FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



715 



some time afterward, mainly a record of 

 numerous governmental experiments cover- 

 ing the leading features of economic life. 

 The results were mostly of a negative char- 

 acter, but were valuable for the student. 

 Study of the conditions in French Canada 

 should be accompanied by a study of the 

 conditions that prevailed in France, England, 

 and the English colonies. The differences 

 between the colonies were due not so much 

 to their location, their race, or their products 

 as to the regulations by which they were 

 controlled. The French bureaucratic sys- 

 tem, with its tendency to minute interference 

 with every aspect of social life, was opposed 

 in New England by a system which left to 

 the colonists the utmost liberty in the prac- 

 tical direction of their affairs. Much good 

 was accomplished in Canada under the influ- 

 ence and direction of Colbert, but as much 

 or greater harm was done by incompetent 

 administrations later. In Canada despotism 

 was tempered by access to the woods, those 

 too heavily burdened readily taking to the 

 ways of the savages, a fact that gave the 

 French an influence upon the Indians greater 

 than could have been expected, inasmuch as 

 their pecuniary advantages lay almost alto- 

 gether with the English. Although in theory 

 the English colonies were dependent for all 

 things upon the home government, they 

 were largely left to themselves, and when 

 George III thought to atone for past neglect 

 by vigorous administration it was found that 

 the lapsed authority could not be recovered. 

 Thus, while in Canada a colony had grown 

 up dependent on European influences, the 

 English colony had become accustomed to 

 look to itself for all things. The whole 

 study was presented as emphasizing the ne- 

 cessity in theoretic economics of keeping in 

 mind differences in conditions and in their 

 range of operation and influence. 



Singing Flames. In a recent number of 

 the American Journal of Science, Mr. H. V. 

 Gill has an interesting paper on The Theory 

 of Singing Flames. The phenomenon of a 

 gas jet burning inside an open tube, emitting 

 a musical note, is one of those facts which, 

 although known for many years and much 

 written about, has never been fully explained. 

 Among the more interesting theories was 

 that of De la Rive, who supposed the sound 



to be due to a periodic condensation of the 

 water vapor produced in the combustion of 

 hydrogen gas. Faraday showed the inade- 

 quacy of this theory by the use of a flame 

 which did not form water vapor, and proposed 

 in its stead the theory that the so-called sing- 

 ing was caused by successive periodic explo- 

 sives of a mixture of gas and air. This was 

 accepted by Tyndall. Another theory which 

 has been proposed is that the sound is pro- 

 duced by vibrations maintained by heat, the 

 heat being communicated to the mass of air 

 confined in the sounding tube at a place where 

 in the course of vibration the pressure 

 changes. Sondhauss performed a series of 

 experiments, his chief conclusion being that 

 the condition of the column of gas in the sup- 

 ply tube had an important influence on the 

 phenomena. Mr. H. V. Gill sums up his con- 

 clusions as f 0II0W8 : " We think we have made 

 it clear that the pressure on the gas plays the 

 important part in this phenomenon, and that 

 a consideration of the reactions we have de- 

 scribed will be found to explain the many facts 

 noted in the case of a singing flame, some of 

 which we have alluded to. We look, there- 

 fore, on the chief cause as a mutual reac- 

 tion between the pressures in the tube and 

 on the gas, the energy necessary to sustain 

 the note being supplied by the pressure on 

 the gas and the action of the flame. We 

 may compare the singing flame to the siren, 

 in which the current of air causes the disk 

 to rotate, the note being produced by the 

 reaction of the disk on the current of air. 

 . . . We have, then, three kinds of singing 

 flames, one depending on changes of pres- 

 sure, another on air currents, and a third 

 depending at once on both changes of pres- 

 sure and on air currents." 



Sanitariums for Consumptives. The ur- 

 gent need of sanitariums for the consump- 

 tive poor in our large cities was forcibly pre- 

 sented by Dr. S. A. Knopf in a paper which 

 he read before the American Public Health 

 Association in October, 1897. The author 

 shows, in the first place, that the homes of 

 these invalids are as unsuitable as they can 

 be for their proper treatment ; that with 

 them their families and fellow-tenants are 

 sure to be infected, and the neighborhood is 

 in danger. Neither can they properly be re- 

 ceived in the general hospitals, where the 



