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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tion, only delay decay, while it is prevented 

 by the same strength of iron sulphide. The 

 fluorides are not strong antiseptics. 



The working of a plan of ventilation of 

 rooms devised by Dr. Castaing, principal 

 physician of the French armies, was very 

 highly spoken of by Dr. Vallin in the Acad- 

 emy of Sciences. It consists in having dou- 

 ble windows, with an opening at the bottom 

 of one of the screens and at the top of the 

 opposite one. The air comes in freely with- 

 out any one feeling it Professor Potain 

 spoke of the system as being excellent, on 

 account of its simplicity, efficiency, and 

 cheapness. 



In a circular issued from the New York 

 Agricultural Experiment Station at Geneva, 

 Mr. W. H. Jordan, the director, declares 

 that the station has no connection with a 

 scheme for establishing creameries, in the 

 prospectuses of which its name is used, and 

 that it does not countenance the scheme, 

 but regards it as a fraud. 



While formerly the quality of water as 

 to purity was thought to be a matter of 

 chemistry and determinable by chemical 

 analysis, the whole tendency of modern re- 

 search has been, as Dr. A. H. Veeder has 

 shown in a paper read before the American 

 Microscopical Society, to cause the question 

 of the spread of disease through the agency 

 of water to be regarded as rather a biological 

 one. The danger is determined by the pres- 

 ence of certain living organisms and of the 

 conditions on which their continued existence 

 depends, and not upon the quantity of them. 

 The smallest possible inoculation may be 

 fatal through their power of self propaga- 

 tion, and there is no fixed dose. But if their 

 growth is hindered by unfavorable conditions, 

 they may become harmless, no matter how 

 many of them there may be. The purifica- 

 tion of water depends on the destruction of 

 these organisms, or the production of condi- 

 tions unfavorable to their growth. 



An unusually unpromising lot of candi- 

 dates seem to have presented themselves 

 before the Massachusetts Board of Phar- 

 macy for certificates during the past year. 

 There were five hundred and forty candi- 

 dates, of whom only seventy- nine were 

 passed. Of these seventy nine, fourteen 

 passed on the first examination, nineteen on 

 the second, seven on the third, seventeen on 

 the fourth, seven on the fifth, five on the 

 sixth, and so on up to the eighteenth exami- 

 tion, at which the last of the seventy-nine 

 was admitted. 



The United States Geological Survey an- 

 nounces in its List of Publications that, ex- 

 cept in those cases where an extra number of 

 any special memoir or report has been sup- 

 plied by order of Congress or by the Secre- 

 tary of the Interior, it has no copies of its 

 publications for gratuitous distribution. Ap- 



plicants for publications should give their 

 reasons for desiring them, and the indorse- 

 ment of a member of Congress is advised in 

 all cases. Special attention is given to the 

 requests of libraries, schools, colleges, scien- 

 tific museums, associations, and societies, but 

 they should supply full information respect- 

 ing themselves. Special publications and 

 memoirs may be secured by exchange for 

 books that are likely to be a desirable addi- 

 tion to the Survey library. Publications pur- 

 chased should be ordered by members, with 

 prepayment by postal or express order not 

 by postage stamps, checks, or drafts. 



M. Raoul, a pharmacist of the French 

 Marine, has just returned from Malaysia, 

 whither he was dispatched to secure useful 

 plants for cultivation in the French colonies, 

 with fine collections of new textile plants, 

 India-rubber and gutta-percha trees, and trees 

 bearing fats, resins, and gums. He found 

 in the interior of Sumatra gold, petroleum, 

 and rich forests of trees of economical value. 

 Members of the party who were bitten by 

 serpents were cured by injections of a serum 

 prepared by Dr. Calmette, director of the 

 bacteriological institute of the island. 



M. A. Jolt, professor of chemistry in 

 Paris, died in December, 1897, in his fifty- 

 second year. His principal chemical re- 

 searches were made upon niobium and other 

 rare metals, the acids of phosphorus, and 

 hydrocyanic acid. 



The Hon. Gardiner Greene Hubbard, 

 president of the National Geographic Society 

 and one of the founders of Science, died near 

 Washington, December 11, 1897, in his 

 seventy-sixth year. 



We have to record the deaths, during the 

 month, of Alonzo S. Kimball, since 1872 pro- 

 fessor of physics at Worcester Polytechnic 

 Institute, Massachusetts, December 2d, aged 

 fifty- four years ; Dr. Louis Calori, professor of 

 anatomy in the University of Bologna, au- 

 thor of papers on Human and Comparative 

 Anatomy ; Dr. Wilhelm Blomstrand, profes- 

 sor of chemistry in the University of Lund ; 

 Dr. Nikolaus Kleinenberg, professor of com- 

 parative anatomy in the University of Paler 

 mo ; Dr. Wilhelm Moericke, docent in geolo- 

 gy at the University of Freiburg; James 

 Bateman, botanist and horticulturist, pro- 

 moter of botanical expeditions and author 

 of Orchidaceae of Mexico and Guatemala, 

 and of a monograph of Odontoglossum, at 

 Worthing, England, November 27th, aged 

 eighty-six years ; Dr. Campbell Morfitt, for- 

 merly professor of applied chemistry in the 

 University of Maryland, in London, Decem- 

 ber 5th, aged seventy-five years ; and of Dr. 

 Ernest Hart, an active and eminent British 

 sanitarian, editor of the Sanitary Record 

 and the London Medical Record, formerly 

 co-editor of the Lancet, and a contributor to 

 the Popular Science Monthly, in his sixty- 

 second year. 



