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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



" The sight-seer's headache " is the name 

 given to an affliction from which frequenters 

 of picture-galleries and museums suffer. It 

 is a result in part of the effort of the mind 

 consequent upon long-continued observation, 

 and partly of the muscular strain involved in 

 that work ; but is chiefl}' produced — in suf- 

 ferers who are burdened with catalogues — 

 by the frequent movement of the eye from 

 the book to the object, and the incessantly 

 repeated readjustments of the focus of vision 

 which are made necessary in looking now at 

 one, now at the other. 



The advance that has been realized in 

 the power of sanitation is exemplified, ac- 

 cording to Mr. Edwin Chadwick's review, in 

 the military services of the United Kingdom. 

 A quarter of a century ago, the death-rate in 

 the Guards was 20 per 1,000 ; it is now 6| 

 per 1,000. The death-rate in the home array 

 has been reduced in the same time from 17 

 to 8 per 1,0C0. In the Indian army the old 

 death-rate was 60 per 1,000; from 1879 to 

 1884 it was reduced to 20 per 1,000; and it 

 is now about 14 per 1,0U0. In the six years 

 from 1879 to 1884, the aggregate saving 

 was 16,yiO lives, the money value of which 

 is estimated at £1,691,000. 



General Pitt Rivers has remarked that 

 the difference in results caused by different 

 methods of estimating the same skeleton by 

 the most famous English physical anthro- 

 pologist is not less than four inches. Dr. 

 Ijcddoe proposes as a rule to add to thrice 

 the length of the femur in inches 13 inches, 

 and one half of any excess over 19 inches 

 in the case of a man, reading 12^ and 17^ 

 in the case of a woman. 



A FAVORABLE report was given of the 

 growth and prospects of the Bridgeport 

 (Conn.) Scientific Society at the opening of 

 the lecture course of lS88-'89. The society 

 puts actual work and investigation by its 

 members foremost among its objects, while 

 the lectures are a secondary consideration. 

 It is about to be endowed with a permanent 

 home through the hberality of Sir. P. T. Bar- 

 num. Mr. IBarnum made the opening ad- 

 dress of the season's lectures, and having 

 spoken'of the benefits which science has con- 

 ferred upon mankind, urged prompt and full 

 recognition of the city's benefactors. 



The origin of the experimental farm at 

 Rothamstead is attributed in the "Pall Mall 

 Gazette " to a remark made to Mr. Lawes by 

 Lord Dacve to the effect that bones used as 

 manure produced excellent results on one 

 farm, while on another they were compara- 

 tively useless. This led to the institution of 

 experiments w'th different fertilizers. Sir 

 John Lawes is arranging to put his laborato- 

 ry and the land on which the experiments 

 have been made, with £100,000 as an en- 

 dowment, into the hands of trustees to be 

 appointed by the Royal and two other socie- 



ties. Thus there will be no end or interrup- 

 tion to the work after the death of Dr. Gil- 

 bert and himself. 



Specimens of what may prove to be a 

 new species of chimpanzee have been attract- 

 ing attention at the London Zoological Soci- 

 ety's gardens. They are characterized by 

 being bald-headed — are possibly identical 

 with M. Du Chaillu's Troglodytes calvus — 

 and the name Anihropopithecus calvus has 

 been provisionally given them. Living spe- 

 cimens of all the three known anthropoid apes 

 may now be seen at the society's houses. 



An expedition is projected in Norway to 

 be dispatched in the summer of 1890 in an 

 attempt to reach the north pole by way of 

 Franz-Josef Land. The leadership of it is 

 to be offered to Dr. Nansen. 



The crater lakes of the volcanic Eifel have 

 been found by Dr. Otto Zacharias to be in- 

 habited by numerous species of Copepoda, 

 Daphrddce, Radiolaria, Jxotiers, water-mites, 

 and insect larvae. The largest of them, the 

 Laaeher See, which is about seven miles in 

 circumference, contains a special fauna. 



Parts of the monument that was erected 

 in London by Sir Christopher Wren, to com- 

 memorate the Great Fire, are showing signs 

 of decay. The limestone of which it is built 

 is acted upon by the acids of the London at- 

 mosphere — an agency which had no percep- 

 tible existence in Wren's time, but is becom- 

 ing more and more obvious in large cities 

 and manufacturing towns. 



OBITUARY NOTES. 



Prof. Richard Vine Tuson, of the Royal 

 Veterinary College, London, died October 

 31, 1888. He had been Professor of Chem- 

 istry in the institution named for more than 

 twenty years ; was a " thorough chemist and 

 able teacher and experimenter " ; and was 

 the author of various scientific papers, and 

 editor of the new edition of Cooley's " Dic- 

 tionary of Receipts." 



Dr. Peter Griess, a British chemist, died 

 at Bournemouth, Seiitembcr 6th. He was 

 best known as the discoverer of those re- 

 markable substances, the diazo-compounds. 



Dr. Nathan Allen, of Lowell, Mass., 

 a physician and medical writer well known 

 to readers of the "Monthly," died on the 

 1st day of January, from the effects of a 

 fall down-stairs resulting in concussion of 

 the brain. He was distinguished as a spe- 

 cialist in the subjects of physical culture 

 and degeneracy, insanity and state medicine, 

 heredity, hygiene, education, intemperance, 

 and the family institution, and particularly 

 of the falling off in the birth-rate among 

 native New England families ; on these sub- 

 jects he published several important works 

 and numerous shorter articles. 



