December 20, 1889.] 



SCIENCE 



421 



sarily hypothetical explanation of the relation between memory and 

 nerve-cell, we need not enter. The main result connects the easi- 

 ness of forgetting recent impressions with instability of nerve-cell, 

 and isolation from the cell groups ; while the older, more deeply 

 impressed and integrated experiences remain. 



A corroboration of this result is found in the fact that in the re- 

 covery there is a stage in which the patient remembers that a thing 

 happened, but not where or how; not even, perhaps, whether it 

 was dreamed, or really experienced. The associations that localize 

 the event are not made, although the impression made by the event 

 is there. Only in the final stages of recovery are the associations 

 and the facts remembered. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



A STALACTITE cave has been discovered in Ascheloh, near 

 Halle, in Westphalia. It is reported to be more than too metres 

 long. 



^ A series of questions on the effect of London fogs on culti- 

 vated plants has been issued by the scientific committee of the 

 Royal Horticultural Society. The experience of the current season 

 only is to be utilized. 



— A hippopotamus was born in the Central Park menagerie, 

 this city, on the night of Dec. i ; and this is said to be the first in- 

 stance of an event of this kind in this country. Unfortunately it 

 died on the 6th of pneumonia, as we learn from the Boston Medi- 

 cal and Sicrgical Journal. 



— The Gilbert Club, to which we referred last week, was formally 

 founded on Thursday, Nov. 28. The following officers were ap- 

 pointed at the first general meeting : president. Sir William Thom- 

 son ; vice-presidents: Lord Rayleigh, Professor D. E. Hughes, 

 Professor Reinold, Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson (president of the Royal 

 College of Surgeons), Dr. B. W. Richardson, and Mr. H. Laver of 

 Colchester. Mr. Latimer Clark was elected treasurer ; and Mr. 

 Conrad Cooke, Professor R. Meldola, and Professor S. P. Thomp- 

 son, honorary secretaries. The resolution finally adopted by the 

 meeting was, according to Nature, " That the objects of the Gil- 

 bert Club be as follows : (i) to produce and issue an English 

 translation of ' De Magnete ' in the manner of the folio edition of 

 1600 ; (2) to arrange hereafter for the tercentenary celebration of 

 the publication of 'De Magnete ' in the year 1900 ; (3) to promote 

 inquiries into the personal history, life, works, and writings of Dr. 

 Gilbert; (4) to have power, after the completion of the English 

 edition of ' De Magnete,' to undertake the reproduction of other 

 early works on electricity and magnetism, provided at such date a 

 majority of the members of the club so desire." At the time of 

 the inaugural meeting eighty-seven members had joined the club. 



— The chief signal officer has adopted a signal known as the 

 " information signal," and forming one of the system of " storm, 

 cautionary, and wind-direction signals." The " information signal " 

 consists of a yellow pennant, of the same dimensions as the red 

 and the white pennants (wind-direction signals), and, when displayed, 

 indicates that the local observer has received information from the 

 central office of a storm covering a limited area, dangerous only 

 for vessels about to sail to certain ports. The signal will serve as 

 a notification to ship-masters that the necessary information will 

 be given them upon application to the local observer. The use of 

 this signal began Dec. i. It is believed that the display of the 

 "information signal" will in many instances obviate the necessity 

 for the display of the " cautionary signal " (yellow flag with white 

 centre). The signal at night for indicating westerly winds is now 

 a white light above a red light. 



— Lieut.-Commander Charles H. Stockton, U.S.N., command- 

 ing the United States steamship " Thetis," reports to the United 

 States Hydrographic Office that during the past summer, while on 

 the north and north-west coasts of Alaska, the " Thetis " set adrift 

 numerous drift floats. These floats are made of wood, about 2 

 feet long and g\ inches thick, with the name of the ship, date, and 

 the words " for drift," cut upon the face. In a cavity at one end 

 of the float, plugged with soft wood, there is a copper cylinder con- 

 taining a letter requesting the finder to inform the Hydrographic 



Office, Washington, D.C., the nearest United States consul, or the 

 commanding officer of the " Thetis," the time and place where the 

 float was found. These floats are intended to show the direction 

 and strength of the currents off the coast of Alaska, and any in- 

 formation obtained from them will be of value to navigation. 

 Masters of vessels in Alaskan waters, or residents on the coast of 

 Alaska, finding any of these floats, are especially requested to 

 comply with the request contained in each copper cylinder. 



— A course of public lectures was begun before the New York 

 Academy of Sciences, Madison Avenue and 49th Street, on Mon- 

 day evening, Dec. 2, at eight o'clock, to continue until May 19, 

 1890. The following is a list of the lecturers, together with the 

 subjects and dates of the lectures : Dec. 2, " The Raiyan-Moeris : 

 the Irrigation of Ancient and Modern Egypt " (illustrated by the 

 lantern), by Mr. F. Cope Whitehouse of New York; Dec. 16, 

 " Strategic Features of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea" 

 (illustrated by maps), by Capt. A. T. Mahan, U.S.A. ; Jan. 20, 

 1S90, " The Ice Age in North America, and the Antiquity of Man " 

 (illustrated by the lantern), by Professor G. Frederick Wright, 

 Oberlin College, Ohio; Feb. 17, " Four Weeks in the Desert of 

 Mount Sinai " (illustrated by the lantern), by Dr. H. Carrington 

 Bolton of New York ; March 17, " Nebula and the Nebular Hypoth- 

 esis " (illustrated by the lantern), by Professor Charles A. Young, 

 Princeton, N.J. ; March 31, " Volts and Amperes, and What they 

 mean " (to be held in the chemical lecture-room. School of Mines ; 

 illustrated by electrical apparatus and experiments), by Professor 

 Charles F. Chandler, Columbia College ; April 14, " Methods of 

 Research in Bacteriology " (illustrated by photo-micrographs of 

 bacteria), by Major George M. Sternberg, M.D. ; April 28, 

 " Glimpses of the Arctic Regions " (illustrated by the lantern), by 

 Mr. William Bradford of New York; May 19, "Grand Carion of 

 the Colorado " (illustrated by the lantern), by Professor Rossiter 

 W. Raymond of Brooklyn. 



— The question of a system of improved public roads, to which 

 we refer elsewhere, is one so closely related to every material 

 interest of the State as to place it properly among the most im- 

 portant questions of public economy. The science of road making 

 and maintaining, though neither difficult nor abstruse, is neverthe- 

 less based on principles so well established, and so unvarying in 

 their operation, as to render their thorough comprehension an 

 essential to success in securing and maintaining public roads at 

 once efficient and economical, whatever the administrative system 

 by which they are constructed and controlled. In other countries 

 the superintendence of public highways is recognized as an irnpor- 

 tant and responsible duty, and is usually assigned to specially 

 trained, expert government engineers ; while in the United States, 

 where the greater mileage makes the economy, if not the efficiency, 

 of roads even more important than abroad, the States depend for 

 this responsible service on private citizens, locally and temporarily 

 appointed to the duty, without providing for them the technical in- 

 struction and training so essential to success under any system. 

 To offer such as desire it an opportunity to make good, in part, this 

 defect, the Engineering Department of Vanderbilt University, 

 Nashville, Tenn., continues its offer of former years to admit free 

 of charge, to a class in road engineering, one principal or deputy 

 highway official from each county in Tennessee. The appointment 

 shall be made by the chairman of the county court, on or before 

 Jan. I, 1890, and must set forth that the candidate is in a position 

 to be of benefit to the public road-system of the county wherein 

 he resides. If in a county no applicant apply for appoint- 

 ment before Jan. i, the chairman of the county court shall, until 

 Feb. I. 1890, have the privilege of appointing one similarly qualified 

 applicant from any other county of any State. The course of in- 

 struction will extend from Feb. I till April I, and will consist of 

 lectures and work on the economical location of highways to con- 

 form to conditions of topography and traffic ; principles of con- 

 struction of new and reconstruction of old roads, and of mainte- 

 nance 2's. repairs ; methods of drainage ; simple highway structures, 

 retaining walls, drains, culverts, simple bridges ; practice in field- 

 sketching, simple platting and draughting, instrumental location, 

 and computing estimates of cost ; and study of systems of highway 

 administration. 



