Oct. 27, 188 1] 



NATURE 



611 



from Prof. Jenkin, fur the purpose of advercisiii^ and starting the 

 Association, was 391/. lU., and tlie total expenditure 346/. 3^-. td. 

 Prof. Huxley said that, to put it briefly, the Association was a 

 co-operative store for the supply of good advice, and the modest 

 success which had hitherto attended it was very likely due to the 

 antipathy inherent in human nature to the reception of good 

 advice. Their good advice, however, had this peculiarity — that 

 they did not expect anybody to take it unless he liked. His 

 interest in this Association cam: from the remote connection 

 he once had with medicine and hygiene. Whatever suspi- 

 cion of knowledge he ever possessed had led him to the con- 

 viction, strengthened by every day's experience of life, that 

 when we aggregated close upon 4,000,000 of people on some- 

 thing less than fifty square miles, if we did not take care we 

 should be desolated, not like old London by tlie plague or black 

 death, but by those other forms of disease, as fatal in their way, 

 which have the terrible peculiarity of being easily disseminated 

 by the means we took to get rid of them, unless those means 

 w ere perfect. Disagreeable as the old cesspool system was, it 

 was attended with very little danger compared with that which 

 waited upon the water sewage system if that system was imper- 

 fect, for then it was an admirably-contrived arrangement for 

 distributing disease and death in our own houses and in the 

 houses of people who lived adjacent. There were two ways of 

 meeting the danger. One was by the action of Government in 

 some shape or other ; but in Englai.d no one would tolerate the 

 intrusion of Government officials for the purpose of knocking 

 about and looking into everything, and besides, the expense and 

 difficulty of working such a^system would put it out of the range of 

 the practicable. The other way w as to meet the danger by means 

 of those who supplied a good report, such as that Association 

 would do. Therefore it was for the public good that the Asso- 

 ciation should become a great one, and its work be carried out 

 as w idely as possible. 



The success which has attended Dr. Vines' English edition of 

 Prof. Prantl's "Elementary Text-Book of Botany" has induced 

 the publishers, Messrs. W. Swan, Sonnenschein and Co., to 

 arrange for a companion volume on zoology, viz. an English 

 adaptation of Prof. Claus's "Handbuch der Zoologie," which 

 Mr. Adam Sedgwick of Trinity College, Cambridge, has under- 

 taken to make. Hitherto this work has appeared without illus- 

 trations in Germany ; but for the present edition between 500 

 and 6oojdrawings have been prepared by Prof. Claus himself. 

 The book is announced to appear next spring. We learn also 

 that Dr. Vines has undertaken for the same firm a "School 

 Botany," covering the ground commonly taken up in the school 

 course. The important treatise on the " Theory and Practice of 

 the Microscope," by Professors Naegeli and Schwendener, 

 which Messrs. Sonnenschein and Co. have had in the press for 

 the past three years, has at length reached completion. It is 

 announced for issue next month. 



It is stated that the Report of the Commission appointed in 

 1879 to inquire into the sanitary condition of the cemeteries in 

 and around Paris negatives, generally, the popular belief in the 

 noxious influences of great burial-places. The composition of 

 the air in the cemeteries, according to M. Schutzenberger, is not 

 distinguishable from that of arable lands. 



Under the title of "Prehistoric Devon" (the opening address 

 of the seventieth session of the Plyjnouth Institution), Mr. R. N. 

 Worth, the president, has brought together in an interesting form 

 many valuable data and references on the subject from all 

 quarters. 



In No. 9 of the Chrysantheinnm, the monthly magazine for 

 Japan and the East, to which we have already referred, published 

 in Yokohama (London : Trubricr), there is the the first instal- 

 ment of a useful vocabulary of Aino words by Mr. W. Dening. 



Miss E. A. Ormerod, authoress of the " Manual of Injurious 

 Insects," delivered a lecture on Thursday afternoon to the students 

 of the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, on the methods 

 of inve^tigating attacks of insects on crops, and the general 

 treatment to be employed. The lecture was profusely illustrated 

 by enlarged diagrams, and was enthusiastically received by the 

 students and their friends. The lecture will be published in full. 



The death ii announced, at the age of fifty-three years, of 

 Mr. James Craig Niven, curator of the Hull Botanic Gardens. 



1 HE Abbe Moigno's journal, Les Mondes, has again, we are 

 glad to notice, passed successfully through a cri is. A fresh 

 start has been made, the old title "Cosmos" becomes more 

 prominent, and a bright-coloured cover has been added. Better 

 paper, more illustrations, and re-arrangement of matter will, we 

 trust, procure the journal increased support. 



At the meeting of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers 

 at the Memorial Hall, Albert Square, Manchester, to-morrow, 

 the following papers will be read and discussed : — On Bessemer 

 steel plant, with special reference to the Erimus Works, by Mr. 

 C. J. Copeland of Barrow-in-Furness ; on compressed air upon 

 tramways, by Mr. W. D. Scott-Moncrieff of London ; on meters 

 for registering small flows of water, by Mr. J. J. Tylor of 

 London. 



J. B. LiPPiNCOTT .\ND Co. have in the press " The Honey- 

 Ants of the Garden of the Gods, and the Occident Ants of the 

 American Plains," by the Rev. Henry C. McCook, D.D. 



A VIOLENT shock of earthquake, lasting three seconds, 

 occurred at Agram at 10 p.m. on the 23rd inst. 



La Nature of October 22 has a long article, with microscopical 

 illustrations, on the drinking water of Paris. 



Some interesting facts are brought out in a paper by M. C. 

 Nielsen of Christiania on the impression produced upon animals 

 by the resonance of the vibration of telegraph w ires. It is found 

 that the black and green woodpeckers, for example, which hunt 

 for insects in the bark and in the heart of decaying trees, often 

 peck inside the circular hole made transversely through telegraph 

 posts, generally near the toji. The phenomenon is attributed to 

 the resonance produced in the post by the ^•ibration of the wire, 

 which the bird mistakes as the result of the operations of worms 

 and insects in the interior of tlie post. Every one knows the 

 fondness of bears for honey. It has been noticed that in moun- 

 tainous districts they seem to mistake the vibratory sound of the 

 telegraph wires for the grateful humming of bees, and, rushing 

 to the post, look about for the hive. Not finding it on the post, 

 they scatter the stones at its base which help to support it, and, 

 disappointed in their search, give the post a parting pat with 

 their paw, thus showing their determination at lea^t to kill 

 any bees that might be about it. Indisputable traces of bears 

 about prostrate posts and scattered stones prove that this really 

 happens. With regard to wolves, again, M. Nielsen states that 

 when a vote was asked at the time for the first great telegrapli 

 lines, a member of the Storthing said that although his district 

 had no direct intere:.t in the line proposed, he w ould give his 

 vote in its favour, because he knew the lines would drive the 

 wolves from the districts through which they passed. It is 

 well knjwn that to keep off the ravages of hungry wolves in 

 winter the farmers in Norway set up poles connected together by 

 a line or rope, under which the wolves would not dare to pass. 

 " Audit is a fact," M. Nielsen states, "that when, twenty or more 

 years ago, telegraph lines were carried over the mountains and 

 along the valleys, the wolves totally disappeared, and a specimen 

 is now a rarity." Whether the two circumstances are causally 

 connected, M. Nielsen does not venture to say. 



