926 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. III. No. 78. 



titled ' The Fishes of North and Middle Amer- 

 ica,' has been for some time in type and will be 

 published shortly by the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion. This part will be a volume of over 1,250 

 pages and will embrace descriptions of 1,239 

 species under 522 genera. According to the 

 preface, "the classification and sequence of 

 groups * * * adopted is essentially that of 

 Dr. Theodore Gill," and the part in press covers 

 the families from Branchiostomidas to Priacan- 

 thidaj, including 148 families. The second part, 

 which maj' be even larger than the first, it is 

 expected, will apjoear early next winter. 



AccOEDING to the British Medical Journal a 

 society has recently been formed entitled 'L' Al- 

 liance Nationale pour le Eelevement de la Pop- 

 ulation Francaise par I'Egalite des Families de- 

 vant les Impots.' M. Bertillon, the Director 

 of the city of Paris statistics, is the founder 

 of the Society. A committee has been formed 

 composed of M. Bertillon; Prof Richet, of 

 the Paris Medical Faculty ; Dr. Javal, mem- 

 ber of the Academy of Medicine and of the 

 Chamber of Deputies ; M. Honnorat and M. 

 Cheysson. The first meeting of the Society 

 was held on May 16th, and was attended by 

 about a hundred people. 



The daily papers contain several communica- 

 tions regarding reputed anticipations of the 

 X-rays sufiiciently curious to deserve repetition. 

 Dr. G. A. Brown is stated, by the Grand Rapids 

 Herald, to have in his possession a magazine 

 entitled the Mechanics'' Mirror, which, in 1846, 

 is said to contain this announcement: "The 

 following communication was made to the 

 Academic Eoyale des Sciences de Paris at its 

 last meeting by a Greek physiologist, A. M. 

 Esseltja, who asserts that by the assistance of 

 electric light he has been enabled to see through 

 the human body, and thus to detect the exist- 

 ence of deep-seated disease. He has followed 

 the operations of digestion and of circulation. 

 He has seen the nerves in motion. M. Esseltja 

 has imposed the name of 'Anthroposcope ' on 

 his extraordinary discovery (?). According to 

 the Scientific American, Mr. John P. Moss writes 

 to the Daily News under the heading ' Nothing 

 New under the Sun,' quoting the following 

 paragraph from Dr. Priestley's Electricity, 



1769. It describes an experiment made by Mr. 

 Hawkesbee in 1709. "He (Mr. Hawkesbee) 

 lined more than the half of the inside of a glass 

 globe with sealing wax, and having exhausted 

 the globe, he put it in motion; when, applj'ing 

 his hand to excite it, he saw the shape and 

 figure of all the parts of his hand distinctly and 

 perfectly on the concave superficies of the wax 

 within. It was as if there had only been pure 

 glass and no wax interposed between his eye 

 and his hand." Baron Reichenbach claimed 

 that his light from the poles of a magnet would 

 pass through the fingers. 



Me. G. C. BotJENE has contributed to Science 

 Progress two interesting articles on the present 

 position of the cell theory. After reviewing re- 

 cent work and theories he concludes that life is 

 possible only when two (or more) substances of 

 complex chemical constitution are brought to- 

 gether, and that when these two (or more) sub- 

 stances are brought together we have before us 

 a cell. The cell, therefore, is the vital unit 

 Ka-' i^oxf/v. The component parts of the cell are 

 not vital units, for by themselves they are inca- 

 pable of life ; they are the auxiliaries, the in- 

 dispensable auxiliaries of life, but they are not 

 themselves living. If this be true it is entirely 

 inconsistent with the whole group of theories 

 based upon hypothetical biophors, gemmules, 

 plasomes, physiological units, plastidules et hoc 

 genus omne. The cell theorj' is the onlj^ theory 

 which our knowledge of structure and of life 

 processes permits us to adopt, at least if we con- 

 fine ourselves to that part of it which is essential, 

 namely, that there is one general principle for 

 the formation of all tissues, animal and vegetable, 

 and that principle is the formation of cells. 

 Cells are the ultimate vital units, though they 

 are not the ultimate structural units ; they are 

 the ' Lebenstrager ' or biophors, and there are 

 no living individuals lower than cells. 



Peesident Joedan, in his Fishes of, Sinaloa, 

 has recently published the first bulletin of The 

 Hopkins' Biological Laboratory, the recently 

 founded dependence of the Leland Stan ford, Jr., 

 University, and it will be received with a great 

 deal of interest by the students of fishes gen- 

 erally. The paper, continuing the well-known 

 work in this region of Dr. Gilbert, consists of a 



