October i8, 1889.] 



SCIENCE. 



265 



an ex-asylum superintendent, who claimed five cases of insanity due 

 to the weed. Dr. Shiels believes there must have been some error 

 of diagnosis here, and beyond a doubt the large majority of asylum 

 physicians would, if canvassed, sustain him in his scepticism. It 

 is only in a remote and subsidiary sense that the tobacco habit can 

 be considered a factor in the production of insanity. Its opponents 

 urge that it promotes nervousness. This depends on the individual 

 and the amount indulged in. They also claim that it weakens 

 moral fibre, impairs nutrition, fritters away a man's time, and in- 

 duces a host of other evils. But it is not upon the brain that the 

 penalties of its immoderate use are visited : the organs more likely 

 to suffer are the heart, stomach, and throat. 



The Etiology of Goitre. —Dr. Th. Kocher of Berne, Swit- 

 zerland, first of all determined accurately in v7hat parts of his own 

 canton goitre was common. On comparing the water of these 

 regions with that of goitre-free neighborhoods, says the London 

 Lancet, he finds that the one striking difference is that where 

 goitre is abundant the water contains a considerable quantity of 

 organic or organized material, and he concludes that it is this fac- 

 tor which determines the prevalence of goitre in any district. He 

 finds that in certain goitrous parts particular families who have 

 access to special water-suppUes in which there is not this quantity 

 of organic matter remain free from goitre, although breathing the 

 same air, living on the same soil, engaging in the same occupations, 

 and eating the same food, as their very goitrous neighbors. On 

 comparing the chemical composition of goitrous and non-goitrous 

 water in the Berne canton, the only other difference he found was 

 that the quantity of sulphate of lime was less in the goitrous ; but, 

 as it is well known that goitre is often found in those who drink 

 water richly laden with this salt, this difference cannot explain the 

 great pathological fact. Dr. Tovel has found that the water in 

 goitre-free parts contains a very minute quantity of micro-organ- 

 isms ; and it has further been shown that if goitrous water is in- 

 jected into rabits the thyroid gland is very prone to swell, although 

 in dogs the injections have no effect. Kocher's investigations do 

 not certainly completely clear up this difficult subject, but they 

 throw some light upon it, and as such are to be heartily welcomed. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



The corner-stone of the new building of the New York Acad- 

 emy of Medicine, in West 43d Street, near Fifth Avenue, was laid 

 with appropriate ceremonies on the afternoon of Oct. 2. 



— The Brussels correspondent of the London Tunes points out 

 that the number of foreign students at the German technical high 

 schools is steadily increasing, especially at Berlin, where last year 

 there were thirteen English students preparing for the professions 

 of mechanical and mining engineers, architects, and chemists. 



— The Durban correspondent of the London Times telegraphs 

 that the Cape Government has decided to adopt Professor Seeley's 

 proposal for a geological survey under his charge. He believes 

 that other eruptive diamond-bearing tracts like Kimberley exist 

 elsewhere. 



— In a paper recently published in the " Transactions of the St. 

 Louis Academy of Science," Nipher has shown that the average 

 rate of rainfall on the State of Missouri during the ten years end- 

 ing Dec. 31, 1887, was 196,000 cubic feet per second. During the 

 same interval, the average river-discharge of the Mississippi River 

 at St. Louis was 191,000 cubic feet per second. 



— Speaking lately at the meeting of the British Association, Sir 

 Lowthian Bell said, " If technical education means, as is sometimes 

 alleged, a system by which, along with scientific instruction, 

 manual dexterity in the use of tools, or a practical knowledge of 

 various manufacturing processes, has to be acquired, I confess I 

 am not sanguine as to the results. Certain I am, that if foreign 

 workmen are more skilful in their trade, which as a rule I doubt, 

 and which in the iron trade I deny, this superiority is not due to 

 scientific training in the manner proposed ; for in this they possess, 

 so far as I have seen, no advantage over our own workmen. My 

 objection to the whole system is the impossibility of any thing ap- 

 proaching a general application being practicable. I have not a 



word to say against the rudiments of science being taught wher- 

 ever this is possible. The knowledge so obtained may often give 

 the future workman a more intelligent interest in the employment 

 than he at present possesses ; but I think they who expect much 

 good to attend such a thin veneer of chemistry or physics do not 

 take sufficient account of the extent of the knowledge already 

 possessed by more highly educated men, who are now directing 

 the great workshops of the world. It is by extending and enlar- 

 ging this that substantial aid has to be afforded to industry and sci- 

 ence, and not by teaching a mere smattering in our primary or any 

 other schools." 



— At St. Petersburg, on Sept. 7, several Pulkova astronomers 

 and geodesists took advantage of the ascent of a balloon belonging 

 to the Technical Society to test the accuracy of barometrical meas- 

 urements. According to Nattire, the aeronauts, who reached a 

 height of 1,800 metres, took with them, besides chronometers and 

 various meteorological instruments, a barometer, a barograph, and 

 an aneroid ; and they obtained, in addition to the curve of the 

 barograph, the various heights at which the balloon stood during 

 its ascent and descent for twenty-eight different moments. The 

 heights obtained from these measurements will be compared with 

 those found by geodetical angular measurements, which were made 

 at five different places as far distant from one another as Cronstadt, 

 the St. Petersburg University, Kolpino, and Pargolovo ; that is, at 

 distances of more than thirty miles between the extreme stations. 

 The geodetical measurements thus secured are now being calcu- 

 lated. 



— A botanical garden has been established in the Alps of Valais 

 at an elevation of moie than 5,600 feet above the level of the sea. 

 It is situated on a cone-shaped knoll, which is about 200 feet high, 

 and composed of a number of natural terraces, planted with Pznus 

 centbra and larch, and faces north, east, and west. On the sum- 

 mit is a plateau facing the south, on which will be a little chdlet, 

 containing the library and herbarium of the garden. The Associa- 

 tion for the Protection of Plants has bought the land, and converted 

 it into an alpine garden for plants from all the alpine regions of the 

 globe. Representatives of the floras of the Himalayas, of the 

 American mountains, of New Zealand, of the Antarctic regions, of 

 the Caucasus, of Siberia, of the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Carpathi- 

 ans, and the Ural, will be separated, and each cultivated in a special 

 division. Naturally, M. H. Correvon was named director of this 

 new trial-garden, in which he had already planted several thousand 

 mountain plants. This garden is at so high an elevation that in- 

 teresting observations can be made concerning the floras of all the 

 alpine regions of the globe, on the relations of plants with insects, 

 their acclimatization, variability, etc. Already consignments of 

 plants have been sent to M. Correvon ; and a German botanist who 

 is travelling in the East, and is continuing the work of Boissier (M. 

 Bornmiiller), has promised some interesting specimens. Other 

 parcels are expected from Canada, Greenland, and New Zealand. 

 The Gardeners' Chronicle, from which we take these facts, invites 

 all who are in suitable latitudes to send to M. Correvon seeds or 

 bulbs from the northern regions in which they are travelling, for 

 the garden of Bourg St. Pierre, which will necessarily serve later 

 on for the temporary reception of plants from high altitudes which 

 cannot be acclimatized directly with us, but require to be subjected 

 to an intermediate temperature first. In this way, M. Correvon is 

 going to try to acclimatize the celebrated but fragile Calypso bore- 

 alis, which he hopes to introduce into cultivation by accustoming 

 it to this intermediate position. 



— The Ceylon papers announce the death of an elephant named 

 Sella, which had served the Public Works Department for over 

 sixty-five years. Originally, we learn from Nature, Sella belonged 

 to the last of the Kings of Kandy, Sri Wickrema Raja Singha, and 

 was one of about one hundred elephants which passed to the Brit- 

 ish Government in 181 5, when the Kandyan dynasty was over- 

 thrown and the whole island passed under British rule. It was 

 supposed at that time that Sella was fifteen years of age, but this 

 was uncertain. In 18S0 it was decided that all the elephants be- 

 longing to the Public Works Department should be sold, and Sella 

 fell to a well-known resident of Colombo, Mr. de Soysa. The ani- 

 mal aided in several kcddah operations for the capture and taming 



