Vol. XXV. No. 3.] 
POPULAE SCIEITCE NEWS. 
3? 
to some question, and he, instead of appreciating 
its meaning, understood it to be the name of the 
animal to which it is universally applied. 
Silvering Ikon.— A new Austrian patented 
process for silvering articles of iron is thus de- 
scribed: The article is first plunged in a pickle 
of hot dilute hydrochloric acid, whence it is re- 
moved to a solution of mercury nitrate, and con- 
nected with the zinc pole of a Bunsen element, 
gas carbon or platinum serving as the other pole. 
It is rapidly covered with a layer of quicksilver, 
when it is removed, washed, and transferred to a 
silver bath and silvered. By heating to 300° C. 
(572° F.) the mercury is driven off, and the silver 
firmly fixed on the iron. To save silver the wire 
can be first covered with a layer of tin ; one part 
of cream of tartar is dissolved in eight parts of 
boiling water, and one or more tin anodes are 
joined with the carbon pole of a Bunsen element. 
The zinc pole communicates with a well-cleaned 
piece of copper, and the battery is made to act till 
enough tin has deposited on the copper, when this 
is taken out and the ironware put in its place. 
[The wire thus covered with tin chemically pure, 
r and silvered, is much cheaper than any other sil- 
vered metals. 
Changes in the Terrestrial Axis. — At the 
autumn meeting of the International Conference 
on Degree Measurement, lately held at Freiburg, 
it was reported that a series of simultaneous ob- 
servations carried on at Berlin, Strasburg, and 
Prague, showed that a decrease in latitude was in 
progress, at least in Middle Europe, and a similar 
phenomenon had been noted in other places in 
Europe. This implied an alteration in the direc- 
tion of the earth's axis. That is, the poles and 
equator, latitude and longitude, are not, as usually 
assumed, practically fixed data. The amount of 
ascertained decrease of latitude at the end of the 
six months' period, from August, 1889, to Febru- 
ary, 1890, was half a second. It was stated at the 
conference that the Berlin observations for the 
■ half year ending last August showed an increase 
of latitude amounting to 0.4, or two-fifths of a 
second. Fluctuation of the axis is thus due to a 
minute oscillation, probably owing to some 
changes in the internal mass of our planet, and 
not to be confounded with the precession of the 
equinoxes. 
Effect of Copper upon Rubbf.k. — In a pa- 
per read before the British Association, Sir Wil- 
liam Thompson stated that metallic copper, when 
heated to the temperature of boiling water, in con- 
tact with the rubber, exerted destructive effect 
upon it. With a view to finding whether this 
was due to the copper per se, or to its power of 
conducting heat more rapidly to the rubber, he 
laid a sheet of rubber on a plate of glass, and on it 
placed four clean disks, one of copper, one of 
platinum, one of zinc, and one of silver. After a 
few days in an incubator at 150° F., the rubber 
under the copper had become quite hard, that 
under the platinum had become slightly effected 
and hardened at different parts, while the rubber 
under the silver and under the zinc was quite hard 
and elastic. This would warrant the inference 
that the metallic copper had exerted a great oxi- 
dizing effect on the ruliber, the platinum had ex- 
erted a slight effect, while the zinc and silver re- 
spectively had no injurious influence on it. The 
i-ubber thus hardened by the copper contained, 
strangely enough, no appreciable trace of copper ; 
the copper, therefore, presumably sets up the oxi- 
dizing action in the rubber without itself permeat- 
ing it. 
©fee ©at-DoGP ^orld. 
Edited by HARLAN H. BALLARD, 
President of the Agassiz Association. 
[P. O. Address, Pittsfield, Mass.] 
Once more the revolving year is opening for us 
the doors long closed by frost and snow. It is 
time for all the members of the Agassiz Associa- 
tion to quit the cosy fireside and begin their out- 
door excursions. Nature points the way to the 
banks of thawing streams and to the aisles of 
awakening forests, and shouts to one and all the 
first order of the new springtime — March t 
THE JOY OF IT. 
The pure happiness that may be enjoyed by 
those who love the out-door world could hardly 
be better expressed than in a letter recently re- 
ceived from the Secretary of one of our English 
Chapters : » 
"If the tiny work of our tiny Chapter will en- 
courage any others to work, I hope you will pub- 
lish any extracts that may be useful, for the 
pleasure we derive from the study of natural his- 
tory cannot be imagined — it can only be realized. 
We have given up the pleasures (?) of London 
society to live a simple country life with our 
children, and it is impossible to describe the gain 
in happiness and love in our home. We often say 
that, although we are not rich, we cannot point to 
any other home where there are so few troubles 
and crosses as in our own. The absurd craving 
for wealth of gold instead of wealth of beauty 
and contentment to be found in Nature, as you 
teach us,, seems to be the origin of half the misery 
of life." 
This sounds like an echo from dear old Plato, 
when he said : "A sage whispers in my ear that 
no pleasure except that of the wise is quite true 
and pure — all others are a shadow only. The 
truest pleasures are those approved by the lover 
of wisdom and reason ; next those of the soldier 
and lover of honor ; last of all those of the lover 
of gain." 
— *♦» 
AN INTERESTING LETTER FROM AN 
ENGLISH SCHOOLBOY. 
Dear Sir : You ask me about the several names 
In my address. Frindsbury is the parish, Roch- 
ester the town, and Goddington is our house. 
Frindsbury comes from a Saxon word, Fremde, 
and means "Foreigners' Town," or, I believe, 
some think, "Friends' Town." It has a very old 
Norman church, with old paintings of saints on 
the sides of the recesses of the windows. These 
were discovered when taking down some plaster. 
One fresco is of St. Lawrence, with a gridiron in 
his hands, which is to show that he was martyred. 
Yesterday we celebrated an old custom called 
"Hallow E'eu." A lot of apples are placed in a 
tub of water, and boys dip for them with their 
mouths. It is not so easy to get them, for they 
roll along. I am in school now in Scotland, at 
Loretto, an old Midlothian monastery. 
There is an old tombstone — or rather board, for 
it is made of oak — in Frindsbury church, bearing 
this inscription : 
HEERE DOTHE THOMAS BUTLER REHAINE 
WHO BEKVED QUEANE ELISABETH ALLE HER RAINB. 
IMNE England, Fkanse aNd Spaine 
INNE Ireland, Scotland with tHe Beste 
And now in grave his corps dothe rest. 
This is a pretty good example of the spelling of 
the sixteenth century. They did not know when 
to spell wor(J? with capital letters, nor whether 
the capital w^as to go in the middle of a word. 
Yours very truly, 
Godfrey Trench. 
THE AGASSIZ BULLETIN. 
A monthly paper of peculiar interest is The 
Agassiz Bulletin, issued by the Hyatt Chapter of 
the A. A., No. 490, New York, (N). It is a paper 
of eight foolscap pages, two columns each, and 
is reproduced by hand from a manuscript copy. 
Nevertheless the price is only twenty cents per 
year — less than the cost of the paper and ink. 
Among the interesting items in the first number 
(January, 1891) is this: "Hyatt Chapter meets 
on the first and third Wednesdays of each month 
at 2,663 Third avenue. Lectures and debates are 
scheduled for every meeting. Visitors cordially 
welcomed." 
PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS BY CHAPTER 
604, A. A., FREDONIA, N. Y. 
notes on land-shells. 
We were interested in the article " Some Land- 
Shells in England," published in the Swiss Cross 
for December, 1888, but failed to identify any of 
our snails with the English ones there described. 
We have found twelve species in this vicinity, 
eight of which are Helices, besides some individ- 
uals which we cannot yet classify. We have had 
these all living in our "snailery." We arranged 
a box twenty inches long, eighteen wide, and 
eight deep, by putting in a layer of garden mould 
two inches deep, then one inch of black wood- 
earth, and a covering of fresh moss with a few 
small plants — violets and hepaticas — ^growing in 
it. We sprinkled it often, to keep it like a bit of 
the moist woods, and set the box by a north win- 
dow in the chamber. It was covered with a piece 
of wire screen, with a stone at each corner to keep 
it tight. We tried glass, but found it better to 
give plenty of air. 
We put in two or three of each species of snail 
as we found them. About the middle of March 
they begin to move and feed, and are more active 
as the season advances. They are quiet through 
the day, usually glued to the side of the box or 
screen cover, or with the mouth of the shell buried 
in the earth ; but 9 o'clock P. M. finds them busy 
eating and travelling. In November they begin 
to hibernate, but warm days wake them up again. 
After frost comes they are quiet until spring. We 
sowed rape seed, and gave them the tender leaves. 
They ate this a little, but liked cabbage better, and 
lettuce best of all. We only put in bits of cooked 
lean meat a few times, as they did not appear to 
care for it, and left it to spoil. The children ask 
many questions that we cannot fully answer. We 
are sure snails have their likes and dislikes, and 
wish to be left quiet when they go to sleep. 
Most people know Helix albolabris (Say), with 
its large, stout shell. It sometimes has a white 
tooth, or a suggestion of one, on the pillar lip. 
H. thyroides (Say) is nearly as large, but the 
shell j>- thinner and usually pinkish. It looks 
speckled when the animal is in it, but the little 
white spots cha'nge place. We think they are 
globules of air between the animal and its shell. 
We often find a tooth in the mouth of this shell. 
The umbilicus is partly covered by the reflexed 
lip. 
H. alternata (Say) abounds in low, wet woods. 
The flat, dark-colored, striped shell is rather pretty 
when cleaned. The animal is reddish ; the umbili- 
cus large and opan. 
H. palliata is a handsome shell of a rich brown 
color. 
