154 



POPULAR SCIENCE ITEWS. 



[October, 1889. 1 



[Special Correspondence of The Popular Science News.j 



PARIS LETTER. 



It would seem that during the summer, — which is 

 the period of vacation for all educational establish- 

 ments, and for scientific men, and especially during 

 the present one, when the exhibition is calling 

 everybody to sight-seeing and pleasure, — science 

 would be somewhat neglected and forgotten. How- 

 ever, it is exactly the reverse which is taking place, 

 and science is more triumphant than ever. This 

 fact is due to the great number of scientific meetings 

 which have been held in Paris, and are yet to take 

 place. From the beginning of June to the loth of 

 October, not one day passes by without some meet- 

 ing or other. Seventy international meetings will 

 have been held between these two dates. The 

 shortest last three days, — the longest, ten ; and the 

 one as well as the other are well filled, no time 

 being lost. There are generally two sittings per 

 diem, — one from 8 or 9 A. M. to 12 ; the other from 

 2 P. M. to 5 or 6. In some cases, there is only one 

 seance, and the remainder of the day — morning or 

 afternoon — is devoted to scientific visits to different 

 establishments, institutions, or works. For instance, 

 the zoological meeting visited the new galleries of 

 the museum, the Jardin d' Acclimation, and the 

 zoological parts of the exhibition; the anthropolog- 

 ical one visited the anthropological exhibitions in 

 the museum and in the exposition, the anthropo- 

 metrical laboratory of the Prefecture de Police, the 

 colonial exhibition (in order to see the natives of 

 different parts of the world collected on the 

 Esplanade des Invalides), etc. 



The month of August has been full of interesting 

 meetings to the biologists. The principal meetings 

 have been those for hygiene and demography, zool- 

 ogy, physiological psychology, mental medicine, 

 geography, criminal anthropology, horticulture, 

 prehistorical anthropology and archajology, forensic 

 medicine, etc. At the same time, the French Asso- 

 ciation for Advancement of Science held its annual 

 meeting in Paris, so that many persons, who wished 

 to follow the sittings of different meetings which 

 were simultaneously held, were utterly at loss to 

 know how to manage. The fact is, that too many 

 meetings which were interesting to the same class 

 of persons, came off together, and the result is that 

 many have been able to catch only mere glimpses of 

 them, instead of following them thoroughly. 



A great number of foreign scientists were present 

 at most of the meetings. The Zoological Congres 

 was assisted, among others, by C. V. Riley, your 

 able entomologist; Bogdanow, the Russian zoolo- 

 gist; KorotneflF, also Russian; Kraatz, the Berlin 

 entomologist; Anton Fritch, Brusina, Vitzou, 

 Apostolides, Packard, Van Beneden, Rutimeyer, 

 A. Smitt, R. Trimen (Cape Town), Retzius (Stock- 

 holm), Sharpe (London), Hubrecht (Utrecht), 

 MacLachlan, D'Arey Thompson, De Saussure, 

 Vejdovsky, etc. At the Physio-Psychological 

 one, were present, among the foreigners, Francis 

 Galton, Myers, Sedgwick (and wife), Delboeuf, 

 Benedikt, Lombroso, C. V. Riley, Dechterew; and 

 at the Anthropological meeting, Schliemann, the 

 discoverer of ancient Troy, was among the promi- 

 nent foreign scientists. 



Notwithstanding the unofficial participation of 

 many foreign governments in the exhibition, and 

 the real hostility of many of them to France and its 

 government, a great number of foreigners have 

 assisted the meetings. I dare say all will keep a 

 kind remembrance of the manner in which they 

 were received by their French friends ; as for the 

 French saijants, they have been happy to meet their 

 foreign confreres, and are thankful — very thankful — 

 unto them for their visit to Paris. 



M. Edison has been in Paris some ten or twelve 

 days. He was present last week at the soiree given 

 by Prince Roland Bonaparte, in honor of the anthro- 

 pological meeting. At this soiree a phonograph 

 was brought and shown to the guests. There was, 

 in one of the parlors, an orchestra of Roumanians, 

 and one of the band — who plays a singular sort of 

 flute de pan — was told to come near the phonograph 

 and to play. He did as he was told, without know- 

 ing why it was asked of him, and, after he had fin- 

 ished playing, he was told to stick two of the 

 phonograph tubes in his ear. He was perfectly 

 dumbfounded when he heard his own music coming 

 out of the cylinder, and went off without saying a 

 word, but expressing by his face the most complete 

 astonishment. The invites had a good laugh over 

 the Incident. The graphophone and phonograph 

 are much admired by all, and there Is always a 

 large crowd waiting for a chance to get a hearing. 



While scientific meetings are going on, amidst a 

 crowd of distinguished French and foreign savants, 

 scientific books are also being plentifully issued, — 

 the reverse of the general custom, which is to wait 

 till October or November for the publication of new 

 works. One of the most curious is that which M. 

 Maindron, the able author of the history of the 

 French Academy of Sciences, has devoted to the 

 history of the Champ de Mars, in which stands the 

 greater part of the exhibition. The history of this 

 large square is intimately connected with the politi- 

 cal history of France for a century, and many are 

 the ceremonies of all sorts which have been cele- 

 brated on this ground, from the Quite de la Diesse 

 Raison, to the 1889 exposition. Two very good 

 books have been recently issued, nearly on the same 

 day, on anthropological matters. One is by M. 

 Salomon Reinach, an attache to the Museum of 

 Anthropology of Saint Germain. This book deals 

 with the description and history of the different col- 

 lections which are contained in the museum, and 

 represents, at the same time, an excellent manual of 

 prehistorical anthropology. The foot-notes take as 

 much space as the text itself, and M. Reinach has 

 given to anthropologists a real masterpiece of 

 science and erudition. The other book, by M. 

 Cartailhac, the able editor of Materiaux pour 

 I'Histoire Primitive de I' Homme, bears the title. La 

 France Prehistorique. It is a complete history of 

 prehistorical France, described after the monuments 

 and remains, with many engravings. M. Cartailhac 

 is probably the most competent and authorized 

 writer on the subject, and his work is of great value, 

 not only to students of French archa;ology and an- 

 thropology, but to all who are interested in prehis- 

 torical matters, generally considered. 



I must also notice two other works, published, as 

 well as the last one, by F. Alcan. One is the 

 Traite Practique de Vaccination Animate, by A. 

 Layet, of Bordeaux. It is a complete history, prac- 

 tical and scientific, of vaccination. The other, by 

 M. Pierre Janet, on Automatisme Psychologique, will 

 prove most useful to psychologists. M. Janet makes 

 great use of hypnotism in his psychological experi- 

 ments. H. 

 Paris, August 24, 1889. 



[Specially Observed tor 'I%e Popular Science News.] 



METEOROLOGY FOR AUGUST, 1889, WITH 



REVIEW OF THE SUMMER. 



TEMPERATURE. 



To Keep Plants from Freezing. — A lady cor- 

 respondent of an exchange, writing on the subject 

 of the winter treatment of house plants, states that 

 "an approved plan for protecting plants at night is 

 to place them, before the room has become cool, in 

 a compact form on the floor or the table, and then 

 encircle them with stiff paper, or with newspapers 

 pasted together, of sufficient width to enclose the 

 plants, making a top of the same material, or cov- 

 ering with carpets and blankets, also laying cloths 

 abound the lower edge of the paper." 



The lowest point reached by the mercury the past 

 month, at the hours of observation, was 52'-, on the 

 morning of the 28th. This was also the coolest day 

 in the month, with an average of 59". The 15th 

 was the next coolest, averaging 60°. The 2d was 

 the warmest day, with an average of 76.66'' ; the 

 highest point (82°) was also on this day. The first 

 three days were about equally warm, with an aver- 

 age of 75-33°, and a range of only 10°. The range 

 on the 15th was only 3°. There were no sudden 

 changes of temperature. The entire month was 

 1.76° below the mean for August in nineteen years, 

 and the lowest — with only three exceptions — during 

 this period. 



The entire summer has also been slightly cooler 

 than usual, June having been 2.10° above, while 

 July and August were both below the average. See 

 the table for extremes and range. 



SKY. 



The face of the sk^', in 93 observations, gave 49 

 fair, 17 cloudy, 22 overcast, and 5 rainy, — a percent- 

 age of 52.7 fair. This average the last nineteen 

 Augusts has been 62.2 fair, with extremes of 50.5 in 

 1884 and 1885, and 86. o in 1876. August has been 

 less fair than the present only twice in the nineteen 

 years. Yet we had some very fine days; seven 

 were especially noted. 



The average fair the past summer has been only 

 45.6 per cent., while the average for the last nine- 

 teen summers has been 60.6, — showing that the 

 present summer has been about one-third less fair 

 tlian usual, making it specially difficult, in this 

 vicinity, for farmers to secure their hay crop. 



PRECIPITATION. 



The amount of rainfall the past month was 4.58 

 inches. This amount fell mostly (3.76 inches) on 

 the ist and 14th; the remainder in small amounts 

 on the 3d, 5th, loth, and 24th, leaving the last half 

 of the month nearly rainless. Thunder and light- 

 ning occurred on the ist, 3d, and 14th. The average 

 rainfall for the last twenty-one Augusts has been 

 4.08 inches, with extremes of 0.48 inch in 1883, and 

 10.03 '" 1872- The amount of precipitation since 

 January ist has been 40.39 inches, while the average 

 for these eight months has been only 32.05. 



The amount of rainfall the present summer has 

 been 16.56 inches, while it has averaged only 10. 11 

 inches the last twenty-one summers, with extremes 

 of 4.39 inches in 1883, and 18.13 inches in 1872 — 

 the only instance in twenty-one years that has 

 exceeded the present. 



PRESSURE. 



The average pressure the past month was 

 30.041 inches, with extremes of 29.80 on the 15th, and 

 30.28 on the 27th and 28th,— a range of .48 inch. The 

 average for the last sixteen Augusts has been 29.965, 

 with extremes of 29.86S in 187S, and 30.041 in 1SS9, 

 — a range of .173 inch. The sum of the daily varia- 

 tions the past month was 2.10 inches, giving an 

 average daily movement of .068 inch. This average 



