March 29, 1889.] 



SCIENCE. 



237 



and permanently. He is now the father of. two children — a boy 

 and a girl — whose vision (tested repeatedly and fully) is emme- 

 tropic in both eyes, so that they have not inherited the congenital 

 optical defect of their father. All the same, they both have in- 

 herited his early acquired habit, and need constant watchfulness to 

 prevent their hiding the left eye, when writing, by resting the head 

 on the left fore-arm or hand. Imitation is here quite out of the 

 question. Considering that every habit involves changes in the 

 proportional development of the muscular and osseous systems, 

 and hence probably of the nervous system also, the importance of 

 inherited habits, natural or acquired, cannot be overlooked in the 

 general theory of inheritance. I am fully aware that I shall be 

 accused of fiat Lamarckism ; but a nickname is not an argument.'' 



— At a meeting of the Physiological Society, Berlin, Feb. i, Pro- 

 fessor Moebius spoke on the movements of the flying-fish through 

 the air. He first described, from personal observation, the way in 

 which the fish shoot out of the water from both bows of the ship, 

 and then propel themselves horizontally for a distance of severa' 

 ship's-lengths with their pectoral and abdominal fins stretched out 

 fiat, skimming along without moving their fins, always in the direc- 

 tion of the wind, but either with or against the same. When they 

 meet the crest of a wave, they raise themselves slightly in the air, 

 falling again to the same extent in the succeeding trough of the 

 sea. Occasionally a slight buzzing of the fins may be observed, 

 similar to that of the movements of the wings in many insects. 

 At night they frequently fall on the deck of the ship. As the re- 

 sult of a detailed investigation, the speaker had proved that these 

 fish do not fiy, since the anatomical arrangements of their fins and 

 muscles are not adapted to this purpose. What really occurs is, 

 that, when frightened by the approach of a ship or any enemy, they 

 shoot out of the water, as do so many other fish, and are then 

 carried along by the wind, which strikes on the Under surface of 

 their outstretched and evenly balanced fins. Notwithstanding the 

 general acceptance which was accorded to the above investigation, 

 it was urged by many that the buzzing of the fins, the rising over 

 the crest of a wave, and the falling overboard after having landed 

 on the deck of a ship, were evidences that this fish really executes 

 movements which result in flight. In reply to this. Professor Moe- 

 bius pointed out that the buzzing of the fins takes place when a 

 strong current of air is directed against the outspread fins of a 

 dead flying-fish by means of a bellows, and, further, that the rising 

 over the crest of a wave or the bulwarks of a ship may be explained 

 by the ascending currents of air which are always produced when- 

 ever a strong horizontal wind strikes against any elevated object 

 such as a wave or part of a ship. Thus, finally, with the exception 

 of the movements involved in its oblique sudden exit from the sea, 

 all the motions of a fiying-fish when in the air are really passive. 



— It was claimed awhile ago for an elevator in the Wilder Build- 

 ing, Rochester, N.Y., that it had broken the record, and was the 

 fastest in the country, having made the run from bottom to top, 

 126 feet, in 6j seconds, or at the rate of 1,163 f^st per minute. The 

 best previous record was said to have been that of an elevator in 

 the Tribune Building, New York City, no feet in 8 seconds, or 

 325 feet per minute. Mere speed alone, however, does not afford 

 sufficient data for a fair comparison, and gives little evidence of 

 how fast an elevator can travel in actual use. The load is a most 

 important item, and should always be stated, as in the following 

 instances cited by The Engineeri7tg and Building Record, which 

 will be found of interest in this connection. All are in New York 

 City unless otherwise stated. The elevators in the Potter Building 

 have travelled at the rate of 500 feet per minute with a load of 

 1,000 pounds in the car ; those in Aldrich Court will travel about 

 600 feet per minute with the same load ; and those in the Standard 

 Oil Company's Building have made trips at an average speed of 

 720 feet per minute with 500 pounds in the car, and including the 

 time of starting and stopping. The rise is 133 feet, and the time 

 1 1 seconds. What these elevators can do with an empty car, or 

 with a light operator and no passenger, have never been deter- 

 mined. The fastest elevator probably now in existence is the 

 "" Water Balance " in the Western Union Building. This machine 

 can attain a speed of certainly 1,000 feet, and probably 1,200 feet, 

 per minute. Similar ones in Chicago, not now in use, are reported 



to have reached 1,500 feet. This style of elevator is no longer 

 made, not being as safe as the more modern types. The elevators 

 which combine the greatest power and speed in New York City 

 are probably those in the Produce Exchange, and their counter- 

 parts in the Cotton Exchange. These were contracted to lift 2,500 

 pounds in the car at a rate of 300 feet per minute, and did con- 

 siderably better at the official trial. 



— A substitute for granite blocks for paving purposes is a steel 

 paving block claimed to have superior durability, and whose cost is 

 said to be somewhat less than the stone. It is thus described in 

 The Engineering &■' Building Record : The block is made of 

 steel strips, some two inches and a half wide by one thick, with a 

 rolled channel on the side exposed to traffic, and containing notches 

 about half a foot apart. The weight of these strips is eleven 

 pounds to the yard. They are laid across the street, a distance 

 about five inches between centres ; and, as their length is sufficient 

 only to extend to the middle of the street, the proper slope from 

 the centre to the gutters is easily secured. To insure their not 

 slipping sidewise, they are bolted together, and fastened to wooden 

 sills. The support for the new pavement is composed of a firmly 

 constructed bed of gravel, while between the steel strips a com- 

 pound of pitch and cement is poured, filling the interstices to a 

 level with the tops of the strips, and rendering the surface com- 

 paratively smooth. 



— The AmericMi Field is authority for the statement that wild 

 boars have become very numerous in the deep recesses of the 

 Shawangunk Mountains, that border Orange and Sullivan Coun- 

 ties, N.Y. They are the genuine Black Forest wild boars of 

 Europe, the descendants of nine formidable and ferocious boars and 

 sows imported by Mr. Otto Plock of New York, some few years 

 ago, for the purpose of annihilating the snakes and vermin which 

 infested his estate near the Shawangunk Mountains. After the 

 boars had eaten up all the rattlers and vermin in the enclosure, 

 they longed for more, and dug under the wire fencmg and escaped 

 to the mountains, where they have since bred and multiplied, and 

 are so ferocious that the most daring hunter hesitates ere he " goes 

 in for game." They have immense heads, huge tusks and shoul- 

 ders, and lank hind-parts. They attack with a savage rush ; and 

 woe betide the hapless hunter who stumbles before one. Wild- 

 boar hunting is greatly indulged in in Europe, and the accidental 

 escape of these nine boars may furnish American Nimrods with 

 sport on " big game" for many years, in the East. Buffalo hunt- 

 ing is not as dangerous as wild-boar hunting, and, as the element 

 of danger is the spice of hunting to many, the Shawangunk Moun- 

 tains will undoubtedly supply the East with sport the equal of any 

 in the West. 



— The shad fishermen of the Atlantic coast are all happy, and 

 very busy preparing their nets and traps for the expected arrival of 

 the vast schools of shad now steering for the coast from different 

 parts of the Atlantic Ocean, this being the season of the year when 

 they seek fresh water. This passion is well known by all shad 

 fishermen ; and, according to The American Field, thousands of 

 feet of drift nets are being got in readiness on Staten Island, Long 

 Island, along the Delaware, and all along the coast where rivers 

 empty into the ocean. The New York fishermen lay for the shad 

 as they attempt to pass through the Narrows, and are rewarded 

 with tons of the delicious sea-food. The tides are such, however, 

 that they can only work two hours out of six ; and this in daytime 

 only, for at night the boats of the fishermen are in constant danger 

 of being run into by tugs and other steam-craft. 



— At the meeting of the mineralogical section of the Brooklyn 

 Institute, March 20, Mr. H. Hensoldt, in referring to his experi- 

 ences as a naturalist in Ceylon, mentioned the fact that he had 

 observed one of the stones carried in the mouth of the cobra-de- 

 capello. This stone is phosphorescent, and the cobra has even been 

 observed with its mouth open, the phosphorescent stone within it, 

 for the purpose, it is believed, of alluring the mate of the firefly 

 Latnpyris noctiluca. This substance, Mr. George F. Kunz sug- 

 gested, was evidently chlorophane, a variety of fluorite which 

 emits a green phosphorescence on being heated. He stated that 

 he had observed that the fluorite found at Amelia Court-house, 



