SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIV. No. 34: 



the authorities should themselves execute the works prescribed for 

 the purification of the water, and compel the persons interested to 

 pay the cost. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



The United States Hay Fever Association held its sixteenth 

 annual meeting on the 27th of August, at Bethlehem, N.H. 



— The Congress of Physiological Psychology held in Paris re- 

 cently is considered to have been very successful. It was decided 

 that a second meeting should be held in 1892, either in London or 

 in Cambridge, during the month of August. 



— A company has been organized in Brussels for the purpose of 

 constructing a railway from Matadi to Stanley Falls on the Kongo. 

 The road, as projected, will have a length of about 270 miles, and 

 is intended to surmount the difficulties of traffic on the cataract 

 region of the lower Kongo. 



— -Captain Phythian, the Superintendent of the Naval Observatory, 

 Washington, states that the preparations for the expedition to 

 Africa to observe the total eclipse of the sun, which occurs in De- 

 cember next, are being actively pushed forward. The smallness of 

 the appropriation by Congress for this work, $5,000, necessitates 

 careful expenditures, and it will be impossible to send the expedi- 

 tion to St. Paul de Loando, where the observations will take place, 

 except on a Government vessel. The expedition will sail about 

 Oct. I. 



— An ancient treatise on anatomy has been unearthed at the 

 Royal Library at Berlin. It was written in Latin in 1304, by Henry 

 de Mondeville, professor of surgery at Paris and Montpelier, and 

 body-surgeon to Philip le Bel. Surgeon de Mondeville was at one 

 time on English soil as an army surgeon, and his death took place 

 in 1318. The book has never been printed. It is valuable as 

 throwing light upon a period concerning whose medical history 

 there is but little known. 



— A. J. Drexel, banker, of Philadelphia, proposes to purchase 

 land, construct the necessary buildings, and provide for the main- 

 tenance of instructors and all things necessary for the establish- 

 ment of an industrial institute for young men and women that will 

 be capable of accommodating a thousand of each sex. This plan 

 is a substitute for one proposed some time since, to establish an 

 industrial college for girls in the country, near Philadelphia. It 

 was found that there were several serious obstacles to such a pro- 

 ject, and in its stead Mr. Drexel undertakes to establish and main- 

 tain this larger and more general institute. The institute will 

 probably be modeled somewhat after the Cooper Institute of New 

 York, and it is expected that the cost will be about a million and a 

 half of dollars. 



— A new Austrian patented process for silvering articles of iron 

 is thus described : The article is first plunged in a pickle of hot 

 dilute hydrochloric acid, whence it is removed to a solution of mer- 

 cury nitrate, and connected with the zinc pole of a Bunsen element, 

 gas carbon of platinum serving as the other pole. It is rapidly 

 covered with a layer of quicksilver, when it is removed, washed, 

 and transferred to a silver bath and silvered. By heating to 572 

 degrees F. the mercury is driven off, and the silver firmly fixed on 

 the iron. To save silver the wire can be first covered with a layer 

 of tin ; I part of cream of tartar is dissolved in 8 parts of boiling 

 water, and one or more tin anodes are joined with the carbon pole 

 of a Bunsen element. The zinc pole communicates with a well- 

 cleaned piece of copper, and the battery is made to act till enough 

 tin has deposited on the copper, when this is taken out and the 

 ironware put in its place. The wire thus covered with tin chemi- 

 cally pure and silvered is much cheaper than any other silvered 

 metals. 



— Mr. M. E. Allison of Hutchinson, Kan., in a letter to The 

 American Field, says, " An experience I had lately with a quail 

 (Bob White) was so interesting to me, I thought it might interest 

 some of my brother sportsmen who are better acquainted with the 

 habits of the quail than I am. In the corner of our coursing park 

 there was a quail's nest, and it was so near to the road that when 



we would be passing by it, to and from the park, the old quail 

 would fly away, and it was always the male bird. My never seeing 

 the female around there is what attracted my attention ; and I 

 noticed that the male was crippled in one leg, and only used one in 

 hopping about, and appeared to be crippled otherwise. There 

 were twelve eggs in the nest, and after ten or twelve days from the 

 time I first noticed it the young brood all hatched, and the old 

 male bird took them and left the nest. The female bird was never 

 seen anywhere in that neighborhood by myself or any of the men 

 at work there, and some of us were there every day ; but we never 

 failed to find him on the nest. I came to the conclusion that some- 

 one had killed the female while she was laying the eggs, and at the 

 same time wounded the male ; and he, knowing his companion was 

 gone, took charge of the nest and set on the eggs, hatched them, 

 and is now raising the little orphans on his own hook. If these 

 are the facts, and it seems to be so, is it not a very remarkable 

 case ? " 



— At a recent meeting of the Paris Geographical Society, M. G. 

 Rolland contributed some valuable data to the discussion, recently 

 carried on between him and M. E. Blanc, on the subject of the 

 yield of artesian wells in north Africa. After expressing his agree- 

 ment with M. Blanc regarding the fundamental principles which 

 regulate artesian basins generally, he proceeded to controvert the 

 latter's assertion that in the case of the Ued Rir the admitted gain 

 in the yield of water was not in proportion to the number of new 

 wells sunk. M. Rolland adduced a table, recently compiled by 

 him and M. Jus, showing the number of French wells in the Ued 

 Rir, their total output per minute, and the average output of each 

 well for the nine years ending in June, 18S9. In 1S80 there were 

 64 wells, with a total yield of 22,865 gallons a minute, or an aver- 

 age of 357; in 1S89 there were 127 wells, with a total yield of 

 44,908 gallons a minute, or an average of 354, showing that while 

 the number of wells had doubled, the yield had very nearly doubled 

 also. He admitted that in certain parts of the Ued Rir, notably 

 the central part, the limit of yield had been reached. He con- 

 cluded by suggesting that there should be some authority to regu- 

 late the number and position of all new wells to be sunk. 



■ — Henry L. BoUey, assistant botanist at the Indiana Agricultu- 

 ral Experiment Station, Purdue University, thus sums up the re- 

 sults of some investigations on wheat rust recently made by him. 

 The rusting of wheat is due to the attacks of several species of 

 minute fungi. The disease is propagated by means of various 

 spores, one form of which is developed upon various determined 

 and undetermined plants, mostly weeds. This side form is not, as 

 yet, proved to be essential to the continued life of the parasites, 

 but its destruction decreases^ the danger from serious attacks of 

 the disease. One species (P. ruhigo vera) in its uredo stage is 

 able to pass the winter in the tissues of the young wheat plant. 

 In warm weather, any conditions of the soil or atmosphere which 

 tend to keep the wheat leaves constantly wet are conducive to the 

 rapid spread of the disease. Low-lying, rich soils are most subject 

 to the disease. No variety of wheat is known to be rust proof, yet 

 some possess greater powers of resistance than others. Though not 

 proved, an excess of nitrogen in the soil is to be considered, proba- 

 bly, as liable to produce wheat easily affected by rust. If fertilizers 

 are to be applied to such lands, those containing only inorganic 

 elements are most advantageous so far as immunity against rust is 

 concerned. In districts liable to severe visitations of the disease, 

 early-ripening wheats are to be preferred. 



— Henry Shaw, a well-known philanthropist of St. Louis, died 

 on Aug. 25 in that city. He was an Englishman, and at the age of 

 nineteen years he came to this country, settling in St. Louis in 1819, 

 where he embarked in the hardware business. After twenty years 

 of commercial life he amassed a sufficient fortune to enable him to 

 retire from business. He made a tour of the world, occupying 

 about ten years in travel. On his return to St. Louis he began the 

 study and cultivation of plants and flowers, and it was in the prose- 

 cution of these studies that the botanical gardens containing fifty 

 acres, near Tower Grove Park, had their origin. He made the 

 park and gardens free to the public, and now, with his death, the 

 gardens become the property of the State of Missouri. Tower 

 Grove Park, comprising 350 acres, becomes the property of the 



