June 19, 1891.J 



SCIENCE. 



339 



— European invalids and other persons in search of quiet and a 

 mild climate for winter are beginning to turn their attention to 

 the oases on the northern border of the great Sahara. The climate 

 is said to be very equable. Railway communication through 

 Algeria makes these places less inaccessible than formerly. 



— Dr. A. C. Abbott, assistant in bacteriology at the Johns Hop- 

 kins Hospital, has resigned his position, to accept the place of 

 assistant director of the Hygienic Institute in Philadelphia. Dr. 

 G. H. F. Nuttall has been elected to fill the vacancy. 



— According to the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, 

 Eternod and Haxiers, from the results of their experiments on the 

 transferrence of small-pox from man to the calf, are convinced 

 that sraall-pox and cow-pox are caused by the same virus. For 

 the purpose of inoculation, small pox lymph from cases varying 

 in severity was used, and was rubbed into a moderately large ex- 

 tent of scarified skin in the abdominal region of the calf. The 

 first inoculation was followed in every case by a scanty crop of 

 postules at the spot chosen. This eruption had at first very little 

 resemblance to typical cow-pox, but on transferring the disease 

 from calf to calf it became more and more characteristic, until, in 

 the opinion of the authors, it was impossible to distinguish it from 

 true cow-pox. The calves vaccinated in this way with human 

 small pox lymph were found in every case to be refractory to vac- 

 cination with ordinary cow-pox lymph. 



— In early times Asia Minor was celebrated for its fine breeds 

 of sheep and the high quality of its wool, but for many centuries 

 the fat-tailed variety of sheep has replaced all the finer breeds. 

 United States consul Jewett, in a recent report, says that the well- 

 known characteristic of this breed is the enormous tail, which is 

 one mass of fat. These tails will sometimes weigh as much as 

 eighteen pounds each, and give some weight of credibility to 

 Herodotus's story that in Cillcia the sheep had little carts attached 

 to them, that they might the more easily carry their tails. Some 

 ■shepherds practise cutting off a part of the tails of lambs, severing 

 them at the third or fourth vertebra. This is done in the belief 

 that a large part of a sheep's nourishment goes to the benefit of 

 the tail. It is said, as an evidence pf this, that it has been noticed 

 that during times of drought, when pasturage is scant, the sheep's 

 body in general does not comparatively show the effects of lack of 

 food, but that the tail becomes smaller and thinner. 



— A large model in relief of Baltimore and its vicinity has been 

 made by Mr. Cosmos Mindeleff of the United States Bureau of 

 Ethnology, for Mr. H. C. TurnbuU of Baltimore. Mr. Turnbull 

 has placed the model in the Baltimoi'e Real Estate Exchange. The 

 area embraced extends seventeen and a half miles from north to 

 south, thirteen and a half from east to west, with the city at its 

 centre. This is two hundred and thirty six square miles, including 

 •Green Spring Valley on the north, reaching nearly to Sparrows' 

 Point on the east, extending three and a half miles south of the 

 Relay, and considerably west of Catonsville and Pikesville. The 

 scale of the model is four inches to the mile, making its dimensions 

 four feet eight inches by five feet six inches. Its most noticeable 

 feature is the fact that its vertical scale is the same as its hoiizon- 

 "tal; i.e., all elevations are represented in relief on a scale of four 

 inches to 5,280 feet or one mile. Since the highest point within 

 the area is only 560 feet above tide, all the relief is modeled within 

 less than half an inch. 



— The second number for 1891 of the bulletin of the Ohio Agri- 

 cultural Experiment Station describes three insects which are doing 

 •considerable damage to clover and clover bay. Tho first of these 

 is the clover-root borer. The adult of this insect is a small, 

 brownish black, minutely-spotted beetle, not quite one tenth 

 of an inch long, which deposits its eggs during spring in the 

 crown of the clover plant, four or five eggs being laid on each 

 plant. These hatch, and the larvse burrow downward through the 

 larger roots of the plant, feeding upon the inner substance, and 

 filling the galleries behind them *ith their sawdust-like excrement. 

 Late in summer the larvae become fully grown, when they are 

 one-eighth of an inch long, with a whitish liody and yellow head. 

 The injuries of this insect are sometimes very serious, whole fields 

 of clover being destroyed. The' remedy is frequent rotation of 

 crops, thus not allowing the clover fields to stand until they be- 



come breeding places for the insects. The second insect is the 

 clover-seed midge, a small, orange- colored maggot that develops 

 in the clover-heads at the expense of the seed. It hatches from 

 eggs laid by a very small, two-winged fly, similar to the Hessian 

 fly in appearance. Clover fields infested by this insect are at once 

 distinguished by the unnatural condition of the heads at the time 

 of blossoming. Instead of being red with bloom the heads are 

 green and dwarfed on account of the undeveloped florets. The 

 best preventive of the injuries of this insect yet suggested is that 

 of mowing the field as soon as the presence of the insect is de- 

 tected, and before any of the seed has reached maturity. The 

 third of these insects is the clover hay worm. Clover hay that 

 has been standing in the mow or stack for some lime is liable to 

 become infested by small brown worms, which web the dried 

 stems and leaves together and feed upon them. In one case, to 

 which the attention of the station was called this spring, the lower 

 half of a stack of clover hay was almost totally destroyed by this 

 worm. These woi'ms are more likely to prove troublesome when 

 old hay is left over from season to season for them to breed in; 

 consequently hay-mows should be thoroughly cleaned out each 

 summer, and new stacks should not be put on old foundations 

 until all the leavings of the previous season are removed. Hay 

 which is infested with the worms should be burned. 



— Dr. G. H. Williams left Baltimore on May 35, with a party of 

 graduate students of the geological department of the Johns Hop- 

 kins University, on a scientific trip in western Maryland. The 

 purpose of the trip is to supplement the work of the recent expedi- 

 tion in southern Maryland. Special attention will be paid to the 

 geological formation of the region. 



— The Workingman's School, on West Fifty-fourth Street, 

 New York, was founded in 1878. It was started as a free kinder- 

 garten for the children of the poorer classes in the tenement house 

 district. The number of pupils during the first weeks after the 

 opening of the kindergarten was thirty-three. The school has 

 now between three and four hundred pupils, divided into five 

 grammar, three primary, and three kindergarten classes; and it 

 owns a substantial five-story building, containing more than 

 twenty large rooms, a lecture hall, machine shop, etc. Besides 

 the ordinary branches, its course of study embraces manual and 

 art work, a complete course in elementary natural science, gym- 

 nastics, music, etc., and a kindergarten normal department has 

 been adied to the s6hool proper. The normal kindergarten 

 class will re-open Sept. 14, 1891, and continue till the end of the 

 following June. Applicants for admission must be at least eigh- 

 teen years of age. The general requisites are, a good English 

 education (high or normal school or their equivalent), ability to 

 sing, and a real interest in and love for little children. The course 

 includes psychology and a study of chdd-nature, history of edu- 

 cation, the principles and methods of Froebel's system, together 

 with practice in the use of the gifts and occupations. Practical 

 work with the children, under the direction of experienced kin- 

 dergarteners, occupies the mornings ; and several afternoons a 

 week are devoted to the theoretical studies. The tuition fee. in- 

 cluding all materials, is |65 for the entire course, payable semi- 

 annually. No entrance examination is required, but each student 

 is received on trial for a few weeks, in order that her general fit 

 ness for the work may be determined. Regular examinations are 

 held at the end of the course, and certificates given to those who 

 complete it satisfactorily. Further information may be obtained 

 from Miss C. T. Haven, principal of the kindergarten, and, after 

 June 1, from the superintendent of the school, Mr. Maximilian 

 Groszmann, 109 West Fifty-fourth Street, New York. 



" A Description of Materials used in Making Commercial Fer- 

 tilizers," " Fertilizing Materials produced on Farms,"' and " Fer- 

 tilizing Composition and Valuatiou of Various Products," are 

 the titles of articles contained in Bulletin 32 (new series) of the 

 New York Agricultural Experiment Station, of which Peter 

 Collier is director. These fertilizer bulletins are intended to ex- 

 plain such facts as will make farmers familiar with the different 

 terms used to express the composition of fertilizers, and also to 

 enable them-to understand some of the more general principles 

 involved in the use of fertilizers, together with such oiher infor- 



