November 8, 1889.] 



SCIENCE. 



315 



paste of bone or marble dust, with sand and coloring-matter, used 

 sparingly. For surface treatment, a coat of boiled linseed-oil is 

 often effectual, though sometimes insufficent. An impervious oily 

 varnish is used by many. The backs of bricks have been covered 

 with hot pitch ; and in England a preparation called ' Duresco ' is 

 used, either transparent or colored, and is said not to peel off. An 

 invention patented consists in placing tarred felt between the face 

 pressed brick and the common brick behind, leaving cavities in the 

 top and bottom flat sides of the front bricks, and connecting them 

 to the common brick backing by pieces of galvanized sheet-iron, 

 punctured to roughen them, and laid between the flat joints of the 

 brick ; but this, besides being expensive, has failed repeatedly. In 

 the presence of all these theories, as to cause, effect, and remedy, are 

 we not to conclude that there is no reinedy but to wait .' The coat- 

 ing is soluble, and is washed off by the rains, and will in time dis- 

 appear." 



— President E. Benjamin Andrews of Brown University is de- 

 sirous of adding a department of law and applied science to Brown. 

 There will hereafter be an elective course in law for the seniors in 

 the second term beginning this year. As to the prospect of estab- 

 lishing a school of applied science, he says it is not so much a pros- 

 pect as a hope. Half a million of dollars will be required. 



— The following report by Mr. C. L. Calloway, chief officer of 

 the American steamship " Santiago " (Capt. Allen), relative to a 

 waterspout off the Bahamas last April, is one of the best that has 

 been received at the United States Hydrographic Office. One 

 feature of special interest is the fact that the water that fell from 

 the spout was salt water. Although it seems probable that such 

 is often the case, yet there are very few, if any, good observations 

 regarding it, and it is a question of considerable importance rela- 

 tive to the formation of a waterspout. Mr. Calloway reports as 

 follows: "On the 29th day of April, 1889, at about 6.30 a.m.. 

 Royal Island (one of the Bahamas) bore about south, distant four 

 miles. The wind was light, from the south-south-east, and the 

 weather partly cloudy. I observed a waterspout forming off the 

 starboard bow (ship heading south-west), and moving in the direc- 

 tion of the steamer at an angle of three points. On account of its 

 close proximity, I was about to steer clear of it, when I observed it 

 breaking, about thirty yards from the ship. Immediately after- 

 wards the steamer passed through the outer edge of the whirlpool, 

 the diameter of which I should judge to have been about fifty to 

 seventy yards. On passing through the outer edge, I observed 

 that the centre was hollow, the water circling from west to east, or 

 against the sun. The water that fell on deck was very salt, and 

 the drops as large as a fifty-cent piece. During the few seconds 

 of our passage through it, the wind blew at the rate of about thirty 

 or thirty-five miles per hour. I did not observe any calm in the 

 centre at all, the water arising from it resembling an inverted 

 fountain. After clearing it, the wind resumed its original force, 

 about fifteen miles per hour. Being the officer of the watch, I had 

 little time to observe the barometer, but it fluctuated one or two 

 hundredths, and then resumed its previous reading. The appear- 

 ance of the clouds above and around the spout were very ragged 

 and much disturbed, similar to those in a thunder-storm. Their 

 motions were very rapid, ascending, descending, and breaking 

 away from each other after the water had been absorbed into them. 

 The water was whirling very rapidly for several minutes after the 

 break, showing what' tremendous circular force there must have 

 been. I may mention, that, upon passing through it, the steering 

 of the ship was not affected, so that if there were any current at all 

 it must have been circular, and confined to the centre." Such re- 

 ports are of very great interest, and, whenever possible, sketches 

 should be made to illustrate the waterspout at various stages of its 

 formation. The blank form issued by the Hydrographic Office 

 contains a full statement of the items of greatest iinportance in 

 this connection. 



— Gen. M. C. Meigs has had a new edition of the population dis- 

 cussion printed, combining in one sheet the two letters to Science, 

 and showing all the results, details, and rates or ratios or percent- 

 ages, in one table. The article has been noticed by a good many 

 papers, generally with the idea, which is natural, that the author 

 is an optimist. The figures are so great as to startle those to 



whom they come for the first time. They startled Gen. Meigs. 

 But they are the results of a law of nature and of the environment 

 of the subjects. We may have a great war, but there is no visible 

 occasion for it. Epidemics and pestilences cannot commit such 

 ravage, now that medical and sanitary science are so advanced, as 

 they did in old times of comparative ignorance ; and, until the soil 

 is overtaxed for food, about the rate of annual increase of the last 

 two hundred and forty years must. Gen. Meigs thinks, continue 

 without much change. Doubtless a time will come when the 

 causes which have checked the growth of the French will act upon 

 us, but it seems to be distant at present. England doubled her 

 population between 1800 and 1840; Europe added only 77 per 

 cent to hers from 1830 to 1880; we in that time multiplied our- 

 selves by four. 



— Professor F. H. Snow has been appointed acting president of 

 Kansas State University. The American GL-ologist points out that 

 four of the Western States have for presidents of their universities 

 men whose professional training and labor had been scientific : 

 Indiana has D. S. Jordan, an ichthyologist ; Wisconsin has T. C. 

 Chamberlin, a geologist ; Iowa has C. A. Schaeffer, a chemist ; 

 and Kansas now has F. H. Snow, a geologist. 



— The matter which arouses the Chinaman to pray with most 

 energy, according to the Missionary Herald, is drought or the 

 near prospect of famine ; but when he so prays, it is not in solemn 

 or thoughtful ways, but by clanging cymbals and the noise of fire- 

 crackers and the utmost confusion. The Missionary Herald of 



. the English Baptist Society contains a report from one of their 

 missionaries in Shansi concerning a great assembly held to pray 

 for rain, and of -the day of thanksgiving which followed after the 

 rain fell. Buddhist and Taoist priests were together in their robes, 

 and four holy(?) men were drawn from their retreats in -the moun- 

 tains, and were " stripped to the waist, and bore huge spiked iron 

 collars around their necks and carried their arms stretched out be- 

 fore them with knives run through their flesh." The uproar was 

 maddening. This was their mode of thanksgiving. The story is 

 told of a mandarin who felt great responsibility for the drought 

 which was afflicting his district, and came to a certain well at Han 

 Tau ; and, prostrating himself, he cried, " If rain does not come, 

 I will jump into the well ! " And this he did at once. After- 

 wards, as the story goes, rain fell, and the people regarded it as 

 the result of the very meritorious suicide of this man. The em- 

 peror, in order to celebrate such a glorious deed, ordered a tablet 

 of gold to be placed in a shrine around the well, on which this 

 man's name and heroic act were recorded. The well is famous to 

 this day, and it is believed that prayers offered there are sure of an 

 answer. The place is covered with thank-offerings of the people, 

 and the tablets which testify to the virtues of the shrine quite cover 

 up the tablet originally placed there in honor of the official who 

 killed himself. 



— The house of a Hindoo of good position is divided into two 

 parts. The zenana is that portion of it which is occupied by the 

 women. It is generally situated towards the back of the house. 

 In the centre of it there is an open court twenty or thirty feet 

 square. This is surrounded by a veranda. In the inner or 

 back wall of the veranda you see here and there all round 

 small doors. These conduct to the private apartments of the 

 women. As the custom in India is for young men, when they 

 get married, not to leave their father's house and set up sepa- 

 rate establishments of their own, but to bring their wives into their 

 father's house, a goodly number of women may sometimes be found 

 in the same family. These may all meet together in the open court. 

 Should the husband of one of the ladies of the zenana wish to en- 

 ter, says T/ic Missionary, he must first give notice of his approach, 

 either by knocking or by a loud cough. The ladies at once draw 

 their chudders over their faces, and make a rush for their separate 

 apartments. This small court is the only place in which a zenana 

 lady is allowed into the open air, if open air it may be called. 

 When she has reason to go beyond the walls of the zenana, she is 

 either carried in a close palki or conveyed in a bullock-cart, which, 

 of course, is curtained all round. Should she require to walk a 

 few steps, a large sheet is thrown over her, so that no one may 

 see her. 



