312 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. XVIII. No. 461 



lowering miners. The rope is the ordinary coir rope^of the coun* 

 try, the strength of which varies very much according to the 

 make and the quality of the fibre used. Instead of ropes, ladders 

 are frequently used by the miners, and these are made of the 

 roughest materials and frequently tied with jangle rope or ordi- 

 nary coir yarn. There is no regulated distance between the rungs, 

 and the ladder is placed perpendicularly to the bottom of the pit, 

 and when it is remembered how highly lubricated the wood 

 must get from the hands and feet of the natives who have been 

 working plu nbago, the great danger they run every time they 

 mount and descend can be well conceived. Various minerals are 

 dug out of plumbago mines with which the natives have no 

 acquaintance, and consequently valuable minerals are sometimes 

 thrown away. Ktchblende, known as a valuable ore of uranium, 

 has been found inside plumbago ; pyrrhotite also is found largely in 

 plumbago mines, from which, in other countries, the greater part 

 of the nickel of commerce is extracted. 



— The past year was a prosperous one for the Colorado College 

 Scientific Society. The following is a complete list of papers 

 anl reports presented to the society: Oct. 14, 1890, The Abandon- 

 ment of Children in Ancient Greece and Rome, by George L. 

 Hendrickson ; Recent Researches in Magnetism, by Florian Cajori; 

 Nov. 14, Witchcraft among the Hindus, by Dr. H. W. Magoun; 

 Dec. 11, Protection of Congressional Minorities, by W. M. Hall; 

 Pulsations in the Aortic Arches of the Earthworm, by Miss M. R. 

 Maan; Solidarity of the Race, by J. M. Dickey; Jan. 13, 1891, 

 Dialectical Studies in West Virginia, by Dr. Sylvester Primer; 

 Men for the Hour, by H. J. Barber; Feb. 10, Germ Theory of Dis- 

 ease, by Miss M. R. Mann; On Two Passages in the Crito, by Dr. 

 H. W. Magoun; Mar. 24, On van't Hoff's Law of Osmotic Pressure 

 (publislied in t'le Cheviieal News, Apr. 10, 1891), by D. J. Carne- 

 gie; The Aryan Question, by Dr. Sylvester Primer; Apr. 21, An 

 Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel in the Light of Gnostic Phi- 

 losophy, by President William F. Slocum; The Elliptic Functions 

 Defined Independently of the Calculus, by F. H. Loud ; The Study 

 of Diophantine Analysis in the United States, by F. Cajori; May 

 12, Cross Ratio, by B. E. Carter, Jun. ; Calibration of Burettes, 

 by D. J. Carnegie; June 9, On a Passage in the Frogs, by Dr. H. 

 W. Magoun; Note on the Hadley-Allen Grammar, by Dr. H. W. 

 Magoun; Historical Note on the Differentiation of a Logarithm, by 

 F. Cajori; A Mathematical Error in the Century Dictionary, by F. 

 Cajori. 



— The last volume of the memoirs of the Statistical Section of 

 the Russian Geographical Society contains an interesting work by 

 M. Borkovsky, who has devoted more than twenty-five years of 

 his life to the study of the grain-production of Russia, and the 

 directions in which cereals are transported within Russia both for 

 export and for home consumption. The results, according to 

 Nature, totally upset the current theoiy as to Russia being a granary 

 of Europe, and are grimly confirmed by the famine which now 

 prevails in several provinces of the empire. In appears from M. 

 Borkovsky's figures and maps that Russia may be divided into two 

 parts, strictly dependent on her orographical structure: one of 

 them, which corresponds to the south eastern slope of the broad 

 swelling which stretches across the country from south-west to 

 north-east, has an excess cf grain during the years of good crops, 

 which excess sometimes exceeds twice or thrice the wants for 

 local use. But there is also another part — the north-western one 

 — which always has less corn than is wanted for its population. 

 Taking the years 1883-85, which were years of average crops, a 

 line traced fi'om Kieff to NijniNovgorod and further north east 

 divides Russia into two almost equal parts, of which the south 

 eastern exports wheat and rye into the north-western part to the 

 amount of no less than 710,000 tons of wheat and SOS, 000 tons of 

 a-ye, the exports to foreign countries attaining at the same time 

 the respective figures of 1,780,000 and 1,0J9 600 tons. Taking 

 into account the respective populations of the two regions,.and the 

 amount of corn consumed by the distilleries (which does not ex- 

 ceed 14 English pounds per inhabitant), M. Borkovsky shows that 

 the total consumption of wheat and rye attains only the figure of 

 437 pounds per inhabitant (109 pounds of wheat) in the exporting 

 region, and the still lower figure of 383 pounds (46 pounds of 



wheat) in the region which imports corn. The average consump- 

 tion throughout Russia thus attains only 480 pounds per inhabitant, 

 out of which 14 pounds must be deducted for the use of the dis- 

 tilleries. The figures will certainly seem very low if it is remem- 

 bered that the great mass of the Russian peasants consume ex- 

 tremely small quantities of meat — bread being their chief and 

 almost exclusive food. It appears, moreover, that if Russia ex- 

 ported no grain at all, and the whole of the crop of cereals were 

 consuTied within the country, the average consumption would 

 nearly approach the average consumption in France — that is, 505 

 English pounds on an average year ; while the surplus obtained 

 during years of exceptionally good crops would only cover the 

 deficit during the bad years, which recur in the steppes of South- 

 east Russia with almost the same regularity as in India, i.e., every 

 ten or twelve years. 



— The experiment department of the Ontario Agricultural 

 College at Guelp reports, in bulletin 49, the following experiment : 

 In the fall of 1890 five hundred grade lambs were purchased in 

 the eastern part of Ontario. As purchased they were turned into 

 rape fields and fed upon the rape until Oct. 30, when ninety were 

 selected for the experiment. These were shorn Oct. 33 and 23, 

 and weighed October 24. They were pastured on the rape in fine 

 weather, but kept housed in rough weather until Nov. 21, after 

 which they were confined to the sheds and the yards in front. 

 The shed was a large builJing, with ceiling 10} feet high and hay- 

 loft overhead. It was divided into compartments large enough 

 to hold 16 or 17 lambs, each compartment having a small yard 

 attached. The lambs were fed a ration consisting of oats 7 parts, 

 oat screenings 1 part, peas 3 parts, and bran 1 part by weight, 

 together with all the hay they would eat, and an average of three 

 pounds of sliced turnips per day— beginning with one pound and 

 increasing to five pounds. They were fed from November 31, 

 1890, to April 34, 1891, when they had consumed a total of 12,408 

 pounds of oats, 1,063 pounds oat screenings, 4,713 pounds peas, 

 1,777 pounds bran, 13.9 tons hay, and 25.15 tons turnips. The 

 average weight of the lambs at the beginning of the experiment 

 was 84 85 pounds, and at the end 135 pounds. The average gain 

 per month was therefore 8.25 pounds. At the end of the experi- 

 ment ten more lambs were added to the lot, making one hundred 

 in all, and these were shipped to Liverpool, where they arrived in 

 good condition and were sold at an average of $11.79 per head, 

 the cost of shipment being $3.75 per head. It is stated that this 

 cost was excessive, owing to the small number shipped, and that 

 larger lots could be shipped at $3.50 to $3.00 per head. Of the 

 ten lambs added to make up the hundred, five were freshly shorn 

 and five had not been shorn at all. It was found that the autumn 

 shorn lambs stood the journey better than either the unshorn or 

 those freshly shorn, and that they occupied less space than the 

 imshorn lot on shipboard. 



— The following, briefly stated, are prize subjects recently 

 proposed by the Dutch Academy of Sciences, at Haarlem : (1) 

 Molecular theory of internal friction of gases departing from Boyle's 

 law, and if possible, of liquids. (2) Determination of the dura- 

 tion of electric viV)rations in various conductors. (3) Try inocula- 

 tion of Viscum album on apple, pear, chestnut, and lime trees, 

 and explain its preference for certain species. (4) Criticism of 

 opinions on structure and mode of growth of the cell- wall, having 

 regard to continuity of the protoplasm of the adjacent cells (in 

 some cases). (5) New experiments on the reproductive power of 

 parts of plants, and the polarity observed in it. (6) Study of the 

 low organisms appearing (usually as filaments) in bottles contain- 

 ing solutions of chemical products, after long standing. (7> 

 Significance of peptones for the circulation of nitrogen in plants. 

 (8) Oxidation of ammoniacal salts in the ground, and transforma- 

 tion into nitrates. Do the microbes found by Winogradsky and 

 Frankland exist in the soil of Holland ? (9) Researches on the 

 organism concerned in production of marsh gas, or the conditions 

 in which the gas is formed, if life has only an indirect influence 

 on the phenomenon. Liberation of the gas from manure. (10) 

 Study of the microbes involved in ensilage of green fodder, and 

 of the variations of sugar and acidity with temperature and time, 

 (11) The development of Triclades. (12) The development of the 



