36 



POPULAR SCIENCE NEWS. 



[March, 1888. 



these departments, a good general knowledge of 

 the vegetable kingdom is quite within one's reach, 

 and is important for all students of botany, no 

 matter in what department they are especially in- 

 terested. During the last few years there have 

 appeared several excellent books, which are in- 

 tended to give students this general view. It will 

 suffice to mention of these Bessey's Botany for 

 High Schools and Colleges and Goebel's Outlines of 

 Classification. The former is the more elementary, 

 while the other is much fuller, and embodies the 

 latest views of the most eminent botanists. 



One' who begins the study of botany to-day may 

 enjoy many advantages which could not be looked 

 for by the student of ten years ago. Not only is 

 this the case in the matter of books, but it is also 

 true in the matter of personal assistance from bot- 

 anists. We do not refer merely to the increased 

 educational advantages of our various schools and 

 colleges, but more especially to a source of help 

 which may be enjoyed alike by all who wish to 

 learn. We mean the advantages of the Agassiz 

 Association, whose influence is reaching over the 

 whole of our country and beyond, and to which all 

 who study nature are welcome. In the Handbook 

 of the Association appear the names of a number 

 of specialists who have offered to assist beginners 

 by directing their study, or answering questions, or 

 naming specimens pertaining to the departments 

 of science in which they are engaged. 



Closely connected with the study of systematic 

 botany is the formation of an herbarium, or collec- 

 tion of preserved specimens. A great deal of very 

 profitable work may be done, undoubtedly, without 

 any collection, and it must be admitted that the 

 pressing and drying and mounting and labelling of 

 any considerable number of specimens soon becomes 

 drudgery rather than recreation. Still, thorough 

 study involves frequent comparison with preserved 

 specimens, and an herbarium becomes a necessity if 

 one is to do more than elementary work. In many 

 of the books already mentioned, the methods of 

 collecting and preserving specimens are more or 

 less fully described. For a good general work giv- 

 ing the most approved methods of treating speci- 

 mens of all the different groups, the student is 

 referred to Bailey's Collector's Handbook. 

 (Concluded next number.) 



GOVERNMENT MEDDLESOMENESS. 

 In the United States, the recent action of the 

 French Government in providing that nothing 

 shall be bought for public use which is not of 

 domestic production, and which the outside world 

 has regarded as a policy unworthy of an enlightened 

 nation, has had its counterpart and precedent in the 

 previous legislation of quite a number of the States, 

 with this exception, that in France the discrimina- 

 tion is made against foreigners only, while in the 

 United States the discrimination is made against 

 their own countrymen living in different political 

 divisions of the country. Nothing, moreover, can 

 probably be found in Europe to parallel the recent 

 legislation of one of the leading States of the North- 

 west (^linnesota), and a large part of which was 

 the work of a single legislative session (limited to 

 sixty days) in 1885, and which has thus been de- 

 scribed by a recent writer : Prominent in importance 

 were statutes providing for the weighing, handling, 

 and inspection of grain, the construction and 

 location of grain-warehouses, the providing of cars 

 and side-tracks by railroads, and the regulation of 

 rates of transportation. Next was legislation 

 respecting State loans of " seed grain " to farmers 

 whose crops had been ruined by grasshoppers; for 

 the subsidizing of State fairs from the State treasury ; 

 for enabling farmers to avoid the payment of a 

 portioa of Uieir debts; for protecting butter-makers 



from the competition of artificial products, such as 

 "butterine;" for regulating the details of the 

 cattle industry to the extent of registering and 

 giving State protection to brands and other modes 

 of identification, and of stamping out contagious 

 diseases with small courtesy to the rights and wishes 

 of individual owners ; and for regulating the lumber- 

 business to such an extent, that not a log can float 

 down a stream to the sawmill for which it is 

 destined without official cognizance. One State 

 Board regulates the practice of medicine and the 

 admission of new practitioners; a second the exam- 

 ination of druggists and compounding clerks, as 

 precedent to entering into business; while a third 

 regulates the practice of dentistry. Various enact- 

 ments prescribe the toll to be exacted for grinding 

 wheat; when one man may slay his neighbor's dog 

 with impunity; how railway companies must main- 

 tain their waiting-rooms at their stopping-places 

 for passengers; the hours of labor, and the em- 

 ployment of women and children ; the maximum 

 time for which locomotive engineers and firemen 

 may be continuously employed; what books shall 

 be used in the public schools; forbidding " raffles " 

 at church fairs under "frightful penalties," and 

 making it a crime to give away a lottery-ticket, and 

 a misdemeanor "to even publish an account of 

 a lottery, no matter when or where it has been con- 

 ducted. ' ' Among bills introduced , and which found 

 considerable support, but were not enacted, was 

 one forbidding persons of different sexes to skate 

 together, or even be present at the same hour on 

 the rink floor, and another to license drinkers, 

 which provided that no person should be permitted 

 to use intoxicants or purchase liquors of any kind 

 without having first a public license. — From 

 "Economic Disturbances since 187S," by Hon. 

 David A. Wells, in Popular Science Monthly for 



January. 



—* — 



INTERESTING DISCOVERIES AT POMPEII. 



Some interesting discoveries have recently been 

 made in the excavations at Pompeii. Many silver 

 vessels and three books were found under condi- 

 tions which lead to the conclusion that the owner 

 of those valuables, a lady named Decidia Margaris, 

 had packed them at the moment of the catastrophe 

 in a cloth, in order to save something more than 

 mere naked life, but that she perished in the 

 attempt. Her name we learn from the books, 

 important documents, and title-deeds, which she 

 would not leave behind. These are the usual 

 wood tablets, eight by five inches, coated with 

 wax, and several of them are fastened together in 

 book form. 



For the first few days after their discovery they 

 were perfectly legible, except in a few places where 

 damp had destroyed the wood; after that time, 

 probably because the wood began to dry, the layers 

 of wax peeled partly off, splitting up into small 

 portions. The contracts are all between the owner 

 mentioned and a Poppsea Note, a liberated slave 

 of Priscus; and from the names of the consuls 

 referred to in two of them, the year (61 A.D.) 

 may be fixed. In one of them Decidia buys of 

 Poppsea two young slaves, Simplicua and Petrinus ; 

 another also has reference to a sale of slaves ; the 

 third contract mentions a sum of 1,450 sesterces, 

 which Poppsea Note undertakes to pay to Decidia 

 Margaris in case the slaves should not turn out 

 profitable. 



The silver plate of Decidia formed a set for four 

 persons; but, as it was gathered up in haste, it is 

 incomplete. It comprises four goblets with four 

 trays, four cups with handles, four smaller cups, 

 four others, four cups with feet, a cup without a 

 handle, a filter, a small bottle with perforated bot- 

 tom, a spoon, and a small scoop. The total weight 



of the articles is 3,943.70 grams (not quite 127 

 ounces troy). There was also found a silver stat- 

 uette of Jupiter on a bronze dish with raised edge, 

 and inlaid with a finely chiselled silver plate; and, 

 finally, three pairs of ear-pendants. — Builder and 

 Woodworker. 



SCIENTIFIC BREVITIES. 



Volume of the River Rhone. — It has been 

 estimated that the amount of water passing into 

 the Lake of Geneva is about eighteen hundred 

 cubic feet per second. At this rate it would re- 

 quire about fifteen years for the river to fill with 

 water the basin occupied by the lake. 



A Submarine Meteorite. — What is believed 

 to be a meteorite has just been dug out of the ferry 

 harbor of Nokjobing, in Denmark. The stone, 

 which weighs about half a ton, was found in soft 

 mud, and no other stones were near it. It is very 

 dark in color, contains iron, and is of unusual 

 weight for its size, the work of moving it being very 

 laborious. It has now been blasted to pieces, 

 which will be examined scientifically. 



Variation in Mountain Heights. — The Cor- 

 dillera of the Andes has for some time been exhib- 

 iting a curious phenomenon. It results, from ob- 

 servations made upon the altitudes of the most 

 important points, that their height is gradually 

 diminishing. Quito, which in 1745 was 9,596 feet 

 above the level of the sea, was only 9,570 feet in 

 1803, 9,567 in 1831, and scarcely 9,520 in 1867. 

 The altitude of Quito has therefore diminished by 

 76 feet in the space of 122 years. Another peak, 

 the Pichincha, has diminished by 218 feet during 

 the same period, and its crater has descended 425 

 feet in the last 25 years. That of Antisana, has 

 sunk 165 feet in 64 years. 



Turbidity of Water. — Dr. C. O. Harz de- 

 scribes a peculiar appearance in the water of the 

 Schliersee, Bavaria, commencing when it was cov- 

 ered by ice, — a dense turbidity, at first of a green 

 or blue tinge, but becoming finally yellow-red or 

 peach-colored before finally disappearing. This 

 was due to enormous quantities of a palmella, which 

 was attacked and finally completely destroyed by a 

 peach-colored micrococcus. 



PRF.HI8TORIC Skating. — As is wcU kuowu, the 

 art of skating is a prehistoric one. In many parts 

 of Europe bones of domesticated animals have been 

 found which had been used as skates or as runners 

 of small sledges. It is of considerable interest to 

 learn that similar implements are found still 

 in use in several parts of Northern Germany. In 

 the Journal of the Berlin Ethnological Society sledges 

 are described which consist of a board resting on 

 the bones of a horse. But, besides this, skates are 

 used the runners of which consist of the lower jaw 

 of cattle, the curvature of the lower side serving 

 admirably the object of the skate. 



Naturally Reduced Iron. — On the North 

 Saskatchewan River an almost horizontal bed of 

 lignite may be seen cropping out at intervals in the 

 river-bank for several miles, overlaid by dark gray 

 clay-shales and gray and yellow soft argillaceous 

 sandstones containing nodules of clay ironstone, 

 containing 34.98 per cent of the metallic iion. The 

 seam of lignite has been completely burned out 

 over a considerable area, leaving the surface cov- 

 ered with a bed of debris of ashes, clinkers, and 

 burnt clay, in places to a thickness of twenty feet, 

 supporting at present a thick growth of grass and 

 underbrush. From this mass of burnt clay and cin- 

 ders, pieces of metallic iron can be readily picked 

 out, weighing in some cases as much as fifteen or 

 twenty pounds, doubtless derived from the nodules 

 of ironstone mentioned above, which have been re- 

 duced to the metallic state by the heat caused by 

 the baruing of so large a body of lignite. 



