December 13, 18S9.J 



SCIENCE. 



405 



— The annual reports of the superintendents of the several fish- 

 hatcheries (six in number) were made at a meeting of the commis- 

 sioners recently held in New York, as reported in The Americati 

 Field, and show great prosperity and efficiency. The distribution 

 of fry last year exceeded twenty millions in number, and the supply 

 of spawn for this winter's operations is larger than in any previous 

 year. Six millions of salmon-trout eggs have been gathered at 

 the upper Great Lakes. The Adirondack, Fulton Chain, and Sacon- 

 daga hatcheries have collected from the wild trout of their respec- 

 tive localities all that their troughs will contain, besides the large 

 supply of salmon-trout eggs to be hatched. At Caledonia one 

 hundred thousand are taken daily by stripping the stock fish. The 

 commission will this year work the private hatchery of M. B. Hill 

 at Clayton. Here wall-eyed pike, whitetish, and siscoes are to be 

 hatched. At the Chautauqua Lake station experiments are to be con- 

 tinued with muscalonge. The three Adirondack hatcheries have now 

 an output sufficient for all the accessible wilderness region, leaving 

 the large production of Caledonia principally for the supply of the 

 Catskill, Beaverkill, Neversink, and upper Delaware regions, which 

 are so much frequented by tourists. An additional shad-hatching 

 station is to be established on the Hudson River, so that the sup- 

 ply of this choice market fish may be increased. It is expected 

 that the total output of fry of all kinds next year will be fully thirty 

 millions. 



— Experiments have been made recently in this city and New- 

 ark with a South American bean called the " angola," with the 

 view of substituting it for gambler, but the Oil, Paint, and Drtig 

 Jieporler SLnnounces that the tests were not satisfactory. This new 

 material has been offered at one cent per pound less than gambler, 

 and New Jersey tanners imagined that they had been put in pos- 

 session of a valuable addition to their raw materials until the trials 

 demonstrated that gambler could not be substituted so easily. The 

 importation of the peculiar beans has practically ceased in conse- 

 quence, and South American houses have been requested to pursue 

 their investigations further, in the hope of obtaining some new 

 product which would be of value in this line, as there are times 

 when it is desired to prevent the fluctuations in gambler by push- 

 ing an article to take its place. Some attention is being directed to 

 canaigre-root, which was described in the Reporter of Sept. 4, but 

 great difficulty has been experienced in obtaining supplies from 

 Mexico. The inquiries come from tanners, but thus far they have 

 not been satisfied ; and it is questionable if a cheaper article than 

 gambler can be found to meet the same requirements. 



— Mr. H. L. Bolley, in a bulletin of the Agricultural Experiment 

 Station of Indiana, arrives at the following conclusions regarding 

 wheat-rust : i. The rusting of wheat is due to the attacks of sev- 

 eral species of minute fungi. 2. 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. 3. One species {P. ricbigo-vera), in 

 its uredo stage, is able to pass the winter in the tissues of the young 

 wheat-plant. 4. 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. 5. Low-lying, 

 rich soils are most subject to the disease. 6. No variety of wheat 

 is known to be rust-proof, yet some possess greater powers of re- 

 sistance than others. 7. Though not proved, an excess of nitro- 

 gen in the soil is to be considered probably 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. 8. In 

 districts liable to severe visitations of the disease, early-ripening 

 wheats are to be preferred. 



— The Deli Coiirant states that search for petroleum along the 

 banks of the Lepan River, in Langkat, in Netherlands-India, has 

 resulted in the discovery of large deposits of that oil. Raw petro- 

 leum oozes out of the ground at many places where the natives 

 have consequently dug pits. The output from most of the latter 

 has never been considerable, and shows fluctuation. At Telega 

 Tunggal, where the boring reached a depth of about three hun- 



dred and fifty feet, more important results have been arrived at. 

 Appearances indicate that the main reservoir has been tapped 

 there. The oil met with in the other pits and deposits proved to 

 have found its way above ground from that storing-place. The 

 oil tested yields thirty-five per cent of lamp-oil of good quality. It 

 does not contain harmful ingredients, and offers advantages as a 

 lubricator. The exact depth of the other deposits remains to be 

 determined before an estimate of working expenses can be accu- 

 rately made. 



— The fifteenth annual meeting of the New Jersey State Horti- 

 cultural Society will be held at Trenton on Wednesday and Thurs- 

 day, Dec. 18 and 19. 



— A very important announcement is made in the Medical ajid 

 Sitrgical Reporter in regard to the University of Pennsylvania ; 

 namely, that Dr. John S. Billings has, with the approval of the 

 secretary of war and of the surgeon-general, accepted the position 

 of 'medical director of the University Hospital, to which he was 

 recently elected, and that'the duties of this new position will be so 

 arranged as not to interfere with his duties as medical officer of the 

 army at the surgeon-general's office. It is also announced that the 

 University of Pennsylvania is soon to have a new laboratory of 

 hygiene, to cost about $200,000, and that $100,000 have been 

 already collected for this purpose. The department of hygiene has 

 been under the supervision of Dr. Samuel G. Dixon since the death 

 of Dr. N. A. Randolph, who was recently one of the editors of the 

 Medical and Surgical Reporter. It was rumored at first that Dr. 

 Billings was to supersede Dr. Dixon ; but the provost of the uni- 

 versity promptly denied this rumor, and stated that Dr. Dixon was 

 still professor of hygiene in the university, and in charge of the 

 laboratory of hygiene, which has been equipped through his exer- 

 tions and liberality. It does not yet appear just what Dr. Billings 

 will do at the university, but the probability is that he will be at the 

 head of the department of hygiene. For this he is abundantly 

 fitted, as he is recognized as an authority upon the subjects of 

 hygiene and hospital construction and administration. The elab- 

 oration of the plans for the construction of the Johns Hopkins 

 Hospital, and his coming, will be a valuable accession to the teach- 

 ing force of the University of Pennsylvania. 



— The Glendon Iron Company of Easton, Penn., operating one 

 of the largest blast-furnaces on the Atlantic coast, have for a num- 

 ber of years followed a somewhat novel plan of getting out their 

 limestone for furnace purposes. Their quarry, located at Glendon, 

 Penn., has a perpendicular face, varying from 120 to 160 feet in 

 height ; and instead of drilling down a few feet back from the face 

 of the quarry at the top, and taking the stone off in benches, as is 

 done in other quarries in the East, they drive a tunnel back at the 

 foot of the quarry, and from that horizontally in both directions on 

 a parallel line with the base. The powder is loaded in chambers 

 located in this latter tunnel, and sunk a few feet below the base- 

 level. The tunnels are then filled up to the opening, and the ex- 

 plosives fired by electricity. Such a blast as this was fired with 

 most successful results on the 27th of September last, and, as de- 

 scribed in Tlie Engineering and Mining Juiirnal, it appears that 

 the tunnel from the face-line was driven directly back 50 feet, the 

 length of the horizontal tunnel being 135 feet. Four chambers 

 were located on this tunnel 5 feet deep, the diameters being from 

 4 X 6 to 4 X 7 feet. In these was loaded Judson R. R. P. pow- 

 der, divided respectively into lots of 8,000, 5,000, 3,000, and 4,000 

 pounds. The blast was fired by the superintendent of the Glendon 

 Iron Company, Mr. M. P. Janney, and it was estimated that 60,000 

 tons of limestone were dislodged. About once each year this com- 

 pany fire one of these blasts, having always met with uniform suc- 

 cess. While the cost of Judson powder is somewhat higher than 

 that of black powder, the smaller quantity required, and the fact 

 that it breaks the stone up finer, making it easier to handle, and 

 requiring less drilling for block-holing, show a decided economy in 

 its favor. On the Pacific coast this method of tunnelling beneath 

 the burden, and firing in large charges, is generally adopted by rail- 

 road contractors and others, where large quantities of earth or rock 

 are to be removed ; but, with the exception of the Glendon Quarry, 

 we do not know that the plan has come into vogue in the eastern 

 part of the United States. 



