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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Special attention is given by the British 

 Government officers, in Cyprus, to the de- 

 struction of the locusts, with a view to their 

 extermination. The governor reports that 

 in 1882 he was successful in keeping the 

 pests down, and he considers the method of 

 screens so effectual that he proposes to rely 

 on catching the live locusts, and not to 

 gather their eggs. The accepted practice 

 in China, Russia, and Turkey is based on a 

 different view. 



Brigadier-General Andrew A. Hum- 

 phreys, who died in Washington on the 28th 

 of November, in the seventy-fourth year of 

 his age, performed many important services 

 in the shape of scientific surveys and works 

 of engineering. He was Superintendent of 

 the Coast Survey from 1844 to 1849, of the 

 Topographic and Hydrographic Survey of the 

 Mississippi Delta from 1849 to 1851, and of 

 surveys for railroads and geographical ex- 

 plorations west of the Mississippi to 1861. 

 He was again engaged in the examination 

 of the Mississippi levees for about a year 

 after the war, after which he was placed in 

 command of the Corps of Engineers and in 

 charge of the Engineer Bureau. The report 

 on the " Physics and Hydraulics of the Mis- 

 sissippi," prepared by him in conjunction 

 with Lieutenant H. L. Abbott, has much sci- 

 entific value. 



M. DE Sarzec, a French Oriental archffi- 

 ologist, suggested some time ago that the 

 ancient Eastern stone-cutters used diamond- 

 pointed tools in their more delicate work 

 on diorite and other hard stones. He is 

 corroborated by Mr. Flinders Petrie, an 

 English Egyptologist, who has found in his 

 minute examinations of ancient work lines 

 of a character that could not apparently 

 have been cut in those stones (diorites and 

 granites) with any metallic tool, but must 

 have been made with a gem-point. 



M. Robert Haensel, of Reichenberg, 

 Bohemia, has succeeded in accurately photo- 

 graphing a flash of lightning. His pictures, 

 of which he has taken several, show the 

 light of the flash under the form of long- 

 continuous sparks, traversing the atmos- 

 phere. In one of them the point where 

 the spark meets the earth is very clearly 

 defined. With the spark, the landscape 

 also is well produced, and a means is given 

 for estimating the length of the luminous 

 train, which, in one instance, is calculated 

 to be 1,700 metres, or more than a mile. 



An International Society of Electricians 

 has been formed at Paris, under the honor- 

 ary presidency of M. Cochet. It is open for 

 admission to membership to every French- 

 man or foreigner interested, whether in a 

 general, scientific, industrial, or commercial 

 way, in the progress of theoretical or ap- 

 plied electricity. The price of membership 

 is twenty francs, or about four dollars, a year. 



M. George Bontkmps, a French chemist, 

 distinguished particularly for his labors in 

 the application of the sciences to glass- 

 making, died at Amboise, France, November 

 14th, aged eighty-four years. He began his 

 chemical studies under Gay-Lussac and The- 

 nard, and has been connected with glass- 

 making, in nearly every branch of which he 

 has participated, since 1818. He introduced 

 several improvements in the art, among 

 them the revival of the manufacture of 

 ruby glass in 1 826, after it had ceased for 

 two centuries, and was successful in mak- 

 ing good optical glass. He published many 

 papers related to glass-making, and a large 

 work on the subject. 



M. DE Quatrefages recently presented 

 to the French Academy of Sciences a re- 

 port by M. E. Cartailhac on a flint-quarry 

 that was worked during the stone age at 

 Mur-dc-Barrez, in Aveyron. It consisted of 

 vertical pits dug through the Aquitanian 

 limestone to the level of the flint-beds, at 

 depths of from two to four metres. The 

 walls of the pits bore evident marks of the 

 pick, a tool of deer-hom, of which a con- 

 siderable number of specimens were found 

 in the bottoms of the pits. These pits are 

 the first that have been found in France, 

 and are very much like the ones which have 

 been discovered at Spiennes, in Belgium, 

 and Cisbury, in England. 



M. IvoN Villarceatt, a French astrono- 

 mer and mathematician, died on the 23d of 

 December, aged seventy-one years. He was 

 educated to be an engineer, but became 

 connected with the observatory, where he 

 distinguished himself by his investigations 

 of the periodicity of comets, his calculations 

 of the motions of the stars, and his services 

 in determining latitudes and longitudes. 



The common objection among woman- 

 kind, says the " Pall Mall Budget," to letting 

 their ages be known is not shared by the 

 ladies of Japan, who actually display the 

 facts as to their age in the arrangement of 

 their hair. Girls from nine to fifteen wear 

 their hair interlaced with red crape, describ- 

 ing a half-circle round the head, the fore- 

 head being left free with a curl at each side. 

 From fifteen to thirty the hair is dressed 

 very high on the forehead, and put up at 

 the back in the shape of a fan or butterfly, 

 with interfacings of silver cord and a deco- 

 ration of colored balls. Beyond thirty, a 

 woman twists her hair round a shell-pin, 

 placed horizontally at the back of the head. 

 Widows also designate themselves, and 

 whether or not they desire to marry again. 



The subject fixed for the Howard medal, 

 to be awarded next year by the English 

 Statistical Society, is " The Preservation of 

 Health, as it is affected by Personal Habits, 

 such as Cleanliness, Temperance, etc." 



