432 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



working industries in the States of Ala- 

 bama, Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, New 

 York, and North Carolina. 



ACCORDING to the report of the Com- 

 mission Internationale des Glaciers for 

 1897, thirty-nine out of fifty-six gla- 

 ciers observed in Switzerland are re- 

 treating, five are at a standstill, and 

 twelve are growing. Of the Italian gla- 

 ciers, those of the Disgrazia and Ber- 

 nina groups and the glaciers of Mont 

 Canin in the Julian Alps show a marked 

 retreat. Retreat seems to be almost 

 universal in the Scandinavian glaciers. 

 The report includes also information 

 from the Caucasus, Altai, and Turkes- 

 tan, and notes on a few glaciers in the 

 United States and Mexico, concerning 

 which we have not the particulars. 



IN a book on social types among 

 the French people, M. Edmond Demo- 

 lins tries to show that varieties of types 

 are the products of constant causes 

 which it is possible to analyze exactly, 

 and the most fundamental principle of 

 which is the nature of the place and of 

 the occupation. Thus there is a social 

 type derived from the pastoral occupa- 

 tion; another from the cultivation of 

 fruit trees, among which the several 

 classes determine as many modalities of 

 the type; one is derived from petty gar- 

 dening, and another from large farm- 

 ing; another from manufacturing, and 

 another from transportation and com- 

 merce. Close analysis permits the de- 

 tection of still more delicate shades of 

 types of varieties in each of the cate- 

 gories named, whereby notable modifi- 

 cations are produced in the same region 

 and the same work. 



THE brewing industry in Germany 

 is credited with the following output of 

 beer for the year 1897-'98: Germany 

 proper, 8,055 breweries, exclusive of Ba- 

 varia. Wiirtemberg. Baden, and Alsace- 

 Lorraine, 916,000,000 gallons; Bavaria, 

 6,3(54 breweries, 351,000,000 gallons; 

 Wiirtemberg, 6,285 breweries, 90,000,000 

 gallons; Baden, 946 breweries, 60,000,- 

 000 gallons; Alsace-Lorraine, 127 brew- 

 eries, 21,230,000 gallons a grand total 

 of 1,438,230,000 gallons, from the tax- 

 ation of which the Government received 

 a revenue of $22,305,150. 



SPEAKING in his society of the Re- 

 lation of Britain to Folklore, retiring 

 President Alfred Nutt urged that it 

 was the privilege of that country to 

 enshrine in its literature the ancient 

 customary wisdom of many races, as 

 the English system of law was itself 

 largely derived from custom. The ac- 

 cidents of the geographical position 



and historical circumstances of Britain 

 had made it the preserver of a great 

 body of archaic tradition, which it was 

 the function of the Folklore Society to 

 study and interpret. 



WE have to record the deaths of Dr. 

 William Hankel, Professor of Physics in 

 the University of Leipsic ; Prof. F. K. C. 

 L. Biichner, author of the famous book, 

 Force and Matter, at Darmstadt, Ger- 

 many, May 1st; Dr. Francis W. Mac- 

 Namara, State Examiner of Medical 

 Stores at the India Office, London, for- 

 merly Professor of Chemistry in Cal- 

 cutta Medical College, and later Chem- 

 ical Examiner to the Government of In- 

 dia, March 5th, aged sixty-seven years; 

 he was author of a number of books and 

 papers on hygiene and medical chemis- 

 try; Jeremiah Head, engineer, President 

 of the Mechanical Science Section of the 

 British Association in 1893, and Presi- 

 dent of the British Institute of Mechan- 

 ical Engineers in 188o-'86, March 10th, 

 aged sixty- four years; who was instru- 

 mental in introducing into England im- 

 portant American improvements in the 

 manufacture of iron and steel; Franz 

 Ritter von Hanse, Austrian geologist, 

 Intendant of the National Museum in 

 Vienna, Director of the Imperial Geo- 

 logical Survey in 1866, and author of 

 the Geological Map of Austria, Bosnia, 

 and Montenegro, and of geological 

 books, March 20th, aged seventy-seven 

 years; Surveyor Major G. C. Wallich, 

 March 31st, in his eighty-fourth year, 

 and Count Abbe F. Castracan, of Rome, 

 the two oldest Fellows of the Royal Mi- 

 croscopical Society; Dr. P. L. Ryke, of 

 the University of Leyden, aged eighty- 

 six years; Joseph Stevens, honorary cu- 

 rator of the museum at Reading, Eng- 

 land, author of archaeological and geo- 

 logical papers; Dr. C. Brogniart, ento- 

 mologist, and author of a memoir On 

 Fossil Insects of the Primary Period, at 

 Paris; Charles L. Prince, author of pa- 

 pers on meteorology and astronomy, at 

 Tunbridge Wells, England, April'22d; 

 Dr. Wilhelm Jordan, Professor of Ge- 

 ometry and Geodesy at the Technical In- 

 stitution, Hanover, April 17th, aged fifty- 

 seven years; Sir William Roberts, of the 

 Royal College of Physicians, author of 

 lectures and papers on digestion, diet, 

 uric acid, the opium habit in India, etc. ; 

 Prof. Karl Scheibler, chemist, at Berlin, 

 aged seventy- two years; Dr. Josef Wast- 

 ler, decent in geodesy at the Technical 

 Institute in Graz; Dr. H. A. Wahlforso, 

 Professor of Chemistry at Helsingfors, 

 aged sixty years; and Philip Thomas 

 Main, Fellow of St. John's College, Cam- 

 bridge, England, author of a treatise on 

 astronomy. 



