432 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tinguished himself by many valuable chemi- 

 cal researches and publications respecting 

 them, particularly by his investigations into 

 the composition and nature of meteoric 

 stones. A portrait and sketch of Dr. Smith 

 were given in " The Popular Science Month- 

 ly" for December, 1874. 



Mr. Morgan J. Roberts tells in " Na- 

 ture " of a collie-dog owned by him which 

 was accustomed to go with him fishing, and 

 took great interest in the business. She 

 learned that there existed a close connec- 

 tion between the bobbing and final disap- 

 pearance of the float and the pulling up of 

 a fish, and would become very much excited 

 whenever she saw the float in agitation. On 

 one occasion when her master was away 

 from the rods, observing a float disappear- 

 ing, she uttered one or two sharp yelps, and, 

 her master failing to come, herself seized 

 the rod, and, " backing " with it, attempted 

 to pull the line from the water. The hook 

 held " a goodly eel." 



Professor Oswald Heer, the distin- 

 guished Swiss paleontologist and botanist, 

 died at Lausanne, September 2'7th. He was 

 director of the Botanical Garden at Zurich, 

 and editor of the Swiss " Journal of Agri- 

 culture and Horticulture " ; and was the au- 

 thor of the "Urwelt der Schweitz " (" Primi- 

 tive World of Switzerland "), which has been 

 translated into many foreign languages ; of 

 a work on Swiss Coleoptera ; and, in con- 

 nection with Hegetschweiler, of the " Flora 

 of Switzerland." 



MiLLEMAiNE is the name of a new cereal 

 which has been introduced into South Caro- 

 lina, from Colombia, South America. It is 

 allied to soi'ghum and Guinea corn, and has 

 the merit of an almost unlimited capacity to 

 endure drought. Cakes made from the 

 meal have been described as better than 

 corn - cakes, and the grain has been pro- 

 nounced by the chemist of the Savannah 

 Guano Company superior in food qualities 

 to wheat. 



M. Alfred Niaudet, who died in Octo- 

 ber last, is pronounced by " La Nature " to 

 have been the person who, more than any 

 other one, contributed to the development 

 in France of the industries dependent on 

 electricity. He did valuable service to the 

 country in his special line during the Franco- 

 Prussian War, and, besides numerous papers 

 on dynamo-electric machines, telephony, and 

 telegraphy, was the author of two works 

 that are authorities on electric piles and 

 dynamo-electric motors. 



The death is reported of M. F. S. Cloez, 

 an industrious French chemist, who assisted 

 M. Chevreul some thirty-six years ago, and 

 was afterward Professor of Physics in the 

 School of the Fine Arts. He was author of 

 several memoirs of considerable value. 



According to Dr. Sach, of Buenos 

 Ayres, there is no danger of an exhaustion 

 of the quinine-supply. The experimental 

 plantations in Java and the Island of Re- 

 union have been very successful ; and, be- 

 sides these nurseries, the trees have been 

 cultivated in Bolivia by the million for ten 

 years. At three places in the last-named 

 country, taken as they come, the number of 

 trees growing is given, severally, at 10,000, 

 200,000, and 3,500,000. 



Dr. Charles William Siemens, the dis- 

 tinguished engineer and electrician, died in 

 London, November 20th, of rupture of the 

 heart. He was born in Lenthe, Hanover, 

 in 1823, and has given the world the re- 

 generative gas-furnace, with an improved 

 process for making steel ; has been greatly 

 instrumental in the extension of telegraphic 

 cables, and has produced a series of valua- 

 ble improvements in the saving and utiliza- 

 tion of heat and in applications of elec- 

 tricity. 



M. Jules Carret has found, by com- 

 paring the statistics of conscripts furnished 

 from a certain region of France during ten 

 years of the first empire with those for 

 1872-"79, that in every commune an in- 

 crease is apparent in the average height of 

 the inhabitants. If this is established, the 

 fact will tend to contradict Broca's view 

 that stature is almost wholly a matter of 

 ethnic heredity, and to show that improve- 

 ment in the conditions of hfe has something 

 to do with it. 



With the death of M. Louis Breguet, 

 which took place suddenly on the 2'7th of 

 October, is " effaced for the moment," says 

 M. Blanchard, President of the French 

 Academy of Sciences, " a name celebrated 

 in the mechanic arts from the eighteenth 

 century." He was the grandson and busi- 

 ness successor of Abraham Breguet, who 

 founded the watch-making house of that 

 name in 1780, and was the father of the late 

 Antoine Breguet, of the "Revue Scienti- 

 fiquc." He was himself distinguished for 

 services in the applications of electricity 

 and in the advancement of telegraphy, and 

 was a member of several learned societies. 

 He was sixty-nine years old. 



A VCAY has been found for utilizing the 

 bodies of animals that have died of anthrax. 

 They are treated with sulphuric acid, and 

 then converted into superphosphates. The 

 germs are destroyed during the process. 



Dr. John L. Le Conte, one of the most 

 eminent American entomologists, died at 

 his home in Philadelphia, November 1 5th. 

 He presided at the Hartford meeting of the 

 American Association in 1874. A portrait 

 and sketch of him were given in "The Popu- 

 lar Science Monthly" for September, 1874. 



