144 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



toration and renaturalization of all useful 

 species that are now tending to disappear. 

 It will also strive to enlist the co-operation 

 of the authorities and administrative officers 

 in all practical measures to save the birds, 

 and so to instruct the public that a genera- 

 tion shall grow up who have not been taught 

 by the example or indifference of their elders 

 that birds are mischievous creatures, to be 

 got rid of, but the contrary. 



THE second medallist of the Royal Geo- 

 graphical Society this year (M. Selous, the 

 African explorer, being the first) was Mr. 

 Woodland Rockhill, an American diplomatist, 

 who had made himself famous by his ex- 

 plorations in western China and northeastern 

 Thibet. 



A WRITER in the Genie Civil has shown 

 that there is a difference in electric potential 

 between the water and gas pipes in all houses, 

 and that if one terminal of a telephone is 

 joined, say, to the water pipe, on lightly 

 touching the gas pipe with the other, a 

 crackling sound will be heard in the tele- 

 phone, indicating the passage of a current. 

 When the telephone is replaced by the gal- 

 vanometer, the negative pole is found to be 

 formed by the gas pipe, and the galvanom- 

 eter deflection to be permanent and con- 

 stant in amount during several months, but 

 with a slight diurnal variation. The cur- 

 rents are attributed to slow chemical changes. 

 With the currents developed in these pipes 

 the author has succeeded in carrying on a 

 conversation between two houses a hundred 

 metres apart. 



A GORILLA which had acquired consider- 

 able fame died recently in the Berlin Aqua- 

 rium. The papers have published accounts of 

 its daily operations. It awoke at eight o'clock 

 in the morning and took a glass of milk. At 

 nine o'clock it made its toilet with as much 

 care as a civilized man, and ate its breakfast 

 a few minutes afterward. This consisted of 

 two Vienna loaves, Hajnburg smoked meat, 

 cheese, and white beer. At one o'clock in 

 the afternoon it had a cup of chicken soup 

 with carrot, rice, and potatoes, and an egg. 

 Its evening meal consisted of fruits, bread and 

 butter, and a cup of tea. 



THE Hindus are curiously frank in speci- 

 fying their occupations for the census re- 

 ports. Among the accounts many of them 

 give of their trades they designate themselves 

 as debtors, living on loans, men of secret re- 

 sources or plainly thieves, village thieves, or 

 robbers. Others more modestly call them- 

 selves guests, visitors, story-tellers from 

 house to house, dependents on relatives, sup- 

 ported by their sons-in-law, or idlers ; and 

 one is without work because he is silly. 

 Among the more serious occupations are 

 declarer of oracles, cleaner of eyes, sorcerer, 

 foreteller of storms and hail, player of the 

 tom-tom, or player, barber, doctor according 



to the Greek method, servant of a candidate, 

 marriage broker of young domestics, mar- 

 riage broker of his own daughters for money, 

 etc. 



ACCORDING to an address by C. Theodore 

 Williams before the Royal Meteorological 

 Society, the chief features of the climate of 

 Colorado appear to be : 1. Diminished baro- 

 metric pressure, owing to altitude. 2. Great 

 atmospheric dryness, especially in winter and 

 autumn. 3. Clearness of atmosphere and 

 absence of fog or cloud. 4. Abundant sun- 

 shine all the year round, but especially in 

 winter and autumn. 5. Marked diatherman- 

 cy of atmosphere, producing an increase in 

 the difference between the temperature in 

 the sun and in the shade, varying with the 

 elevation in the proportion of one degree for 

 every rise of two hundred and thirty-five feet. 

 6. Considerable air movement, even in the 

 middle of summer, which promotes evapora- 

 tion and tempers the solar heat. 7. The pres- 

 ence of a large amount of atmospheric elec- 

 tricity. Thus the climate is dry and sunny, 

 with bracing and energizing qualities, per- 

 mitting outdoor exercise all the year round. 



ACCORDING to a paper by Prof. Washing- 

 ton Matthews, of Fort Wingate, New Mexico, 

 read in the American Association, the major- 

 ity of the very numerous songs of the Nava- 

 jos are divided into groups and follow in 

 regular sequence ; whence they may be called 

 sequence songs. The order of the songs is 

 arranged to correspond with a series of myths, 

 there being a special myth for each set. The 

 set of the " songs in the form of the house 

 god " has thirty songs. In some instances 

 the myth is the more important part of the 

 work ; but in more cases it is only a trifling 

 element, and seems devised merely as an aid 

 to the memory, or a means of explaining and 

 giving interest to the songs. The master of 

 ceremonies or leader in the production of 

 these songs, called the thaman, must be a 

 man of superior memory and of great intel- 

 lectual industry. He must commit to mem- 

 ory many hundred songs, some of which are 

 so sacred that the slightest mistake made in 

 repeating them renders void an elaborate and 

 costly ceremonial. 



Two reforms in the system of life insur- 

 ance commended in the English journals are 

 the perfection of a plan by one company the 

 object of which is to lighten the duties of 

 trustees and enable the assurant to make bet- 

 ter provision for his wife and children, the 

 details of which are too technical to be pub- 

 lished here ; and the adoption by another 

 company of a policy affording full and satis- 

 factory information on all subjects concern- 

 ing its operations and the nature and value 

 of its policies, including those facts by the 

 aid of which the assurant can see for him- 

 self what he can get every year upon his pol- 

 icy should he be constrained to sell it or 

 borrow upon it. 



