262 
from the Colosseum ; the columns in the Forum 
were seen to rock, but remained intact ; a small 
fissure appeared in the recently-discovered 
Lapis Niger, but quickly closed again; some 
unfinished jerry-built houses collapsed in an 
outlying quarter of the city. 
THOUGH the matter is not one of special 
scientific interest, it may be mentioned that Mr. 
J.C. Stevens, London, sold recently a good 
specimen of the egg of the great auk (Aleca im- 
pennis), which was one of the three formerly in 
the collection of the Comte Raoul de Berace. 
This specimen, which is slightly cracked, was 
figured in the Memoirs of the Société Zoologique 
de France in 1898, and with additional notes 
on its history, it also appeared in the Bulletin of 
the Société in 1891. Bidding started, at 100 
guineas, and at 300 guineas it became the 
property of Mr. Middlebrook, of Regent’s Park. 
This is the same price which Sir Vauncey 
Crewe paid for his specimen in 1894. There 
are in existence about 51 recorded specimens of 
the great auk’s egg. 
THE India-European Telegraph reports from 
Allahabad that a case of scientific interest has 
occurred at Meerut, where a snake-bitten pa- 
tient was cured by the injection of Calmette’s 
serum, the efficacy of which had already been 
made probable by laboratory experiments. The 
patient had all the symptoms of colubrine 
poisoning fully developed, and the case was so 
critical that artificial respiration was found 
necessary until the serum had time to take 
effect. 
EXPERIMENTS by Professor Tuma and a num- 
ber of officers of the Vienna garrison to test 
the possibility of wireless telegraphy between 
two balloons on July 14th, says the London 
Times, were attended with a certain degree of 
success. _ A balloon held captive at a height of 
150 metres served in place of the mast used in 
the Marconi experiments, being connected with 
the despatching instruments on the ground by 
a copper wire. The second free balloon carried 
a receiving instrument and a wire which hung 
loose 20 metres below the car. In these condi- 
tions it was found possible to communicate with 
the three officers in the free balloon, who sig- 
nalled with flags that they had received and 
SUIENCE. 
[N. 8. Von. X. No. 243. 
understood the telegraphic messages. These 
signals were observed at an estimated height of 
1,600 metres and a distance of about 10 kilo- 
metres from the despatching station. Owing to 
the size and weight of the accumulators and the 
great danger of bringing them into close prox- 
imity to a large volume of explosive gas, it is 
thus far impossible to telegraph from a balloon 
to the ground or from one balloon to another. 
On the return to Vienna of the officers a com- 
parison will be made between the detailed par- 
ticulars noted by them and the report of the 
actual messages despatched. 
AN interesting experiment, says the British 
Medical Journal, which was made in Mentone 
last autumn with the view of diminishing, if 
not of exterminating, the mosquito—one of the 
pests of some parts of the Riviera, especially in 
October and November—is related by Dr. Sam- 
ways. In an article published in the British 
Medical Journal last September an account was 
given of a method of using kerosene recom- 
mended by Mr. L. O. Howard, Entomologist to 
the United States Department of Agriculture, 
for this purpose. The plan depends upon the 
fact that kerosene, commonly called paraffin in 
Great Britain, is fatal to at least some of the 
species which are called mosquitos. A very 
small quantity dropped on a pool quickly 
spreads itself over the surface, and, it is al- 
leged, destroys the larvee, while at the same 
time it kills any adult female which attempts 
to alight with the object of depositing her eggs. 
The efficacy of kerosene has been disputed, as 
it has been asserted that the immature mos- 
quito is able to thrust the tip of its respiratory 
apparatus through the thin film of paraffin. 
The species of mosquito upon which the experi- 
ment was made does not appear to have been 
identified, but it was probably a culex. The 
larva of culex floats head downwards, while 
that of anopheles, which is believed to be the 
bearer of the malarial parasite, floats hori- 
zontally, so that there would be, a priori, some 
ground for expecting that the latter would be 
more easily killed than the former. It was 
estimated that there were as many as 400 or 
500 larve in a bucket of water from the tank 
in Sir Samuel Hayes’s villa, where the ex- 
periment was made. All were found to be 
