May 10, 1901.] 
to the Continent. Several places on the coast 
of Morocco, such as Ceuta, etc., will be con- 
nected with Algeciras and Tarifa. 
Mr. H. EH. Birrty, professor of biology in 
the State College at Tallahassee, Fla., suc- 
ceeded during the last meeting of the State 
Teachers’ Association in having child-study 
made a special department of the Association, 
and was elected director. During the last 
month the women’s clubs, mothers’ clubs and 
kindergarten associations in the State have 
been taking up the subject under his direction. 
The State superintendent of public instruction 
recommends the work officially. All the col- 
leges, normal schools, etc., in the State are 
giving their hearty support to the movement 
and are very much interested in the subject. 
THE Paris correspondent of the New York 
Evening Post writes as follows regarding an 
address made by Professor Bernheim, at the 
congress of French learned societies held re- 
cently at Nancy : 
The venerable Professor Bernheim, the founder of 
the famous school of Nancy, which still holds out 
against Charcot and the Salpétriére, made an im- 
passioned declaration of his beliefs and principles. 
He utterly denies the hypnotic character of the phe- 
nomena observed in the patients of the Salpétriére, 
whom he declares to be mere hysterical personages. 
He developed at length his theory of the universal 
suggestibility of all men ; he denied once more the 
existence of anything like a magnetic fluid, under 
whatever name. ‘There is a radical defect in experi- 
ments concerning thought transferrence, which he says 
ought rather to be spoken of as treason than as a ver- 
itable transferrence of brain influence. There was 
some bravery in this renewed declaration of opinion 
on the part of one who has already suffered excom- 
munication from the most recent science. 
Just what is meant by the last sentence is not 
clear, but it is apparently intended to indicate 
that Professor Bernheim’s science is antiquated 
because he does not believe in the vagaries of 
the Salpétriére or in telepathy. It is difficult 
to understand why a journal as carefully edited 
as the New York Evening Post should not sub- 
mit its scientific news to an expert for revision. 
THE London Times states that an apparatus, 
invented by Mr. Poulsen, of Copenhagen, for 
recording telephonic messages is now being 
SCIENCE. 
757 
shown in London. The invention, which can 
be used in substitution for, or in cooperation 
with, any ordinary telephone receiver, consists 
essentially of a long steel wire or ribbon, which 
passes rather rapidly before the poles of a small 
electromagnet. This electromagnet, which is 
wound with very many turns of exceedingly 
fine wire, is inserted in the telephone circuit 
by the current in which it is magnetized. The 
steel wire is of course also magnetized, and the 
essence of the machine lies in the fact the mag- 
netization induced in the successive portions of 
the wire varies in agreement with the undula- 
tions of the electric current in the telephone 
circuit, produced by the voice of the speaker. 
To read the message it is only necessary to 
pass the steel wire in the same direction past 
the poles of the same or a similar electro- 
magnet, when the same undulations will be set 
up in the current passing through its coils and 
consequently the same sounds reproduced in the 
attached receiver. In the instruments in Lon- 
don these reproduced sounds are remarkably 
trueand pure. Itissaid that the same message 
may be reproduced from what may be called 
the sensitized ribbon an indefinite number of 
times, but, if it is desired to remove the record, 
that can be simply effected by subjecting the 
wire to a constant magnetizing force, such as is 
obtained by passing an unvarying current 
through the electromagnet. In one form of the 
machine ordinary pianoforte wire is employed, 
and is wound helically round a brass cylinder 
rotated by a electric motor. In another, which 
is adapted for longer messages, thin steel rib- 
bon is wound on and unwound from two rolls 
alternately. The curious thing here is that, 
although no magnetic screen or insulator is in- 
terposed between the successive layers of rib- 
bon, the magnetization produced in every por- 
tion of them is preserved unaltered. In athird 
form, a continuous steel band is stretched be- 
tween two revolving pulleys; at one point 
is placed the electromagnet connected with the 
transmitting telephone, and beside it is any 
number, limited only by considerations of space, 
of electromagnets connected with receiving tele- 
phones, each of which in turn receives the mes- 
sage impressed on the ribbon. After the ribbon 
has passed all these electromagnets it is sub- 
