22 
ing the observatory the visitor will pick up a small instrument 
attached to a rope of insulated wire. It contains nine contact 
keys, and is made to fold like a book, so that it can be put in the 
pocket. By touching the first key the visitor lights up the building 
with electric lights. By pressing the second key he moves the 
dome and at the sam2 time opens the shutter. By pressing 
another key the observer can move the telescope in right ascension 
and a fourth enables him to move it in declination. He has now 
to bring himself into a position to ubserve. The dome of the 
Lick Observatory will be 70 feet in internal diameter. Instead of 
having to climb into an observing chair, which would be 25 feet 
high, and very heavy to move, he presses a key, which causes the 
whole floor to move up or down at will, so that the observer can 
bring himself within a few feet.of the eye-piece, and look through 
it while. comfortably sitting in a low chair.” This is a great 
contrast to the California of 15 yearsago. Practical electricity has 
not apparently made any great progress during the last twelve 
months, either as a means of locomotion or light. Itis true that 
six telegraphic messages can now be sent through the same wire 
at the same time, and a small vessel, propelled by electricity, the 
“Volta’’ has actually accomplished a voyage to Calais and back, 
but the great problem of domestic lighting by electricity remains, 
practically, unsolved. Mr. George Westingham, however, announces 
that he has discovered a new system of distribution which will 
reduce the cost of electric lightning some 95 per cent. 
It would almost seem that animal instinct trenches closely on 
reason, if we are to believe an incident related by a scientific 
journal. It is here stated that a swallow not only set the broken 
leg of one of its young, but neatly bound up the injured limb with a 
horsehair. I should mention that this instance of animal sagacity 
is quoted from an American journal. But if animals are advancing 
it appears that man is in some respects retrograding. Herr 
Oscar Schmidt has lately published the result of his researches 
on human dentition, fromwhich we learn that man will eventually 
become a toothless animal. It may be gratifying to dentists, but 
not at all so to most of us, to be informed that our teeth are 
going from bad to worse, and that dental caries and decay are 
becoming more and more frequent. We are told too, that pre- 
historic man possessed a much stronger and more prominent jaw of 
a decidedly Simian type, and was blessed with ten more teeth than 
his puny descendants. These teeth used to wear down to the gums 
in old age, from grinding roots and gnawing bones, but did not 
decay. ‘This last assertion is apparently confirmed by the recent 
discovery of two skulls of prehistoric men, of the Neanderthal 
type, in France. This deterioration of our teeth dates from the 
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