658 
known as a writer on folk-lore, and to this 
branch he devotes considerable attention in 
hisessay. He does not concede much space 
to American writers or subjects, but for this 
omission the explanation in the preface re- 
lating to the difficulties of exhausting so 
wide a field is sufficient. 
His paper, entitled ‘Ueber den gegen- 
wartigen Stand der Volkskunde,’ is pub- 
lished by the Verein fiir Erdkunde, in Dres- 
den, and presumably may be obtained 
from it. 
THE END OF THE HUMAN RACE. 
One of his learned and thoughtful articles 
is contributed on this subject by the Marquis 
de Nadaillac in a recent number of the 
Correspondant. Making anew the calcu- 
lation of the increase of population as com- 
pared with the increase of the food supply, 
he reaches the gloomy conclusion that in a 
few centuries there will inevitably be too 
little food to supply all the mouths. He 
compares the statistics of most civilized na- 
tions, and they appear to confirm his appre- 
hensions. For instance, Russia alone, at 
its present rate of births, will in one hun- 
dred years be obliged to feed eight hundred 
million persons! What, he asks, can stem 
this overwhelming tide of population? He 
gives up the problem, and says that we must 
leave it to God, a solution which is more 
creditable to his piety than to his position 
as a scientist. The real solution is to edu- 
cate men and women to the point where 
they will not recklessly produce offspring ; 
nor yet ruthlessly prevent them, as is the 
case now in some departments of France, 
where the population is actually diminish- 
_ ing, although the wealth is above the aver- 
age. 
Unfortunately, modern prejudice stands 
in the way of a fair and full discussion of 
this solution. 
D. G. Brinton. 
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
' SCIENCE. 
[N. S. Vou. VI. No. 148. 
NOTES ON INORGANIC CHEMISTRY. 
Tur Berichte for September 27th contains 
a description by Emerich Szarvasy, of Buda- 
pest, of two new salts formed by the action 
of carbon dioxide and of sulfur dioxide on " 
a solution of magnesium methylate. The 
first compound is a methyl-magnesium car- 
bonate (CH,),Mg(CO,), and may be looked 
upon as a methyl salt of magnesium bicar- 
bonate, but unlike the latter, which decom- 
poses on evaporating its solution, the methyl 
salt is comparatively stable, and its solution 
in methyl alcohol can be boiled without de- 
composition. If sulfur dioxid is used in 
the place of carbon dioxid the methyl mag- 
nesium sulfite is formed, which is also 
stable. The compounds may also be looked 
upon as magnesium salts of methyl-carbonic 
acid and methyl-sulfurous acid, and show 
the great resemblance in many respects ex- 
isting between the carbonates and sulfites. 
Tue chemical world has great occasion 
to deplore the untimely end of Victor Meyer, 
and many lines of investigation begun by 
him, but not completed at the time of his 
death, will doubtless be for the present 
abandoned, while others may be carried on 
by his pupils and assistants, but will suffer 
for the lack of his guiding hand. One of 
his great works was the determination of 
vapor density at high temperatures, and 
while he had worked as high as 1,500°, and, 
perhaps, a little higher, he had entered 
upon investigations which would enable 
him to work above 2,000°. The most 
difficult part of the problem is to get a 
vessel to contain the gas, which will stand 
the temperature and at the same time be 
gas-tight. The first steps in this work are 
described in the last Berichte. The only ma- 
terial found which would satisfactorily with- 
stand the heat of the furnace used, which 
was fired by agraphite burning in a stream 
of oxygen, was magnesia. This did not 
fuse, but when pure was very porous. A nat- 
