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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The " Pall Mall Gazette " cites some 

 more eases illustrating the quality of the 

 learning furnished by the English board- 

 schools. The study was geography. The 

 children were able to give an accurate list 

 of the exports of Norway, but could not 

 recall the picture of a fiord. They knew 

 that the latitude of Paris was 49°, but when 

 asked, " What is latitude ? " they were 

 cither dumb, or gave such answers as — 

 " Latitude means lines running straight 

 up " ; " Latitude means zones or climate " ; 

 "Latitude is measured by multiplying the 

 length by the breadth." Correct lists of 

 imports were given, but customs duties were 

 defined, by a girl, " Customs are ways, 

 duties are things that we have to do, and 

 we ought to do them " ; by a boy, " Cus- 

 tomers' duties are to go to the places and 

 buy what they want, not stopping about, 

 but go out when they are done." 



According to tables prepared by Dr. 

 Daniel Draper, of the New York Meteoro- 

 logical Observatory, Greenwich Observatory 

 had 1,245 hours of sunshine in 1878, in a 

 possibility of 4,447, while New York had 

 2,936 hours, in a possibility of 4,449 ; and 

 in 1879, Greenwich had 977 hours, and New 

 York 3,101 hours. 



Professor Sven Nilsson, of the Lund 

 University, Sweden, a distinguished zoolo- 

 gist, died November 30th, at the age of 

 ninety- seven years. 



It is proposed to hold next year, in the 

 building of the International Fisheries Ex- 

 hibition at South Kensington, an exhibition 

 illustrating the relations of food, dress, the 

 dwelling, the school, and the workshop, 

 with health. The exhibition will be divided 

 into sections of education and health, and 

 further into six principal groups: 1. Food- 

 matters and their preparation; 2. Dress, 

 with specimens of different styles and ma- 

 terials ; 3, 4, and 5. What pertains to the 

 healthful construction and fitting of the 

 dwelling, the school, and the workshop ; 

 and, 6. All that relates to primary, technical, 

 and art education. 



Popular lore teaches several signs by 

 which it pretends to determine from the 

 weather on a particular day what the weath- 

 er will be for a longer or shorter time in the 

 future. M. A. Lancaster reports, in " Ciel et 

 Terre" of Brussels, concerning a test he 

 has made of one of these signs. It is that 

 of St. Medard's day, or the 8th of June, con- 

 cerning which a proverb is rife in the Conti- 

 nental countries that, if it rains then, it will 

 rain for forty days afterward. M. Lani as- 

 ter examined the record for fifty years, from 

 1833 to 1882, and found from it that, as a 

 rule, it rained about as much and as often 

 during the forty days following the 8th of 

 June when it did not rain on that day as 



when it did. Taking the averages of all the 

 years, there was a difference of 2-3 days, 

 or less than one seventeenth, and of twelve 

 millimetres (88-1-77-6) of rain in favor of 

 the rainy St. Medard : not enovgh, certainly, 

 on which to found a rule. 



Mr. John Eliot Howard, F. R. S., a well- 

 known chemist and quinologist of London, 

 died in November last, at the age of seven- 

 ty-six years. His father, Mr. Luke Howard, 

 F. R. S., was in his own day distinguished 

 as a meteorologist. 



TuRGENiEFF, the great Russian novelist, 

 recently deceased, had the heaviest brain 

 that has yet been weighed — 2,012 grammes. 

 The average weight of the human brain is 

 1,390 grammes. The statistics of brain- 

 weights so far gathered do not show that 

 great intellects are marked by heavy brains. 

 Cuvier's brain, 1,800 grammes, was consid- 

 erably larger than the average, while Gam- 

 betta's was remarkably small. The brains 

 of Raphael, Cardinal Mezzofanti, Charles 

 Dickens, Lord Byron, and Charles Lamb, 

 did not exceed the average, and only Mez- 

 zofanti's reached it. 



Lieutenant Wissmann, a German ex- 

 plorer, is about to make another journey 

 into Africa, the cost of which is defrayed 

 by private contributions. His object will 

 be to explore the Kaissai from Mukenge to 

 its mouth into the Congo. The success of 

 the expedition is likely to have an impor- 

 tant bearing on the extension and develop- 

 ment of trade on the Congo, and to contrib- 

 ute much to geographical knowledge; for 

 the contemplated route will intersect the 

 southern and unexplored part of the bend 

 of the great river, probably in the middle. 



The remains of Commandant Langle and 

 other companions of the explorer La Pe- 

 rouse, who were massacred by savages in 

 the last century, have been discovered by 

 the Roman Catholic missionaries on the Isl- 

 and of Tutuila, where the massacre occurred. 

 A memorial chapel is to be built at the spot 

 where they are buried. 



The Italian traveler Sacconi, who was 

 exploring the country of the Somaulis under 

 the auspices of the Geographical Society of 

 Milan, was murdered by the natives on the 

 12th of August. His death puts an end to 

 one of the most important explorations of 

 the day into a country concerning which 

 many questions still remain to be settled. 



Among the 20,000 articles of bronze be- 

 longing to the lake-dwellers so far found in 

 Switzerland, about 30 per cent are rings, 17 

 per cent bracelets, 4 per cent knives, 3 per 

 cent needles, 0-4 per cent hammers, and 0*2 

 per cent fibulae. 



