432 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



order to determine their adaptability to cul- 

 tivation and use in this country ; to inform 

 the people concerning them ; and to intro- 

 duce those which promise well whether 

 native or foreign into cultivation. A small 

 plot has been furnished on the grounds of 

 the Department of Agriculture on which 

 four hundred varieties of grasses and forage 

 plants are growing for the testing of their 

 qualities, and a larger garden has been es- 

 tablished in one of the Southern States. 

 The division has in preparation a popular 

 book on the grass and forage plants of the 

 country, also a larger illustrated handbook 

 on the grasses of North America. 



A CURIOUS system of water cure is prac- 

 ticed by Sebastian Kneipp at Woerishofen, 

 Bavaria. Its mdst striking feature is the 

 importamce it attributes to the action of 

 water on the lower extremities. Patients 

 are caused to walk in running water or on 

 the dewy turf, or on flagstones freshly wa- 

 tered; and baths are prescribed without 

 after-use of the towel or rubbing, the bather 

 being instructed to dress himself as quickly 

 as he can, and let the reaction take place in 

 his damp shirt. The system is mentioned 

 by M. E. Bottey in his theoretical and prac- 

 tical treatise on the water cure (Paris, 1893) 

 as possibly affording the hygiene and regime 

 which some diseases require, but as danger- 

 ous in most cases. 



NOTES. 



CONSIDERABLE attention has lately been 

 given in London to the question of the spread 

 of infectious diseases among horses through 

 the public watering troughs. There seems 

 good reason to believe that this is a common 

 source of infection, especially for glanders. 

 One parish has gone so far as to abolish the 

 ordinary troughs and replace them by a stop- 

 cock and a pail. 



IN speaking of Prof. Ludwig, one of the 

 most persistent of vivisectors, Dr. Mosso 

 says : " Ludwig, the greatest of vivisectors, 

 was president of the Leipsic Society for the 

 Protection of Animals, and remained to the 

 last one of its most active members. Ger- 

 many owes to him that her horses and beasts 

 of burden are now humanely treated. To 

 him is due the awakening of the true hu- 

 manitarian spirit toward the brute creation 

 that culminated in the 'Union of German 

 Societies for the Protection of Animals.' " 



PROF. CHARLES S. MINOT, of the Harvard 

 Medical School, has arranged a course in em- 



bryology for students wishing to make a 

 special study of this branch. The course is 

 open to registered students of the graduate 

 department of the Faculty of Arts and 

 Sciences, and will be offered hereafter also as 

 a special course to graduate students of the 

 medical school. The course extends through 

 a year of two terms, and will consist of lec- 

 tures and laboratory work. Students taking 

 the course will be expected to devote to it 

 not less than eighteen hours a week. For 

 persons having medical degrees the fee for 

 one term is seventy-five dollars ; for the whole 

 year, one hundred and twenty-five dollars. 

 Others must enter the university as graduate 

 students under the Faculty of Arts and 

 Sciences. 



AT a recent meeting of the Berlin Phar- 

 maceutical Society, Dr. Seidler read a paper 

 on the bacteria in mineral waters. He had 

 made an elaborate series of experiments and 

 found bacteria in all the bottled mineral 

 waters, artificial as well as natural. The 

 waters, as a general thing, were practically 

 germ-free as they emerged from the earth, 

 but bacteria developed rapidly, through care- 

 lessness in washing the bottles, corks, etc. 



THE mineral statistics of the United King- 

 dom of Great Britain for 1894 have been 

 issued as a blue book. The total production 

 of coal for the year was 23,125,983 tons; 

 the approximate price at the pits about $1.75 

 per ton. 



THE seventh session of the Australasian 

 Association for the Advancement of Science 

 will be held in Sydney, from the 3d to the 

 10th of January, 1897, under the presidency 

 of A. Liversidge, Professor of Chemistry, 

 University of Sydney. Communications and 

 papers for the meeting, or inquiries, may be 

 addressed to the permanent honorary secre- 

 tary, The Chemical Laboratory, The Univer- 

 sity of Sydney, N. S. W. 



DR. ALBERT E. FOOTE, of Philadelphia, a 

 distinguished mineralogist, died at Atlanta, 

 Ga., where he had gone in charge of the 

 Pennsylvania mineral exhibit, October 10th. 

 He had been in feeble health for some time. 

 He was born in Hamilton, N. Y., in 1846 ; 

 was graduated in medicine from the Univer- 

 sity of Michigan in 1867 ; taught at Ann Ar- 

 bor ; and was for five years Professor of Chem- 

 istry and Mineralogy in Iowa State College. 

 In 1876 he removed to Philadelphia and be- 

 came a professional mineralogist and a dealer 

 in minerals and scientific books. 



PROF. H. HELLRIEGEL, an active and effi- 

 cient investigator in agricultural chemistry, 

 died at Bernburg, Anhalt, Germany, Septem- 

 ber 24, 1895. He was best known for the re- 

 searches into the fixation of nitrogen by legu- 

 minous plants, in which the joint agency of 

 microbes and nodules on the roots of the 

 plants was determined. 



