NOTES. 



trols the price of the butter. The butter- 

 maker owes the aroma to the bacteria, for 

 by their growth the materials in the cream 

 are decomposed, and the compounds are 

 formed which produce the flavors and odors 

 of high-quality butter. Different species of 

 bacteria vary much as to the flavors which 

 they produce, some giving rise to good, some 

 to extra fine, and others to a very poor qual- 

 ity of butter. A majority of our common 

 dairy species produce good but not the 

 highest quality of butter. Heretofore the 

 butter-maker has had no means of securing 

 the best flavoring bacteria ; but now the bac- 

 teriologist can isolate and obtain in pure cul- 

 tures those species which produce the best- 

 flavored butter, and can furnish them to the 

 creameries to use as starters in cream ripen- 

 ing. This artificial ripening of cream prom- 

 ises much for the near future, but it has so 

 far been applied on only a small scale. 



NOTES. 



THE third summer session of the School 

 of Applied Ethics is to be held at Plymouth, 

 Mass., July 12th to August 15th. A special 

 feature will be the attention given to the la- 

 bor question and allied subjects in each of 

 the departments. In the Department of Eco- 

 nomics the relation of economics to social 

 progress will be discussed by leading econo- 

 mists from different universities. In the De- 

 partment of Ethics and History of Religion 

 various phases of the labor problem in the 

 past and present will be considered by a large 

 corps of able educators. The relation of 

 various forms of educational activity to eth- 

 ical and social progress will be considered at 

 a conference of educators and teachers, Au- 

 gust 5th to llth, and opportunity will be af- 

 forded for free and full discussion. 



A COMMITTEE has been formed in Paris, 

 with M. Pasteur at its head, to raise funds 

 for the erection of a monument to the mem- 

 ory of M. Charcot. 



IN a lecture at the Royal Institution on 

 the Electric Discharge through Gases, Prof. 

 J. J. Thomson deduced from experiments 

 the conclusion that the conductivity of gases 

 at a certain degree of rarefaction is greater 

 than that of any metal, and almost infinitely 

 greater molecule for molecule. At a higher 

 degree of rarefaction, however, conductivity 

 is diminished, and in a perfect vacuum, as 

 has been shown by some of Prof. De war's 

 experiments, it is probable that the discharge 

 would not pass at all. From another series 

 of experiments it was inferred that electric 



currents will cross a high vacuum freely 

 though they produce no glow to indicate the 

 fact. 



WHY man can not swim without having 

 learned, while other animals can, is explained 

 by Mr. Robinson in the Nineteenth Century. 

 It is a question of atavism. When in great 

 danger we make the defensive movements 

 most familiar or instinctive to us. The first 

 impulse of quadrupeds is to run away, and 

 the movements of running sustain them in 

 the water, while man, true to his simian an- 

 cestors, tries to catch hold of something, and 

 pushes his arms up, with the sure result of 

 himself going down. 



A CURIOUS colloidal form of gold, soluble 

 in water containing basic acetate of cerium, 

 is described by Herr Schottlander. The so- 

 lution is of a very intense reddish- violet color, 

 turning to carmine red in dilute solutions. 

 The color still remains distinct in a solu- 

 tion containing only sWomr of gold. These 

 solutions are obtained by precipitating a di- 

 lute solution of a salt of cerium mixed with 

 gold, by means of a lye of potash or soda. 

 The green precipitate obtained is then dis- 

 solved in warm dilute acetic acid. The ace- 

 tate of soda then gives a violet-red precipi- 

 tate containing all the gold in the liquor and 

 a little basic acetate of cerium. On drying 

 this precipitate an amorphous bronze-colored 

 mass, soluble in water, is finally obtained. 



THE French Museum of Natural History 

 received, a few months ago, a specimen of 

 that rarest of birds, the Apteryx. It was 

 carefully kept in a warmed room and fed 

 with expressly chosen and prepared meats, 

 for it was not supposed it could thrive in a 

 foreign climate and among strange associa- 

 tions. One day in October it was gone, 

 and could not be found, though the whole 

 Jardin des Plantes was searched for it, till 

 early in March a dog smelled it out in one 

 of the ventilating holes of a row of newly 

 erected buildings, in the cellar of which it 

 had endured cold and rain and snow through 

 the winter, and lived on what it could pick 

 up. Never had it been known to be in bet- 

 ter condition. 



ORCHID culture, as we know it, according 

 to an article quoted in Garden and Forrest 

 from the Orchid Review, did not exist till 

 early in the last century, when, in 1731, 

 a dried specimen of the species Bletia vere- 

 cunda was sent to Peter Collinson from the 

 Bahamas. Collinson sent the tubers to the 

 garden of a Mr. Wager, where they were 

 nursed during the winter, and produced flow- 

 ers in the next summer. Two of our North 

 American cypripediums were cultivated, per- 

 haps, as early as 1737. At the end of the 

 century there were cultivated in English 

 gardens, besides several hardy species, or- 

 chids which had been brought home by 

 travelers and naval and military officers from 



