SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XVII. No, 434 



don purple were not affected. In 1890 these experiments were 

 repeated in such manner as not only to sliow tlie effect of adding 

 lime, but also to determine whether Paris green or London purple 

 is the more liable to cause injury to the foliage. The results of 

 these experiments fully confirm those of 1888 and 1889 in showing 

 the advantage of adding lime, and they further show that Paris 

 green is much less liable to injure foliage than London purple. 



— The Massachusetts Board of Health, who for some years past 

 have been experimenting on the treatment of sewage by land fil- 

 tration, have recently issued a report on the subject, in which 

 they remark that sewage can be more efficiently filtered through 

 open sand than through sand covered with soil. Very fine mate- 

 rial like dust in the upper layers of a filter prevents access of air, 

 and when wet, may do this so thoroughly that purification of the 

 sewage is entirely prevented. By allowing periods of intermis- 

 sion, however, so as to allow the upper layers of the filter to dry, 

 a high degree of purification may be attained. The quantity 

 which can be dealt with is, however, then much below that which 

 can be purified when the upper layers are composed of open sand, 

 through which the sewage will rapidly disappear, leaving room 

 for air to enter and come in contact with the thin layers of liquid 

 covering the particles of sand. Filtering areas of sand covered 

 with soil are much increased in efficiency by digging trenches in 

 the direction of a slight incline, about two feet deep and six feet 

 apart, and filling them with coarse sand, the upper layers of which 

 should be removed about once a month and replaced by clean 

 sand. From bacteriological experiments it was found that when 

 the filters were in proper working order the number of organisms 

 in the effluent from the filters were never more than two per cent 

 of those in the raw sewage, and the board think this result may 

 be much improved. Fine sand was found to make a very good 

 filter, being capable of purifying sewage at the rate of 9,600 gal- 

 lons per acre per day, the number of bacteria in a cubic centime- 

 tre of the sewage being reduced from 591,000 to 3,000, and the 

 ammonias to a quarter of one per cent of those in the unfiltered 

 fluid. Garden soil made a very poor filter, but a mixture of fine 

 sand and gravel gave extremely good results, as 2.1,000 gallons 

 would be purified by it per acre per diem in winter, and 42,000 

 gallons in summer; the bacteria being reduced from 350,000 per 

 cubic centimetre in the sewage to 14,000 per cubic centimetre .in 

 the effluent. Peat was totally inefficient. A filter of sand and 

 loam gave good results as far as purity was concerned, but the 

 rate of filtration was only one-third as great as that of the sand- 

 and-gravel filter. 



— At a meeting of the Paris Geographical Society in December 

 last, a letter was read from M. Paul Crampel, the substance of 

 which is given in a recent number of the Scottish Geographical 

 Magazine. In his letter M. Crampel describes a dwarf race in- 

 habiting the forests to the north of the Ogowe. M. Crampel 

 found several families of this people at about 13° 20' east longi- 

 tude, and 2° north latitude, living among the Fans in a state of 

 vassalage. When a Fan chief becomes sufficiently powerful, he 

 takes under his protection a group of these dwarfs, and establishes 

 them in the bush near his village. They then become his hunters, 

 and, in exchange for the ivory and meat they procure, receive old 

 rags, broken guns, manioc, etc. The Bayaga, on their side, enter 

 this state of servitude voluntarily, for, having no plantations, they 

 cannot otherwise procure vegetable food; but when their feudal 

 lord is too exacting, they leave the neighborhood. Their average 

 height is four feet seven inches. They are squarely built, well 

 proportioned, and muscular. The color of the skin is a yellowish- 

 brown, and hair grows all over their bodies. At first sight one is 

 struck by the prominence of their bushy eyebrows and their high 

 cheek bones. They have short necks, high shoulders, broad and 

 rounded chests, strong arms, and thick wrists. When at rest, 

 their feet are generally turned inwards, and their knees, calves, 

 and feet seem as though they were all in one piece. Their general 

 expression is one of fear, and when any one looks at them they 

 hang their heads and appear to tremble. Each head of a family 

 lives with liis children and grandchildren, and into this little 

 community no stranger blood is admitted. When a young Bayaga 

 wishes to marry, he j« provisionally adopted into the family of his 



intended bride, and, after a long period of service in hunting and 

 collecting honey for the community, is allowed to marry ; but he 

 must still remain in the family of his wife until be has a son, and 

 this son has killed an elephant. He may then depart with his 

 wife, leaving the son in her stead. Polygamy is permitted, but 

 the scarcity of women and the family organization place great ob- 

 stacles in the way of its practice. 



— For the preservation of hydrogen peroxide Kingzett recom- 

 mends the addition of a small amount of ether. Experiments 

 conducted by the author show, according to the Medical Record, 

 that pure hydrogen peroxide lost, in twenty-eight days, 10 per 

 cent; in ninety-eight days, 27.4 per cent; in two hundred days, 

 39 per cent; and in four hundred and ninety days, 89.2 per cent. 

 The addition of sulphuric acid reduced these figures to 9, 28, 27J, 

 and 68.8, respectively. Alcohol reduced them to 1.7, 4, 7.4, and 



52.8, respectively, while ether still further reduced them, showing 

 a loss of the peroxide in the times mentioned of 0, 1.3, 2.4, and 



15.9, respectively. 



— At the Royal Society conversazione. May 6, a great deal of 

 interest was excited by the exhibition of sixty tools and utensils of 

 the Roman period, found together in a pit in the Roman-British 

 city of Silchester, Hants. These included an anvil, a pair of 

 blacksmith's tongs, hammer, axes, gouges, chisels, adzes, a 

 large carpenter's plane, two shoemaking anvils, two plough coul- 

 ters, a standing lamp, a gridiron, a bronze scale beam, and others. 

 Many of these articles were most remarkably like similar tools of 

 the present day, the plane, which was evidently a " trying plane," 

 and entirely of metal, being very suggestive of a Yankee origin. 

 It is said to be the only Roman plane found in Britain. It would 

 be interesting to know if this particular make of plane has ever 

 been found elsewhere. It would seem as if the metal planes in- 

 troduced the last few years are merely a reversion to an old type, 

 a kind of atavism. 



— Sixteen graves have recently been uncovered at Fort Ancient, 

 the site of the greatest of the earthworks of the mound-builders. 

 The excavation is under the auspices of the World's Fair, and un- 

 der the direction of Professor F. W. Putnam of Harvard, the field 

 work being in charge of Warren K. Moorehead. The skeletons dis- 

 closed were those of eleven men, one woman, and four children. 

 Five were in a good state of preservation, the others in various 

 stages of decay. In one grave the bones were so nearly gone as 

 to preserve only the outline in crusted ashes. In another the skull 

 alone remained, in the jaws of which were the well-polished 

 teeth. The skeletons were those of men averaging five feet two 

 inches in height, the tallest being six feet two inches. The burials 

 were from three to five feet below the surface. The skeletons 

 rested upon hard clay. Around them had been rudely set up flat, 

 river stones, then earth had been filled in, and over all broad flat 

 stones placed. There are evidences that the men had died in con- 

 flict. About the neck of on6 of the child skeletons was found a 

 necklace of bears' teeth, and in two or three of the graves were 

 found tomahawks and stone hatchets, but no relics of an especial 

 value. The graves will be reconstructed exactly as found for the 

 World's Fair exhibit of American antiquities, except that no earth 

 will be over the skeletons. 



— The House of Representatives in the new Diet of Japan, says 

 the London Journal of Education, is extremely anxious to cut 

 down the Budget, and a conflict is imminent between it and the 

 government on this subject. Its proposals are sweeping, and if 

 carried out would cause no little consternation in the education 

 department. The grant for schools would be reduced from $800,- 

 000 to about half that sum. Some five years since, the late Vis- 

 count Mori, who perished by an assassin's knife on the day of the 

 declaration of the constitution, just two years ago, established five 

 great higher middle schools, in different centres throughout the 

 empire, to act as feeders for the university, and to serve as a check 

 on the growing congestion of students in the capital. These in- 

 stitutions ai^e specially threatened by the parliamentary reformers, 

 many of whom hold Spencerian views, and dislike government 

 control in education. Generally speaking, this is a critical time 

 for education in Japan. The rising generation is growing up 



