of the main trunk. It 

 was secured to the stump of the nerve in the 

 man's arm, and the ends of the branches to 

 the nerve terminations that remained in the 

 fingers, so as to restore the interrupted com- 

 munication. All had gone well at the end 

 of two months. 



An " authorized " biography of the late 

 Sir William Siemens has been prepared by 

 Dr. William Pole, of the Society of Civil 

 Engineers, and will soon be published in 

 London. 



Mr. Proctor's " Knowledge " will be car- 

 ried on in future by W. H. Allen & Co., Lon- 

 don, as an illustrated magazine, with more 

 space devoted to physics, biology, etc., and 

 with controversial articles on theological and 

 allied questions excluded. 



A NEW mole-like mammal, found in South 

 Australia, is described by E. C. Stirling, of 

 the university at Adelaide. It is a ground- 

 burrowing animal, outwardly somewhat like 

 the Cape mole, but differing from it in many 

 respects. It is about five inches long, has 

 no visible eyes, but a small pigment spot to 

 be seen on reflecting the skin, where the eye 

 should be ; no external ears, but the ear- 

 openings distinct and covered with fur ; the 

 fore-limbs short, resembling those of the 

 mole, with the hands folded so that only two 

 of the nails are visible in the natural po- 

 sition ; and the hinder limbs also short, with 

 the soles turned outward. The animal had 

 never been seen by any of the aborigines, 

 except by one old woman once. 



A STATUE of Ampere was unveiled at 

 Lyons, his native place, October 9th. The 

 President of the French Republic attended 

 the ceremony, and M. Cornu, of the Academy 

 of Sciences, delivered the address. 



The Copley medal of the Royal Society 

 for 1888 was presented to Prof. Huxley, for 

 his investigations into the morphology and 

 histology of vertebrate and invertebrate ani- 

 mals, and his services to biological science 

 generally ; the Rumford medal to Prof. Tac- 

 chini, for his researches in solar physics ; 

 and the Davy medal to Mr. Crookes, for his 

 researches on the electric discbarge in high 

 vacua. Royal medals were awarded to Baron 

 Ferdinand von Mueller, the Australian bota- 

 nist, and to Prof. Osborne Reynolds, of 

 Owens College, for researches in mathemati- 

 cal and experimental physics. 



M. Marambet reports that of 3,000 con- 

 victs in France, examined with respect to 

 their habits of drunkenness or temperance, 

 V9 per cent of vagabonds, from 50 to 5Y per 

 cent of assassins and incendiaries, 53 per cent 

 of offenders against morals, 71 per cent of 

 thieves, sharpers, etc., 88 per cent of offend- 



ers against the person, and 77 per cent of 

 offenders against property, were drunkards. 

 Drunkards are nearly as numerous among 

 youths under twenty as among adults. The 

 largest numbers of drunkards came from re- 

 gions where spirits are most largely con- 

 sumed. 



An elaborate work on " The Viking Age," 

 by M. de Chaillu, is soon to be published. 

 It will present the early history, manners, 

 and customs of the ancestors of the English- 

 speaking nations, illustrated from the an- 

 tiquities discovered in mounds, cairns, and 

 bogs, as well as from the ancient Sagas and 

 Eddas, with more than one thousand pictures. 



Mexico affords a curious example of the 

 demoralization which irrational tariffs work. 

 To prevent bribery, the law imposes a sys- 

 tem of fines and forfeitures of which the 

 officers detecting irregularities are entitled to 

 half. Foreign shippers rarely escape fines 

 on their first consignments to Mexican ports, 

 because, unless they are experts, or consult 

 experts, they are very sure to have some 

 flaw in their papers which the sharpened eye 

 of the customs detective can fix upon as a 

 pretext for levying a fine. The absence of a 

 consular invoice is equivalent to the inflic- 

 tion of double duties, and this is often equiva- 

 lent to confiscation. " Insufficient declara- 

 tion " is punished by fines rising from ten to 

 one hundred per cent on the duties, accord- 

 ing to the nature of the offense. 



The Indian system of weights and meas- 

 ures is described as being exceedingly con- 

 fusing, because of the numerous diiferent 

 designations of the standards, and because 

 the same designation may be applied to dif- 

 ferent standards, according as the articles 

 differ, or as the transactions are held at dif- 

 ferent places. A maund of barley is not 

 the same as a maund of indigo or of cotton, 

 and a Bombay maund is different from a 

 Calcutta maund. A seer is 5,040 grains, 

 while five seers are not five times 5,040 grains, 

 but five times 4,900 grains, to make them 

 commensurate with the Bombay maund. 



At the anniversai-y meeting of the Sani- 

 tary Institution of Great Britain, Mr. Edwin 

 Chadwick, chairman, claimed credit to that 

 and similar institutions for a large propor- 

 tion of the reduction of the death-rate of 

 the metropolis, which had fallen to 14 in 

 1,000. The rate in Paris is 27, in Vienna, 

 30, and in St. Petersburg 40 per 1,000. Dr. 

 B. W. Richardson delivered an address on 

 " The Storage of Life as a Sanitary Study," 

 by which he meant, substantially, the art of 

 living long. 



While the summer of 1888 was unusu- 

 ally cool and moist in the United States and 

 the most of Europe, the people of Norway 

 endured a heat which is said to have sur- 

 passed the highest before observed during 

 this century. 



