NOTES. 



143 



a microscope of five hundred diameters re- 

 vealed hosts of living microscopic organ- 

 isms. Among them were micrococci, one- 

 celled algae and their spores, amibes, and 

 ciliae, moving with extreme rapidity, and 

 some of the organisms in the process of 

 budding. Deductions and lessons of con- 

 siderable value and of quite wide exten- 

 sion may follow from this discovery. 



Prevention of Floods in Monntain- Val- 

 leys, — Herr Carl Sonklar, of Innspruck, has 

 published a paper on the means of prevent- 

 ing the floods to which the valleys of the 

 Tyrolese Alps are subject. The remedy he 

 proposes consists chiefly in the restoration 

 and preservation of the forests that former- 

 ly clothed the mountains ; and he suggests 

 a set of very minute regulations and practi- 

 cal measures to promote that end, which, as 

 well as all that is done about the forests, 

 by private owners as well as by the public 

 and the communes, are to be closely watched 

 by the Government. To the plantation and 

 cultivation of trees he would add barriers or 

 dams accross the ravines, to detain the wa- 

 ter of the freshets temporarily so that the 

 washed-down mineral matter and gravel shall 

 settle there and not be carried into the culti- 

 vated valleys below. 



Storage-Batteries in Electric Ligliting. 



— The composing-room of the Aberdeen 

 (Scotland) '' Journal " is lighted with perfect 

 satisfaction by means of incandescent lamps 

 supplied by accumulators. The electricity 

 is stored by one of the engines used for the 

 printing machinery during the intervals be- 

 tween issuing the different editions of the 

 daily paper; and the accumulators, so 

 charged, keep the lamps burning brightly 

 all night, without needing to be replenished. 

 Illumination through accumulators is wholly 

 free from the unsteadiness which is com- 

 plained of in using lights directly dependent 

 on machinery, and is free from the risk of 

 a sudden excess in the current destroying 

 the carbon-filament of the lamp. The ac- 

 cumulators recommend themselves^ more- 

 over, as possessing "the enormous advan- 

 tage of only yielding up the quantity of 

 electricity actually consumed by the lamps 

 alight at the moment, whereas, when the 

 hghting is done directly from a dynamo, if 



part of the lamps are put out, an equivalent 

 resistance must be inserted in order to 

 prevent the breakage of the remaining 

 lamps." 



NOTES. 



At the recent annual dinner of the Yale 

 alumni resident in Boston and vicinity, opin- 

 ions in regard to the classics, of the same 

 tenor as those with which the Yale students 

 have been so sedulously dosed all winter, 

 were expressed by several speakers, includ- 

 ing General F. A. Walker, President of the 

 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But 

 we learn, from the report in the "Boston 

 Transcript," that there was one dissenting 

 voice : " Mr. Starr H. Nichols, of New York, 

 of the class of '54, spoke next. He criti- 

 cised the training of the colleges in the clas- 

 sics and mathematics as not developing the 

 judgment of the students. They live in a 

 Greek and Roman atmosphere, and can not 

 distinguish between the ideal and the prac- 

 tical. They should have something to make 

 them athletes in the business of life. Men 

 should come out from college not feeling like 

 strangers and pilgrims in the world, but at 

 home. Classic learning does everything for 

 a man except one thing, but that is the 

 greatest thing of all, which is, to maintain 

 one's self like a man in the world." 



M. NoRDENSKioLD Tcports that he noticed 

 that the snow falling in Stockholm toward 

 the end of December was soiled with a black 

 dust. Analyzing the dust, he found that it 

 contained considerable carbonaceous matter, 

 which burned with a flame, and left a resi- 

 due containing oxide of iron, silica, phos- 

 phorus, and cobalt. He regards the ob- 

 servation as confirmatory of his theory of 

 a regular accession of cosmic dust to the 

 earth. 



Dr, George Englemann, a distinguished 

 American botanist, died February 4th, in St. 

 Louis, Missouri, where he had lived since 

 1835. He was for many years a successful 

 and honored physician in St. Louis, but was 

 best known — to the whole world — by his 

 scientific achievements. He was born and 

 schooled in Germany, and, removing to 

 Belleville, Illinois, began his botanical work 

 by publishing a monograph in Latin on the 

 habits of a creeper on the hazel-bush. This 

 at once attracted attention in his native 

 land. He made several excursions with Dr. 

 Asa Gray through the West. He was espe- 

 cially well informed on the cactus ; and was 

 largely influential in introducing the present 

 method of classification of plants, based on 

 microscopical examinations and investiga- 

 tions. 



