POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



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pie, of which Mr. John Fiske was for several 

 years a principal lecturer ; established a 

 school for poor whites at Wilmington, N. C. ; 

 contributed to the support of the Hampton 

 School, and founded a school at Norfolk, 

 Va. ; maintained sewing and cooking schools 

 and schools of gymnastics in Boston ; kept 

 the Hemenway exploring and archaeological 

 expeditions at work in Arizona and New 

 Mexico, which have borne fruit in the ad- 

 mirable researches of Mr. Gushing, Mr. 

 Bandelier, and others ; and was a liberal 

 contributor to the funds of the American 

 Archaeological Institute, and patroness of 

 Dr. J. Walter Fewkes's Journal of American 

 Ethnology and Archaeology. By her will the 

 net income of her estate, after certain speci- 

 fied payments are made, is to be appropriated 

 for fifteen years to the support and further- 

 ance of the objects in which she was inter- 

 ested. Persons engaged in archaeological 

 work at her expense are to be continued in 

 it, as long as the results warrant it, on the 

 same terms. At the end of fifteen years her 

 collections archaeological, historical, and 

 educational are to be disposed of at the 

 discretion of her executors. Among the 

 specific bequests is that of the Lowry farm, 

 adjoining the Hemenway farm, Virginia, to 

 the Hampton Institute. 



Herr Lilienthal's Flying Machine. A 



communication from Prof. Du Bois-Reymond 

 to the Physical Society of Berlin concerning 

 Herr Lilienthal's experiments in aviation re- 

 lates that in studying the flight of birds that 

 gentleman perceived that flight was possible 

 under conditions when the wind gave a verti- 

 cal component. Experiments have shown 

 that surfaces may acquire a horizontal mo- 

 tion under the action of the wind alone, pro- 

 vided their curvature is in a relation to the 

 surface that corresponds exactly with that 

 observed in birds. Herr Lilienthal's flying 

 machine consists of a surface of suitable 

 curvature, measuring fourteen square metres, 

 and made of canvas stretched over a light 

 wooden frame. At the center is an opening 

 for the body of the experimenter, who keeps 

 the apparatus up by working his arms. The 

 author had seen Herr Lilieiithal fly with his 

 apparatus about one hundred and twenty 

 metres a minute at thirty metres above the 

 ground. With a favorable wind the experi- 



menter could fly two hundred or three hun- 

 dred metres ; and Prof. Du Bois-Reymond had 

 himself flown twenty or thirty metres with it. 

 In the author's view the definitive solution of 

 the question of flying machines depends upon 

 three points viz., judicious utilization of 

 the wind, suitable form of surface, and skill- 

 ful handling of the apparatus. 



Odd Barometers. Two of the oldest and 

 oddest forms of popular barometers, says a 

 writer in the London Spectator, are the leech in 

 a bottle and a frog on a ladder. Mr. Richard In- 

 wards has seen an old Spanish drawing of nine 

 positions of the leech, with verses describing 

 its attitude and behavior before different 

 kinds of weather. Dr. Merryweather, of 

 Whitby, contrived an apparatus by which 

 one of twelve leeches confined in bottles 

 rang a bell when a "tempest" was expected. 

 When leeches were kept in every chemist's 

 shop, and often in private houses, their be- 

 havior was the subject of constant observa- 

 tion ; and it was generally noticed that in 

 still weather, dry or wet, they remained at 

 the bottom, but rose, often as much as twen- 

 ty-four hours in advance, before a change ; 

 and, in case of a thunderstorm, rose very 

 quickly to the surface, descending when it 

 was past. The frog barometer, used in 

 Germany and Switzerland, is a very simple 

 apparatus, consisting of a jar of water, a 

 frog, and a little wooden step-ladder. If the 

 frog comes out and sits on the steps, rain is 

 expected. The weather-glass dearest to the 

 old-fashioned cottage in the last generation 

 was the " old man and old woman," who 

 came out of their rough-cast cottage in foul 

 or fair weather respectively. This was al- 

 most the earliest of semi-scientific toys, and 

 depended on the contracting of a piece of 

 catgut fastened to a lever. The belief that 

 bees will not fly before a shower is probably 

 true, and is the rational origin of the bang- 

 ing of trays and iron pots with a door-key 

 when bees are going to swarm. The insects 

 are supposed to take this for thunder, and 

 so settle close at hand, instead of swarming 

 at a distance. Squirting water on them with 

 a garden syringe often makes them settle at 

 once. But no such ingenious process of 

 rationalizing can be found for the belief that 

 if the insect inside cuckoo-spit lies head 

 upward, the summer will be dry, though the 



