August :3, 1883.] 



SCIENCE. 



147 



committee, and the subjects were so diverse as to 

 make it difficult to decide between them. Expert 

 aid was sought; and it has been at last conchided to 

 divide it eiiually between William Patten of Water- 

 town, Mass., who offered an essay on the develop- 

 ment of rhrj'ganidae, and H. W. Conn of Johns 

 Hopkins university, who presented an essay on the 

 life-history of Thalassema millita. 



— Recognizing the demand for thoroughly trained 

 engineers conversant with electrical science, at the 

 beginning of the next academic year (Sept. 18, 188;5) 

 the trustees of Cornell university will receive stu- 

 dents who desire to tit themselves to enter this new 

 and constantly extending field. While the general 

 studies are mainly those of the departments of civil 

 and mechanical engineering, the special studies of 

 the course embrace the theory of electricity, the 

 construction and testing of telegraph lines, cables, 

 and instruments, and of dynamo machines, and the 

 methods of electrical measurement, electrical light- 

 ing, and the electrical transmission of power. 



— During the past year original investigations, the 

 results of which either have been or soon will be pub- 

 lished, have been made in the biological laboratory of 

 Johns Hopkins university, in the following sub- 

 jects: the direct action upon the heart of ethyl 

 alcohol, the influence of digitaline upon the heart 

 and blood-vessels, the influence of quinine upon the 

 blood-vessels, the influence of variations in arterial 

 pressure upon the time occupied by the systole of the 

 heart, the minute structure of the kidney, the life- 

 history of Penicillium, viscous fermentation, the in- 

 fluence of various illuminations on the growth of 

 yeast, the structure of Porpita, the structure of the 

 gasteropod gill, the developmeilt of the mammary 

 gland, the structure and properties of the cavernous 

 tissue beneath the olfactory mucous membrane. 



— The U. S. geological survey has appointed Prof. 

 H. S. Williams of Cornell university upon its staff. 

 Under its auspices he will carry out more fully the 

 studies he has long undertaken upon the upper De- 

 vonian fossils of the rich localities of his neighbor- 

 hood in Xew York, and extend the work beyond the 

 limits of the state, as well as into the immediately 

 underlying aii<l overlying strata, for better compari- 

 son of the upper Devonian species, and study of their 

 faunal relations. Professor Williams has been en- 

 deavoring to build up a thorough school of compara- 

 tive paleontology at Cornell with good success; and 

 the assistance he will gain from his connection with 

 the U.S. survey will offer a special attraction to 

 those wishing to pursue paleontological studies under 

 him. Mr. C. S. Prosser, a recent graduate of Cornell, 

 assists him this summer in his geological work in 

 connection with the U. S. survey. 



— A very interesting sketch of the life of Count 

 Rumford, by Professor Tyudall, is printed in the Con- 

 temporary review for July. An account of his sci- 

 entific labors is promised in a future issue. 



— W. H. M. Christie, F.U..S., astronomer royal, has 

 withdrawn from the editorship of The obgervatory, a 

 monthly review of astronomy. This periodical will 

 now be edited by E. W. Maunder, F.R.A.S. ; and all 



communications should be addressed to him at the 

 Royal observatory, Greenwich, as formerly. 



— Dr. M. Braun in Dorpat proposes a zoological 

 investigation of the Gulf of Finland. The Russian 

 government will furnish a steamer, and the explora- 

 tions are to be made on behalf of the Naturalists' 

 society of Dorpat. 



— The American apiculturinl is the ninth periodical 

 in the United States devoted to bees and apiculture. 

 Several of these papers have a circulation num- 

 bering thousands, and one is a weekly. It would 

 seem rash to start another bee paper under these cir- 

 cumstances. Silas M. Locke, editor of this new jour- 

 nal, seems, however, to have counted the cost, and 

 means to act on the principle that there is always 

 room up higher. He is an experienced bee-keeper, 

 and expert in all the manipulations of the apiary. 

 He has paid special attention to the qualities of the 

 several races of bees, and is alive to the importance of 

 great care in breeding bees, if the apiarist would 

 secure the highest success. It is evident that he 

 intends to give special attention to matters of sci- 

 entific interest connected with bees and bee-eulture. 



Mr. Locke has also secured the assistance of the 

 ablest writers on the apiary in the country, — not 

 men who are simply given to fine writing, but prac- 

 tical men, who have won eminent success in the art 

 which they practise. The paper is published at 

 Salem, Mass., and, in typography and general style, 

 has no superior among our apiarian periodicals. 



— According to Xature, the report of the sanitary 

 commissioner with the government of Bombay 

 shows, that, among other causes of death in that 

 presidency in the year 1881, 1,209 persons died 

 from snake-bite. A comparison of the deaths in 

 1881 with the mean of those of five preceding years 

 shows, that, in ISSl at least, the number had in- 

 creased. These figures prove that one person in 

 18,610 of the whole population of the twenty-four 

 presidency districts died from snake-bite. Adding 

 to this the destruction of human life effected by other 

 venomous and carnivorous animals, we see how im- 

 portant a matter to the residents of those regions is 

 the destruction of this unfavorable environment. 



— All the readers of Science have been familiar 

 with the word ' wampum " from their childhood. 

 Koger Williams wrote in his Key, ''The New-Eng- 

 land Indians are ignorant of Europe's coyne. Their 

 owne is of two sorts, — one white, which they make 

 of the stem or stock of the periwincle, which they 

 call meteauhok wlien all the shell is broken off. This 

 they call wampain (white). The second is black, 

 inclining to blue, which is made of the shell of a 

 fish which some English call hens (poquahock)." 

 This money was called suckauhock {sucki, black). 

 Various shells were used in different parts of the 

 country under names adopted from the languages of 

 the tribes who coined the money. But in the history 

 of the early colonies the name ' wampum ' has gained 

 a footing for all shell-money as well as for its imi- 

 tations. Mr. Earjiest Ingersoll has brought together 

 a large amount of information on the sul)ject in the 

 May Naturalist. 



