August 13, 1891] 



NATURE 



353 



A German specialist, Dr. Cold, has recently pleaded for giving 

 young people more sleep. A healthy infant sleeps most of the 

 time during the first weeks ; and, in the early years, people are 

 disposed to let children sleep as much as they will. But from 

 six or seven, when school begins, there is a complete change. 

 At the age of ten or eleven, the child sleeps only eight or nine 

 hours, when he needs at least ten or eleven, and as he grows 

 older the time of rest is shortened. Dr. Cold believes that, up 

 to twenty, a youth needs nine hours' sleep, and an adult should 

 have eight or nine. With insufficient sleep, the nervous system, 

 and brain especially, not resting enough, and ceasing to work 

 normally, we find exhaustion, excitability, and intellectual dis- 

 orders gradually taking the place of love of work, general 

 well-being, and the spirit of initiative. 



The Entomologisf s Monthly Magazine, among much interest- 

 ing matter, refers to the possibility of the destruction of some of 

 the inclosures in the New Forest which have proved themselves 

 to be among the happiest hunting-grounds of the entomologist. 



A RECENT number of the Proceedings of the Academy of 

 Natural Sciences of Philadelphia contains a paper on Echino- 

 derms and Arthropods from Japan, by Mr. J. E. Ives. The 

 specimens described were collected by Mr. Frederick Stearns, 

 of Detroit. The new species of Echinoderms and Crustacea 

 are enumerated. A new Ophurian, a new crab, and a new 

 Pycnogonoid are described, and several species of star-fishes 

 hitherto unfigured are illustrated. The plates are admirable. 



Bulletin No. lo of the University College of Agriculture at 

 Tokyo contains an account of some manuring experiments with 

 paddy rice (second year) by Dr. O. Kellner, Y. Kozai, Y. Mori, 

 and M. Nagaoka. The principal purpose of the researches 

 carried out in 1889, and reported in Bulletin No. 8, was to 

 ascertain how much nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash can 

 be consumed by rice from the slock of nutrients in the unmanured 

 soil, and how much of them is needed in the manure for the 

 production of a maximum crop if the three nutrients are applied 

 in the most assimilable form. On the basis of the results then 

 obtained, the present experiments were tried with the object of 

 getting information on the following questions : — (i) How much 

 nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash is taken up from those 

 plots which had not received the respective nutrients in the 

 preceding J ear ? (2) What is the effect of unrecovered phosphatic 

 manure on the succeeding crop ? (3) How much nitrogen can be 

 supplied to rice by the preceding cultivation of a leguminous 

 plant {Astragalus lotoides, Lam.) for green manuring ? (4) What 

 is the effect of various phosphatic fertilizers on rice? (5) What 

 is the efi'ect of various nitrogenous manures on rice? The work 

 seems to have been carefully done, and affords a good instance of 

 ihe way in which scientific questions are now being treated in 

 Japan. 



The July number of the Proceedings of the Society for 

 Psychical Research has reached us, and contains the following 

 contributions: — "On Alleged Movements of Objects, without 

 Contact, occurring not in the Piesence of a Paid Medium," by 

 Mr. F. W. H. Myers ; " Experiments in Clairvoyance," by Dr. 

 A. Backman ; and "A Case of Double Consciousness," by 

 Mr. R. Hodgson. 



At the Bournemouth meeting of the Biiiish Medical Associa- 

 tion, a discussion on the subject of alcohol was initiated by a 

 paper by Dr. Samuel Wilks. In the course of his paper he 

 stated that he had no acquaintance with anyorganic changes attri- 

 butable to alcohol in the lungs and kidneys, but it seemed that 

 the digestive and nervous systems suffered. Physiologists had 

 failed to demonstrate the chemical changes which it underwent 

 in the body, and consequently it was impossible to say whether 

 it was of the nature of a food or not. No one had yet seen a 



NO. 1137, VOL. 44] 



person who lived on alcohol, although there was evidence of 

 persons taking large quantities of alcohol who yet preserved 

 their weight with a minimum of food ; and that supported the 

 theory that, although alcohol was not nutritive in itself, it pre- 

 vented the wear and tear of the body. The opposite theory also 

 existed, that alcohol acted as a spur to the nervous system and 

 quickly wore it out. He could not disapprove of the use of wine 

 and beer, if taken in moderation, by the masses of the people ; 

 but as to spirits or spirits and water, he had not made up his 

 mind that they were in any way useful, and he seldom recom- 

 mended them. Dr. Bucknill thought that the wise use of wine 

 might cure some cases and be useful in others. Dr. Norman 

 Kerr said that alcohol was a poison, analogous in many respects 

 to other poisons. Sir Risdon Bennett agreed with Dr. Wilk 

 in not approving of spirits as a beverage. He believed it to be 

 useful in fever and in some nervous diseases, but he did not 

 think it desirable at the present time to lay down any broad 

 principles with regard to alcohol with reference to the whole 

 community. 



The Philadelphia Satellite states that, during the abortive 

 attempt to cut a canal through the isthmus of Panama, as much 

 as 200,000 ounces of quinine were used annually in combating 

 malarial fever. 



According to the Pharmaceutical youmal of Australia, the 

 practice has been introduced into Victoria, on the recommenda- 

 tion of Baron von Mueller, of placing green branches of euca- 

 lyptus in sick rooms as a disinfectant. Dr. Curgenven states, 

 after twelve months' trial, that in cases of scarlet fever, if the 

 branches be placed under the bed, the bedding undergoes 

 thorough disinfection, the volatile vapour penetrating and 

 saturating the mattress and every other article in the room. Its 

 vapour is also said to have a beneficial effect upon phthisical 

 patien s, acting not only as an antiseptic, but as a sedative and 

 to some extent as a hypnotic. 



The Bulletin of the (American) Essex Institute just re- 

 ceived contains an account of the annual meeting held last 

 May, and a retrospect of the year, from which we learn 

 th.it Mr. Perley, in a lecture on "Old-time Winters in 

 Essex County," gave interesting particulars on many sub- 

 jects, including weather. We give the following extract : — 

 "The lecturer spoke of the watch, church services, dress, 

 food, and schools of the early winter seasons ; how the 

 people spent their evenings, the winter employment of the people 

 in cuttmg off the forests, sledding timber and wood, making 

 pipe staves and barrel hoops, and, most interesting of all, the 

 institution of the oH-fashioned shoemaker.,' .shops, of which 

 nearly every farm had one a century ago. Women in those days 

 engaged in spinning and weaving. The holidays were referred 

 to— Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's ; and the winter 

 pleasures, such as sleigh-rides, dancing, spinning and quilting 

 parties, and games, shuffle-board, coasting, skating, trapping, 

 gunning, fishing, singing-schools, and girls' samplers. He also 

 spoke of the old modes of travel, snow-shoes, &c. Nearly all 

 the heavy teaming was done on sleds, and he mentioned the 

 winter of 1768-69, when the travelling was so bad that the 

 farmers in the western part of the State could not get their grain 

 and provisions to the coast to market. Snow remained on the 

 roads as it fell until about a century ago. Mr. Perley then spoke 

 of particular winters : that of 1641-42, when the Indians said 

 they had not seen the ocean so much frozen for forty years ; of 

 1646-47, when there was no snow to lay ; of 1696-97, said to be 

 the coldest winter since the first settlement of New England ; of 

 1701-2, which was 'turned into summer' ; of 1717-18, when 

 the snow was from ten to fifteen feet deep and the drifts twenty- 

 five feet, many one-story houses being buried ; of 1740-41, said 



