NOTES, 



863 



convex turnip, mat-grass, glutinous and red 

 rice, and bitter orange. The trees used for 

 the preparation of varnish form another 

 group. Nmgpo varnish is a compound 

 article, the product of two trees ; one a 

 kind of rhus, or sumach, which has a wide 

 range of growth, and the nut-oil tree, 

 ■whence the nut-oil or " wood-oil " of com- 

 merce is derived, of which there are two 

 varieties, the hill and the green variety. 

 The varnish is made by combining the juice 

 of the rhus and the nut-oil extract. An 

 important varnish is also made from a wild 

 persimmon, and a similar one is obtained 

 from what appears to be an alga. The 

 yang-mei^ or tree-strawberry, produces a 

 famous fruit resembling the mulberry, 

 which, it is said, is given a terebinthine 

 flavor by a curious process of grafting on 

 the fir. Lichi {Xephalin lichi^ Nsungau) is 

 a delicious tropical fruit, of which there 

 are between thirty and forty kinds, and is 

 found as high up as the latitude of 30° in 

 Szechuen. Dr. MacGowan also suggests the 

 expediency of experimenting with Chinese 

 water-plants. Among them are the water- 

 caltrap, which bears a valuable fruit ; the 

 tuberous water-chestnut {EUocharis tuhe- 

 roszis) ; the chicopai, with celery-like shoots ; 

 the chin tsai, or water-celery, which is culti- 

 vated in floating gardens built on bamboo 

 rafts ; the fishshu, or iron-tree, " the most 

 beautiful of the Ci/cadacece," which is re- 

 vived, when it grows old, by driving iron 

 nails into its trunk; and the hao-lau, a 

 hanging epidendron, which flowers only 

 when taken from the ground and suspended 

 from a ceiling. 



NOTES. 



According to the estimates of Mr. J. C. 

 Smock, of New Brunswick, New Jersey, made 

 after a comparison of all the observations, 

 the great glacier of our continent " appears 

 to have covered the whole of New England 

 and Northern New York, and to have filled 

 the Hudson Valley to a depth of at least 

 three thousand feet, as far south as the Cats- 

 kills, burying the Berkshire Hills, the Sha- 

 wangunk Mountain range, and the Highlands 

 of Southern New York in its icy folds. 

 Above it stood the higher peaks of the Cats- 

 kills and the summits of the Moosic High- 

 lands as isolated landmarks, or islands, in 

 the great mer de glace!'^ 



Professor C. E. Bessey suggests that as 

 the Government has efficiently encouraged 

 the study of the insects injurious to vegeta- 

 tion, and given us an increased acquaintance 

 with the habits of these pests, and hints as 

 to the way they are to be dealt with, it might 

 do another service quite as valuable to agri- 

 culture by promoting the investigation of 

 the parasitic fungi which injure and often 

 destroy farm and garden crops. The de- 

 struction they effect is almost as great as 

 that occasioned by insects. 



The International Forestry Exhibition 

 was opened at Edinburgh on the 1st of 

 July, by the Marquis of Lothian, who spoke 

 of the importance of education in forestry 

 to the British nation. The United King- 

 dom, he said, had more property in the 

 world than any other nation, but in this 

 respect it was behind the others. 



Professor Gabriel de Mortillet is 

 about to begin the publication of a new 

 fortnightly journal of the anthropological 

 sciences, to be called " L'Homme." He will 

 be assisted by a body of specialists as de- 

 partment-editors, and will contend actively 

 for the recognition of anthropology as a 

 science, the peer of the other sciences. 



Captain James B. Eads, the American 

 engineer, has received the Albert medal of 

 the British Society of Arts. He is the first 

 American on whom this distinction has been 

 conferred. 



It is generally understood that the hair 

 and nails grow faster in hot weather than 

 in cold, but few probably are aware that 

 any temperature of the weather can impart 

 so great a stimulus to the growth as Colonel 

 Prjevalsky, the Russian traveler, says the 

 Central Asian heat did during his journey 

 in those regions. In June the ground and 

 the air became excessively hot, so that it 

 was impossible to travel in the day-time. 

 The hair and beards of all the party grew 

 with astonishing rapidity, and, strangest of 

 all, some youthful Cossacks, whose faces 

 were perfectly smooth, all at once developed 

 quite respectable beards. 



M. Olzensky has liquefied hydrogen at a 

 temperature of — 3 7 1 ° Fahr. In this condition 

 the element appears to lose the metallic 

 affinities which it manifests in the ordinary 

 state, and assumes qualities of mobility and 

 transparency more like those of the hydro- 

 carbons. 



Experiments made by Dr. William Mc- 

 Murtrie, which are described in "Bulletin 

 No. 3 " of the Entomological Division of the 

 Department of Agriculture, go to show that 

 the silk fiber from worms fed exclusively 

 upon the Osage orange is somewhat finer, 

 and, on the average, equal in strength to 

 that obtained from mulberry-fed individuals. 



