FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



287 



cited the fact that perfect and exact records, 

 with the exception of three years, of every 

 penny spent on London Bridge since 1831 

 are in existence and in splendid preserva- 

 tion. These facts, which we take from En- 

 gineering, differ so extremely from those 

 brought to light by the recent reform investi- 

 gations in American cities as to seem worthy 

 of notice. 



Pithecanthropus Erectns. At the recent 

 meeting of the zoologists at Leyden, an in- 

 teresting discussion occurred over some bone 

 fragments (a femur, the upper part of a 

 skull, and two teeth) upon which Dr. E. Du- 

 bois, the naturalist, bases his new species 



Pithecanthropus erectus, an intermediate stage 

 between the anthropoid apes and man. 

 Prof. Virchow contended that the four frag- 

 ments did not belong to the same animal. 

 Prof. 0. C. Marsh was inclined to support 

 many of Dr. Dubois's conclusions. Prof. 

 Rosenberg thought that the peculiarities by 

 which Dr. Dubois made his new species oc- 

 curred in human bones, and in some few 

 cases all of them combined. Prof. Rosen- 

 berg acknowledged, however, the great value 

 of the discoveries, because, even if the bones 

 were human, they proved that Tertiary man 

 existed in Java ; the origin of man being 

 thus pushed further back toward the earlier 

 Tertiary period. 



MINOR PARAGRAPHS. 



THE work of the President White School 

 of History and Political Science, which was 

 instituted at Cornell University in 1887 on 

 the gift of his historical library by ex-Presi- 

 dent A. D. White, naturally falls into the 

 two great divisions suggested by its name. 

 The instruction in history further divides 

 itself into the subdepartmeuts of ancient 

 and mediaeval, modern European, and Amer- 

 ican history; and that in political science 

 into politics, social science and statistics, and 

 political economy and finance. The teach- 

 ing corps consists of four professors, an as- 

 sociate professor, an assistant professor, an 

 instructor, and an examiner. Five fellow- 

 ships have been instituted, and degrees are 

 conferred of Master of Arts, of Philosophy, 

 of Letters, or of Science. 



THE system of tests for the detection of 

 color-blindness described by Dr. William 

 Thomson in The Popular Science Monthly for 

 February, 1885, is used on railroads control- 

 ling 38,786 miles of track, and other systems 

 are used on roads controlling 15,579 miles 

 making 51,793 miles protected. After con- 

 siderable experience Dr. Thomson proposes 

 some improvements to be used in connection 

 with his color-stick or as a substitute for it. 

 The new test consists of a large green and a 

 large rose test skein, and forty small skeins, 

 each marked with a concealed number. The 

 stick is dispensed with, because it gives a too 

 fixed arrangement and not enough confusion. 

 One of the test skeins being laid out, the 



candidate is directed to select, from the 

 twenty skeins of similar color exposed with 

 it, those having the shades nearest to it ; and 

 the accuracy of his vision is determined by 

 the exactness of his selection and his avoid- 

 ance of the confusion skeins. The red test 

 skein and its confusion colors are omitted. 



THE Russian thistle, the latest imported 

 agricultural pest, is described in a bulletin 

 of the University of Illinois Agricultural Ex- 

 periment Station as not a thistle nor looking 

 like one, but as a tumbleweed. When ma- 

 ture, its stems are more woody than those 

 of ordinary tumbleweeds, and the spines or 

 little thorns are hard. Sometimes the plants 

 are compact, nearly round ; sometimes, when 

 growing close together, they fail to have the 

 rounded form. They may be one, two, or 

 three feet high, and from eighteen inches to 

 six feet across. The leaves, flowers, and 

 seeds are very small. In the later summer 

 the stems have a purple or rose color. The 

 seeds mature after the first of September. 

 The plants and seeds should be destroyed by 

 burning. A bulletin of the Ohio Agricul- 

 tural Experiment Station on this subject con- 

 tains some useful remarks on weeds in gen- 

 eral. 



THE Massachusetts Agricultural College 

 at Amherst had in 1894 the largest number 

 of students and the largest graduating class 

 in its history. Gratifying results followed 

 the introduction of the elective system in the 

 studies of the senior year, which were shown 



