630 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. VII. No. 172. 



observations will be of value, especially with 

 regard to the course of cyclones. 



M. Antoine Vaeicle, of the French Geo- 

 graphical Society, has arrived in New York with 

 a balloon with which he intends to make the 

 trip from Juneau to the Klondike. According to 

 the New York Evening Post the balloon is cyl- 

 inder-shaped, has a sail beneath it, and is 

 equipped with electric lights and a searchlight. 

 The expedition carries with it all the modern 

 instruments of geographical and topographical 

 science. Carrier-pigeons will be employed to 

 send back news of the progress of the expe- 

 dition. The balloon will carry about 7,300 

 pounds. A feature of it is an ' automatic bal- 

 lasting apparatus,' which is said to enable the 

 aeronaut to direct the balloon to a certain de- 

 gree. Photographs will be taken from the bal- 

 loon en route. The cost of the expedition is 

 borne partly by the French Geographical So- 

 ciety and partly by the members of the party. 



Captain John Baetlett, who will command 

 the Arctic steamer Windward in the Peary 

 Polar expedition this summer, has left St. 

 John's for New York to perfect arrangements 

 for the cruise. The Windivard will' sail from 

 New York about the first week in July. 



Cases of the plague are occurring in increas- 

 ing numbers at Jiddah, and it is feared that the 

 epidemic may reach Mecca and be introduced 

 into Europe by returning pilgrims. 



The British Medical Journal for March 19th 

 contains an article by Dr. L. Sambon on sun- 

 stroke, which he calls siriasis, that is likely to 

 attract attention. He contends that the disease 

 is an infection produced by a specific germ be- 

 longing to the same category as that of yellow 

 fever. 



De. G. S. Buchanan, in his report to the 

 British Local Government Board upon the re- 

 cent cases of enteric fever in Essex and Suffolk 

 suspected to have been caused by eating Bright- 

 lingsea oysters, formulates the following con- 

 clusions : (1) That in every instance the attack 

 was due to the ingestion of infected oysters ; 



(2) that in 25 out of the 26 cases investigated 

 the implicated oysters could be traced almost 

 with certainty to layings in Brightlingsea Creek ; 



(3) that, though in five of these cases the par- 



ticular Brightlingsea laying or layings which 

 had furnished the implicated oysters could not 

 be ascertained, the facts as regards the remain- 

 ing 20 cases were sufiicient to warrant inference 

 that the implicated oysters had been taken, 

 prior to their delivery to their respective ven- 

 dors, from one or other of two particular lay- 

 ings in Brightlingsea Creek ; (4) that the two 

 layings thus implicated formed part of an oyster 

 beach situated on the foreshore of Brightlingsea 

 Creek, close to the outfalls of the three main 

 sewers of the town of Brightlingsea, a foreshore 

 which is conspicuously exposed to pollution by 

 sewage ; and (5) that at sundry diflferent periods 

 in the course of 1897 infectious matter derived 

 from persons sufiering from enteric fever at 

 Brightlingsea must needs have been discharged 

 from the Brightlingsea sewer outfalls. 



Anothbe important addition has been made 

 to our knowledge of the retina by Ramon y 

 Cajal. He has made out that the cones are to 

 be considered from the histogenetic standpoint 

 as a more highly developed form of the rods. 

 This works to the favor of those theories of the 

 sensation of light which regard the color-sense 

 of the cones as being the result of a gradual 

 development out of the achromatic sensation 

 furnished by the rods. According to some 

 observers, the cones in the periphery of the 

 retina resemble the rods very much in appear- 

 ance; if it could^^be made out that in the dichro- 

 matic retinal zone (the zone in which reds and 

 greens are not perceived) there is an intermedi- 

 ate form of cone (a form with only a few basilar 

 threads, for instance), that would also be a fact 

 of much theoretical interest. The histologists 

 would do well to investigate the question with 

 more care than has yet been done, and with 

 modern methods. 



The alleged invention of Szczepanik has occu- 

 pied much space in the daily papers and it may 

 be well to quote here the comment made by 

 Professor Sylvanus P. Thompson in an English 

 journal: " If Herr Szczepanik has really accom- 

 plished anything, why does not his agent tell 

 us what he has done, instead of giving long 

 disquisitions as to how he intends to do it ? The 

 entire description of the process is quite com- 

 patible with the achievement of nothing in the 



