December 17, 1891] 



NATURE 



57 



prints and publishes, and therefore urges an appropriation of 

 30,000 dollars for general printing for the fiscal year 1892-93, 

 and makes a special request for a specific appropriation of 

 20,000 dollars to continue the series of educational histories of 

 the several States. The Commissioner reports that there were 

 enrolled in 1889-90 in the public schools of the United States 

 of elementary and secondary grade 12,686,973 pupils, as against 

 9,867,505 in 1880. The enrolment formed 20-27 per cent, of 

 the population of 1890. The average daily attendance of pupils 

 on each school day in 1890 was 8,144,938. The whole number 

 of public school teachers in the past year was — males, 125,602 ; 

 females, 233,333. The total amount expended during the past 

 fiscal year for public school purposes was 140,277,484 dollars, 

 is against 63,396,666 dollars in 1870, and 78,004,687 dollars in 

 1880. The expenditure per capita of population in 1880 was 

 1.56 dollars, while in 1890 it was 2.24 dollars. 



The U.S. Bureau of Education has issued, as one of its 

 "Circulars of Information," an excellent paper on "Sanitary 

 Conditions for School-houses," by Albert P. Marble, Superin- 

 tendent of the Public Schools of Worcester, Mass. Dr. Marble 

 has for many years studied the problems of ventilation, heating, 

 lighting, draining, and school-house construction ; and his sug- 

 gestions are well worthy of consideration in this country, as well 

 as in America. The value of the Circular is increased by an 

 appendix, in which are given a number of designs of school 

 buildings of various sizes, carefully selected with a view to com- 

 modiousness, healthfulness, and economy of construction. In 

 an otificial statement prefixed to the Circular, attention is espe- 

 cially called to a series of nineteen plates constituting the prize 

 designs selected and published by the State of New York in 

 1888. 



In the interesting paper on insectivorous plants, read before 

 the Royal Horticultural Society on September 22, 1891, and 

 now published in the Society's Journal, Mr. R. Lindsay refers 

 to the experiments by which Mr. Francis Darwin has shown the 

 amount of benefit accruing to insectivorous plants from nitro- 

 genous food. Mr. Lindsay says his own experience in the 

 culture of Dionaea is that when two sets of plants are grown side 

 by side under the same conditions in every respect, except that 

 insects are excluded from the one and admitted to the other, the 

 latter, or fed plants, are found to be stronger and far superior to 

 the former during the following season. He points out the im- 

 portance of remembering that the natural conditions under 

 which these plants are found are different from what they are 

 under cultivation. In their native habitats they grow in very 

 poor soil and make feeble roots, and under these conditions may 

 require to capture more insects by their leaves to make up for 

 their root deficiency. Under culture, however, fairly good roots 

 for the size of plant are developed. "Darwin," says Mr. 

 Lindsay, " mentions that the roots of Dionsea are very small : 

 those of a moderately fine plant which he examined consisted 

 of two branches, about one inch in length, springing from a 

 bulbous enlargement. I have frequently found Dionaea roots 

 six inches in length ; but they are deciduous, and I can only 

 conjecture that the roots mentioned by Darwin were not fully 

 grown at the time they were measured. What is here stated of 

 the natural habits of Dionsea applies more or less to all insecti- 

 vorous plants." 



Gooseberries are so much liked by most people that it is very 

 desirable the season for them should, if possible, be prolonged. 

 According to Mr. D. Thomson, who has a good paper on 

 gooseberries in the current number of the Journal of the Royal 

 Horticultural Society, this can be done easily in the northern 

 part of Great Britain. At Scotch shows it is quite usual to see 

 fine fresh gooseberries about the middle of September. These, 

 as a rule, are gathered from ordinary bushes that have perhaps 

 NO. 1155, VOL. 45] 



been shaded with mats or canvas after becoming ripe. The best 

 way to lengthen out the sea.son of gooseberries, Mr. Thomson 

 says, is to plant a portion of a wall with a due north aspect 

 with some Warringtons, and train them on the multiple-cordon 

 system, and keep the laterals spurred in precisely the same way 

 as IS adopted with red currants on fences or walls, or in fact 

 with gooseberry bushes grown in the ordinary way. The main 

 shoots should not be closer than 10 inches. If a coping of 

 wood be placed on the wall to throw off wet, a net being used 

 to protect the fruit from birds, the gooseberries can be kept fresh 

 till far into October, and are then very useful and acceptable. 



The authorities responsible for the working of the free public 

 libraries of Manchester cannot complain that these institutions 

 are inadequately appreciated. From the Thirty-ninth Annual 

 Report on the subject to the Council of the city we learn that, 

 during the year ended September 5, 1891, the number of visits 

 made by readers and borrowers to the Manchester libraries and 

 reading rooms reached an aggregate of 4,327,038, against a 

 total for the preceding twelve months of 4,195,109. The num- 

 ber of volumes lent for home reading was 702,803. Of these, 

 only thirteen are missing. 



At a recent meeting of the Chemical Section of the Franklin 

 Institute, Dr. Bruno Terne read a paper on the utilization of 

 the by-products of the coke industry. In the course of his re- 

 marks he said it seemed strange, and nevertheless was a fact, 

 that, with all the ingenuity of the American people in the ad- 

 vancement of the purely mechanical part of the technical 

 industries, they have been and are still slow in the development 

 of chemical industries. "If," said Dr. Terne, "you will visit 

 our coal region to-day, you will find the nightly sky illumined 

 from the fires of the coke ovens, and every one of the brilliant 

 fires bears testimony that we are wasting the richness of our 

 land in order to pay the wiser European coke manufacturer, 

 who saves his ammonia and sends it to us in the form of sulphate 

 of ammonia ; and who also saves his tar, which, after passing 

 through the complex processes of modern organic chemistry, 

 reaches our shores in the form of aniline dies, saccharin, nitro- 

 benzol, &c." Dr. Terne thinks that every pound of ammonia 

 used in America ought to be produced there, and that every 

 pound of soda should be made from American salt wells by the 

 ammonia process. 



Mr. Coleman Sellers contributes to the December num- 

 ber of the Engineering Magazine, New York, the first of a 

 series of articles on what he calls " American Supremacy in 

 Mechanics." Incidentally, he notes that most English inven- 

 tions brought to the United States have to be " Americanized, 

 simplified, made accessible in the case of machinery, and con- 

 structed with a view to ease of repair as well as to durability 

 when under the care of careless attendants." Mr. Sellers does 

 not think it would be worth the while of Americans to copy 

 " the solidity and immense weight that some deem a merit in 

 English machinery." 



According to the "World's Fair Notes," sent to us from 

 Chicago, the party which, under the direction of Mr. Putnam, 

 has been making excavations in the mounds of Ohio, made an 

 important discovery on November 14. While at work on a 

 mound 500 feet long, 200 feet wide, and 28 feet high, the 

 excavators found near the centre of the mound, at a depth of 

 14 feet, the massive skeleton of a man incased in copper armour. 

 The head was covered by an oval-shaped copper cap ; the jaws 

 had copper mouldings ; the arms were dressed in copper, while 

 copper plates covered the chest and stomach, and on each side 

 of the head, on protruding sticks, were wooden antlers orna- 

 mented with copper. The mouth was stuffed with genuine 

 pearls of immense size, but much decayed. Around the neck 

 was a necklace of bears' teeth, set with pearls. At the side of 

 this skeleton was a female skeleton. 



