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NA TV RE 



[Feb. 24, 1887 



recognised as holding an intermediate position between the 

 Faculty and the great body of pupils. They are efficient mem- 

 bers of the various literary and scientific associations, and 

 occasionally give lectures on topics which they have specially 

 studied. 



A NEW quarterly journal, to be entitled the American jfoiir- 

 iiiil of Psychology, will soon be issued. Dr. G. Stanley Hall, 

 Professor of Psychology and Pedagogics in the Johns Hopkins 

 University, will be the editor. The Journal will contain 

 original contributions of a scientific character ; and articles of 

 unusual importance will be translated from other languages, or 

 even reprinted from other English and American publications, 

 in full or in abstract, if not generally accessible. An attempt 

 will be made in each number to give a conspectus of the more 

 important psychological literature of the preceding three months, 

 and to review significant books, bad as well as good. 



A SCIENTIFIC and industrial Exhibition will be opened at 

 Ekaterineburg in May next. The mining industries of the 

 Ural Mountains will be well represented. Special interest will 

 attach to the department of ethnography, as it has been arranged 

 that there shall be in the Exhibition a number of families 

 belonging to semi-barbarous tribes of the Ural Mountains and 

 Siberia. Their dsvellings will be exactly like those in which 

 they usually live, and they will have with them the weapons and 

 implements used by them in hunting and fishing. Another 

 important element will be a collection of ancient objects in 

 stone, bone, clay, and metal, found in Siberia and among the 

 Ural Mountains. These objects have never before been 

 publicly exhibited. 



A Caucasian Agricultural Exhibition will be held next year 

 in Tiflis. Products of the animal, vegetable, and mineral 

 kingdoms will be exhibited. 



Fish-hatching operations have begun at the Buckland 

 Museum, where consignments of trout ova, presented by Sir 

 James Maitland, have been laid down in the incubating appara- 

 tus used by the late Mr. Frank Buckland. The system upon 

 which the ova are hatched at the Museum is that known as the 

 "overflow," the water passing over the eggs, which are placed 

 in slate boxes lined with gravel. The new system is called the 

 " underflow," the water passing underneath the eggs, which are 

 deposited in perforated zinc trays without gravel. Much diver- 

 sity of opinion exists as to the eflicacy of the two systems. 



The other day some workmen, while removing brickwork 

 that had surrounded a tank in the late South Kensington 

 Aquarium, found ten eels secreted in a crevice of the masonry, 

 which was perfectly dry. The tank had been removed eighteen 

 days before, when the Aquarium was dismantled, so that the 

 fish must have been without water during the whole of that 

 time. When placed in water they appeared to have been in no 

 way injured by their terrestrial experience. 



In the debate on the appropriations for the support of the 

 U.S. Coast Survey, the Senate, according to Science, pared the 

 items down in a parsimonious spirit. Afterwards the Senate 

 Appropriations Committee addressed a letter to the Secretary of 

 the Treasury, inquiring whether the estimates as submitted by 

 the Superintendent of the Coast Survey were satisfactory to that 

 Department. The answer was that they were perfectly satis- 

 factory, and a communication from the Superintendent of the 

 Coast Survey was submitted, showing the reasons for each item 

 of expenditure, and the present condition of the service. " From 

 these communications," wrote the Secretary, " it appeal's that the 

 estimates made provision for the efficient and economical prose- 

 cution of the Survey during the ensuing year ; it also appears 

 that the provision made by the House Bill will not secure such 

 results. Consequently the arrangement made is not satisfactory 

 to this Department." 



We learn from Italy that the idea of boring a tunnel between 

 the peninsula and Sicily has been revived. The estimated cost 

 is said to be seventy-one millions of francs, and the time required 

 for completing the work would be from four to six years. It 

 is stated that the depth of the sea is 160 metres. 



The number of foreigners at present residing in France, and 

 settled there, is 1,115,214, against 37,103,689 Frenchmen. 

 The parts of France in which the foreigners are most numerous 

 areof course the frontier departments, those of the Nord, Alpes 

 Maritimes, Var, Bouches du Rhone, &c. In the Seine Depart- 

 ment there are 213,529 foreigners ; in the Nord 305,524, most 

 of whom are Belgians. 



Oyster- PRODUCTION, although carried on to a large extent 

 in France, is not yet a profitable investment. The reason is that 

 the rates for transportation from the oyster-beds are too high. 

 In Auray, for instance, oysters are worth nine francs per thousand; 

 in Paris they cost more than fifty francs. An attempt is being 

 made to secure transportation at less cost. 



A movement is on foot in the North Sea towns of Germany fo^ 

 promoting oyster-culture along the coast, supported by Govern- 

 ment grants. W present there are fifty-one banks in the North 

 Sea, viz. twenty-six at Fano, Romo, and Sylt, and twenty five at 

 Fohr, Amrum, and Hallingerne. In the Baltic, on the other 

 hand, all attempts at oyster-culture have failed. " Ilolstein " or 

 "Flensburg" oysters — considered the best in Germany — are 

 really English or Dutch. All the German oyster-banks are the 

 property of the State, and leased to private individuals. 



We regret to announce the death of Dr. Walfried Marx, Pro- 

 fessor of Descriptive Geometry at the Technical High School at 

 Munich. He died on February 10. 



The first International Horticultural E.xhibition will be held 

 at Dresden on May 7. 



Here is a case in which even a little knowledge of physics 

 would not have been out of place. A man was summoned for 

 making use of the communication between passengers and guard 

 without reasonable and sufficient cause. Being in a third-class 

 compartment alone, he was frightened by the singing noise of 

 his foot-warmer, caused by the contraction of metal due to the 

 reduction of temperature. Thinking it an infernal machine, he 

 immediately threw it out of the window, and, not content with 

 this drastic proceeding, he incontinently proceeded to stop the 

 train by using the excellent mode of communicating with the 

 gu.ard and engine-driver which exists on the South-Eastern Rail- 

 way. A little more science and a little less energy would have 

 saved everybody a little trouble, but as his bona fides was as 

 obvious as his ignorance, the magistrate dismissed him with a 

 caution. The magistrate might, perhaps, have done some good 

 if he had told the man what happens when an ordinary kettle is 

 filled with ordinary water and placed on an ordinary fire. 



In a recent number. Science referred to a supposition that " it 

 is change of diet which is the most potent remote cause of con- 

 sumption among the Indians." Mr. H. C. Wyman, of Detroit, 

 writes to that journal that, in his opinion, another cause is change 

 change of dress. "If," says Mr. Wyman, "a live rabbit be 

 dipped in a solution of glue, so as to cover its body with a coat- 

 ing impervious to air, it is surprising how quickly the frequency 

 of the respiratory movements increases, showing that the work 

 of the lung-; is increased by depriving the skin of free access to 

 the lair. The process of civilisation has a somewhat similar 

 effect upon the Indian, though to a less degree. One of tlie 

 first lessons in the effort to civihse him teaches him to envelop 

 himself in clothing of a kind that tends to impede and impair 

 the normal action of the skin, the pores of which are organs of 

 excretion — a mechanism by which morbid and waste material 

 may be thrown out of the sy--tem. Deprived of the assist.ance 



