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SCIENCE 



[Vol. XX. No. 50: 



would lead O'le to expect. It is especially difficult to find suita- 

 ble vessels for it. Thin glass in one piece, like test-tubes and 

 beakers, does very well, but thick glass and all kinds of cement 

 are mostly cracked by cooling; and massive vessels involve the 

 waste of a large volume of the liquid in the process of cooling them 

 down to — 180° C. With some trouble, however, Liveing and 

 Dewar have succeeded in measuring the refractive index of liquid 

 oxygen, at its boiling point, for the D ray of sodium. They used 

 a hollow prism with glass faces clamped together and made 

 tight at the joints with glycerine. The refractive index so found 

 was 1.2236, somewhat less than that of water in the liquid state, 

 which, near its boiling point, is about 1.32. 



The density of oxygen at — 183° is 1.124. These figures give 



for the refraction constant, '" ~ = .1265, and for the cor- 



(//' 4- 2) d 

 responding refraction equivalent 2.024. The mean values of the 

 constant and equivalent as found by Mascart and Lorenz for gase- 

 ous oxygeu are the same as those here given for the liquid. 



Ozone is more easily liquefied than ordinary oxygen, but is 

 formed with a storage of energy, and in a concentrated state is 

 very explosive. When oxygen, ozonized in a Siemens' tube cooled 

 with solid carbonic acid and ether, is passed into liquid oxygen, 

 the ozone is dissolved and imparts a deep-blue color to the liquid. 

 The boiling point of oxygen is lower than that of ozone, so that, 

 as the oxygen evaporates, the strength of the solution and the 

 depth of its color increase. The last drop has a steel-blue color, 

 and explodes spontaneously with violence. If a glass tube con- 

 veying ozonized oxygen be cooled down to — 180° C , or nearly 

 so, the liquid ozone may be seen condensing on the sides and run- 

 ning down. It has been found impossible to collect the liquid, 

 however, for no sooner have two or three small drops run together 

 than they explode, shattering the vessel. 



It is certainly remarkable that a substance which, unlike many 

 substances which are formed with a storage of energy, is so un- 

 stable at high temperatures, should also be very unstable at low 

 temperatures. Perhaps its instability may be connected with its 

 powerful absorption of light, which is put in evidence by its deep 

 color. What the form may be in which its excessive energy is 

 stored, we can at present only guess at. Can it be that the three 

 atoms, of which its molecule consists, rotate with great velocity 

 about their common centre of mass in exceeding close proximity, 

 and that a small impulse from without increasing the velocity as 

 well as the distance of the atoms suffices to send them off in 

 hyperbolic orbits to scatter destruction amongst the other mole- 

 cules which they encounter? This might be the case if the veloc- 

 ity of the atoms greatly exceeds the velocity of agitation of the 

 molecules on which the temperature depends. 



NEW DISCOVERIES AT BAOUSSE ROUSSE, NEAR MEN- 

 TONE. 



BY THE MARQUIS DE NADAILLAT. 



I KNOW of no discovery touching x)re-historic times more re- 

 markable than those made in the caves of Baousse Rousse, between 

 Mentone and Ventimiglia, on the borders of France and Italy. 

 These caves were first discovered in 1872 by Mr. Riviere. Since 

 that time this learned gentleman has vigorously prosecuted his 

 excavations,' and they have yielded numerous human skeletons, 

 all belonging to the celebrated Cro-Magnon race, who at the end 

 of the quaternary period, or perhaps at the beginning of neolithic 

 times, ruled not only the south of France, but also all the Mediter- 

 ranean shores. It is these same men we meet with under the 

 names of Iberians, Ligurians, Sicanians, perhaps also under those 

 of Pelasgians and Berbers. It is their bones that the brothers Su-et 

 found in the south of Spain, Professor Sergi in Italy, and Mr. 

 Riviere at Baousse Rousse. 



All the bones, wherever found, show a great similitude. They 

 are robust, and bespeak an athletic constitution and a large mus- 

 cular power. The men were remarkably tall, the crania are doli- 

 chocephalic, the tibias platycnemic, but since Dr. Manouvrier's 



* They are related at length in " L' Antiquity de Thomme dans les Alpes 

 maritimes." Paris, I. B. BailUSre et fils, 1887. 



observations,' we cannot see there an inferior character. The 

 cranium of the first skeleton found (an old man) measured 1,590 

 cubic centimeters. The cranium of the woman found next to him 

 1,450 cubic centimeters; but this last measurement is not quite 

 accurate, on account of the decomposed state of the bones. 



The man had upon his head a net of small shells (Aasna nerited), 

 and bracelets of shells round his arms and legs. Near him Mr. 

 Riviere collected more than 150 stone implements, and also numer- 

 ous bones of mammals, birds, and fishes, evidently the food of 

 these people. 



New discoveries quickly followed the first ones, and we always 

 find a particular mode of inhumation, which. I believe, still exists, 

 or lately exi>ted, in some Indian tribes. The bones of all the 

 adults, after the total decomposition of the flesh, were painted in 

 red with the help of peroxide of manganese or other substances 

 frequently met with in the different caverns. 



The last excavations took place in Februaay, 1893, in one of 

 these caves, named Barma Grande. A communication made to the 

 Academie des Inscriptions, March 4, 1892, informed us of the dis- 

 covery, at 8 metres below the level of the ground, of three new 

 skeletons, a man, a woman, and a young subject whose dentes 

 sapientiiE had not yet evolved. They had been buried on a bed 

 of cinders, broken fragments of charcoal, remains of all sorts, 

 evidently the hearth on which the family cooked their victuals. 

 The boy wore a necklace formed of two rotvs of the vertebrae of a 

 fish and one row of small shells. At different points hung pen- 

 dants cut out of the canine teeth of stags, decorated with parallel 

 striae. The man had also a necklace of fourteen canines of the 

 stag, also striated. With the skeletons were found a certain num- 

 ber of stone instruments, some of them finely worked, but none of 

 them polished, and some bone implements of very gross fabrica- 

 tion. 



The man was very tall, and, if we judge by the length of the 

 thigh-bone (545 millimeters), bis height must have exceeded two 

 metres ' (6 feet 6 mches). The boy, who had not yet attained his 

 manhood, measured 1.63 metres (5 feet 8 inches). We must also 

 remark the extreme wear of the teeth, very apparent already in 

 the boy, and which in the man extended to their very root. I 

 have already said that the caves of Baousse Rousse yielded numer- 

 ous bones of mammals, but none of them belonged to the extinct 

 species, not even to the reindeer which is found in the south of 

 France even at a late period On the other hand, no polished stone 

 implement was ever found in these caves. We can therefore give 

 these men a pretty accurate date, and place their existence, as I 

 have said, at the end of the quaternary or the beginning of the 

 neolithic times. One cave remains as yet unexcavated. It be- 

 longs to the Prince of Monaco. Orders are given that the excava- 

 tions shall begin next spring. Jf they produce anything of inter- 

 est, I will not fail to report them to the readers of Science. 



Rougemont, Sept. 2. 



THE PREVENTION OF CHOLERA ASIATICA. 



BY HUGH HAMILTON, M.SC, M.D. 



The sypiptoms of cholera are so well known that it is a matter 

 of common knowledge; however, to make the subject plain, it is 

 very similar to Cholera Morbus, well known to every American, 

 which is due to indigestion and disorder from the eating of im- 

 proper fruits or too large amounts of perfect raw fruit. In 

 Cholera Asiatica there is vomiting, purging, chill, sweat, death 

 in a longer or shorter period. When Cholera Asiatica is epidemic, 

 many of these lesser complaints of the digestive apparatus pass 

 under its name, and, as a consequence, many remedies seem to 

 cure the disease, which in fact is probably not Cholera Asiatica 

 but Cholera Morbus, which is bad enough. 



- Dr. Manouvrier has shown that platycnemia is produced by long and 

 hard work continuously acting on the muscles of the leg. It is found to a 

 large extent in hard walkers, in populations living near the mountains. It is 

 more frequent in men than in women; and it very rarely, if ever, exists in 

 children. 



3 The state of the bones precluded any accurate measurement, and com- 

 parison, when we reach these extreme heights, is very difficult. The Museum 

 of Paris possesses the skeleton of a giant who measured 2.14 metres, and 

 whose thigh-bone measured 563 millimeters. 



