VOL. XXIII. No. 5.] 



POPULAE SOIEITCE I^EWS. 



73 



Slie Popular Science l]ews 



BOSTON, MAY i, 1889. 



AUSTIN p. NICHOLS, S.B. . 

 WILLIAM J. ROLFE, Litt.D., 



.... EdUor. 

 Associate Editor. 



In answer to several inquiries, we would 

 say that the removal of the office of the 

 Science News does not indicate any change 

 whatever in the publishers or editors. It 

 will remain under the same management as 

 formerly, and the only reason for a change of 

 location was to obtain an office in a more 

 central part of the city, and better adapted to 

 the business. The well-known Boston Med- 

 ical and Surgical Journal is also published 

 from the same address, and the extensive 

 publishing and bookselling house of Cupples 

 & Hurd occupies the same building. 



In the death of John Ericsson, whose 

 death occurred too late for notice in the 

 April number, the country has lost one of 

 tlie most remarkable and talented men of the 

 age. He will always be best remembered 

 for his design of the war-vessel -'Monitor," 

 which proved the salvation of the Union 

 navy, and inaugurated a new era in naval 

 architecture. His other inventions were nu- 

 merous and important, including the artificial 

 draft, and the centrifugal fan-blower for 

 steam-boilers. He retained his powers of 

 body and mind until within a few days of his 

 death, which occurred at the age of eighty- 

 five years. The latter years of his life were 

 devoted to the construction of an engine, or 

 motor, for utilizing the direct heat of the sun. 

 Although he partially succeeded, he did not 

 live to perfect the invention, which, if it had 

 been completed, would have been one of the 

 most important inventions of modern times. 

 Few men have done more than Ericsson to 

 further the advance of civilizaiion. 



Michel Eugene Chevreul, the venera- 

 ble French chemist, died on the ninth of 

 April, in his one hinulred and third year. It 

 is said his death was hastened by grief at the 

 recent loss of his son, at the age of seventy- 

 five. His most important investigations were 

 upon the chemistry of fatty substances, in- 

 cluding the discovery of stearine, glycerine, 

 etc., and his researches upon complementary 

 colors. "Chevreul on Color" still remains a 

 standard authority upon the subject. There 

 can be little to regret in the peaceful close of 



such a long, happy, and useful life. 



(♦► 



In the reading and correction of proof- 

 sheets, we have observed certain mental phe- 

 nomena worthy of note. It is practically 

 impossible to detect every error, even when 

 the attention is most closely given to the 

 work, and, after the sheets have been care- 

 fully read and re-read, sometimes a very con- 

 spicuous error will be overlooked, and appear 

 in the printed page, when it is too late to 

 remedy it. The number of errors detected 



in any single reading of a proof-sheet, is 

 almost directly proportional to the condition 

 of the reader. A slight mental or physical 

 weariness will greatly increase the number of 

 mistakes which he overlooks, and which are 

 perfectly apparent upon a second reading, 

 after the necessary rest has been obtained. 

 The proportion of such overlooked errors in 

 any given proof, seems to bear a direct rela- 

 tion to the vigor of the reader, and gives a 

 rough indication of his physical condition. 

 We have also noticed that a reader may go 

 over his proof most carefully, marking oiit 

 the slightest errors, and, when he has finished, 

 have no idea whatever of the subject matter 

 of the article. To correct errors of style, 

 syntax, etc., requires a very difl'erent manner 

 of reading than does the correction of spelling, 

 punctuation, and printers' errors, whicli be- 

 comes, in time, almost an automatic mental 



process. 



♦*» 



As we look back upon the history of the 



past few years, we remember many discov- 

 eries which were considered at the time to be 

 of the utmost importance, and destined to 

 revolutionize industrial processes, but which 

 have since fallen into a state of "innocuous 

 desuetude,'" having failed to realize the hopes 

 of their discoverers. We also take pleasure 

 in recalling the fact that, in almost evcrv 

 case, the Science News has predicted their 

 fate, and showed that, from theoretical con- 

 siderations, the anticipated residts were im- 

 possible. When the secondary battery was 

 first discovered, the most preposterous claims 

 were made of the results to be obtained from 

 the "storage of energy," but it has quickly 

 taken the place to which we assigned it, at the 

 time when it was first brought to notice. So 

 in regard to the displacement of gas by elec- 

 tric lights, the substitution of electric motors 

 for steam engines, and many similar ideas. 

 The lapse of time has justified our predictions 

 in every case, although they have sometimes 

 been in opposition to high authority. It is 

 hardly necessary to include the Kcely motor 

 in this list, as no one possessing the slightest 

 scientific knowledge ever had any faith in it. 

 The results of modern inventive genius are 

 marv-elously wonderful, but there are certain 

 mathematical laws governing the forces of 

 Nature which, it is safe to say, it is impossible 



to go beyond. 



*♦♦ 



Probably no therapeutic agent has been so 

 much abused or so little understood as the use 

 of electricity in medicine. We have always 

 claimed that it possessed little or no medicinal 

 value in itself, but that its action was merely 

 mechanical, being that of a stimulant of mus- 

 cular contraction. We now notice that the 

 medical profession is beginning to take this 

 ground, and at a recent discussion at a meet- 

 ing of the New York Academy of Medicine, 

 the cenclusion was reached that the field of 

 electro-therapeutics is a very narrow one, that 



its eflects have been much exaggerated, and 

 its results very uncertain. Although there is 

 a definite field for the employment of electri- 

 city in medicine, we are of the opinion that 

 its use will be much more limited in the 

 future than even at present. As an illustra- 

 tion of the want of accurate knowledge in 

 regard to this force, we may mention an in- 

 stance where an eminent and successful physi- 

 cian applied to a chemist to find out why his 

 battery of several cells would not decompose 

 water. Examination showed that the cells 

 had been connected for quantity, insteatl of 

 intensity of current, the owner not appreciat- 

 ing the difierence in the two ways of arrang- 

 ing them. 



Certain experiments upon the vapor- 

 density of aluminium methide [A1(CH3)3] «, 

 by Qiiincke of Gottingen, confirm the view 

 that the molecules of aluminivmi salts are con- 

 structed upon the t^pe Al R3, thus following 

 the allied metals iron, chromium, iridium, 

 and galliiun, and precluding the possibility of 

 the existence of molecules of the type AI> R^. 

 The observations are of great theoretical inter- 

 est, and go far to settle a much debated ques- 

 tion. 



Mr. Shelford Bidwell has published a 

 preliminary notice of certain experiments 

 made by him, which apparently show that a 

 piece of iron can be slightly magnetized, by 

 allowing a ray of light to fall upon it. Mr. 

 Bidwell does not consider the results entirely 

 free from suspicion, but, if further experi- 

 ments confirm the observation, it is of the 

 highest importance, and will go far to prove 

 that light is an electro-magnetic disturbance — 

 a theory which many other facts apparently 

 tend to confirm. 



A WALKING FISH. 



The singular animal represented in the en- 

 graving, (from La Nature) is the Malthe 

 vespertilio., a fish found in the waters of 

 Brazil, but a fish which, instead of swimming 

 in the water like others of its kind, is only 

 able to crawl or hop at the bottom of the 

 water. Like the frogs, turtles and other 

 amphibians, it is able to leave the water for a 

 short time, and seek its food upon the land, 

 where its peculiar powers of locomotion are 

 very useful. 



The engraving gives a side view of the ani- 

 mal about one-third of the natural size, and 

 iilso a view of the lower or ventral surface, 

 showing how the fins have been modified into 

 organs resembling the limbs of the higher 

 animals. The head is very large and is pro- 

 vided with a bony proboscis, at the end of 

 which are the nasal orifices. All the upper 

 part of the body is covered with bony plates, 

 like those of the sturgeon, and a compara- 

 tively slender tail terminates in a thick, fieshy 

 fin. A few projecting spines upon the back 

 are all there is left of the usual dorsal fin. 



The most remarkable modifications, how- 



