June 21, 1889.] 



SCIENCE. 



the D. Thereza Christina line. It may be added that Brazil is 

 peculiarly suitable for ramie, as here its uncontrollable tendency to 

 spread would not give the considerable inconvenience which it does 

 in older countries. 



^ The news comes from iMadras that that portion of the world 

 is ravaged both by famine and cholera. The province of Ganjam 

 is where the epidemic has reached its greatest intensity. The 

 ofificial figures put the deaths at one thousand per week from 

 cholera. 



— During a discussion over the educational budget in the Bel- 

 gium Senate recently, a member attracted attention to the constant 

 increase in the number of students at the universities, — an increase 

 which showed, in his opinion, that the examinations were too easy, 

 and which threatened to overload the liberal professions. 



— Since the end of the third week in May the water of the Seine 

 ■has been distributed in two arrotidisseinents of Paris. Usually this 

 •only happens during the hottest weather, towards the end of June 

 or the early part of July. This year it will probably be necessary 

 by that time to furnish the Seine water to a large part of Paris. 

 The water is not considered especially healthful, and will attract 

 the attention of visitors to the exposition by its yellow color. 



— Sir John Bennett Lawes, the eminent agricultural scientist, of 

 Rothamstead, has, it is stated, just completed arrangements for 

 bequeathing to the cause of agricultural science the sum of ^loo,- 

 000, together with fifty acres of land and the laboratory and 

 museum at Rothamstead. In the latter are stored more than 

 45,000 bottles of experimentally grown produce, of animal products 

 and of soils. The income of the fund will be handed over to a 

 committee of nine persons, including the owner of Rothamstead 

 for the time being. 



— Professor Dr. Foster, director of the University Ophthalmic 

 Oinique at Breslau, has recently drawn the attention of parents 

 and pedagogues to what he believes is often the cause of short- 

 sightedness in the young ; namely, that they are allowed to wear 

 collars which are too tight for them. In three hundred cases that 

 had come under his notice the patients were suffering from a 

 chronic complaint brought on by a disturbance in the regular and 

 normal flow of blood, caused by the wearing of collars which were 

 not large enough. 



— India, it would seem, is practically uneducated. The total 

 number of scholars in schools and colleges of all sorts is only three 

 and a quarter millions, or i| per cent of the entire population. 

 These are mainly confined to the cities and towns ; and out of 

 250,000,000 in all India, less than n, 000,000 can read and write. 

 A census of the illiterates in the various countries of the world, 

 recently published in the Statistische Moiiatsschrift, places the 

 three Slavic states of Roumania, Servia, and Russia at the head of 

 the list, with about 80 per cent of the population unable to read 

 and write. Of the Latin-speaking races, Spain heads the list with 63 

 per cent, followed by Italy with 48 per cent, France and Belgium 

 having about 15 per cent. The illiterates in Hungary number 43 

 per cent, in Austria 39, and in Ireland 21. In England we find 13 

 per cent, Holland 10 per cent. United States (white population) 8 

 per cent, and Scotland 7 per cent, unable to read and write. When 

 we come to the purely Teutonic states, we find a marked reduction 

 in the percentage of illiterates. The highest is in Switzerland, 2.5 ; 

 in the whole German Empire it is i per cent ; in Sweden, Den- 

 mark, Bavaria, Baden, and Wtirtemberg, there is practically no one 

 who cannot read and write. 



— The problem of separating the mica in the tin ores by a sim- 

 ple and effective process is claimed to have been solved by Pro- 

 fessor Carpenter of Dakota. If this should be true, says The Eji- 

 ^ineering and Mi?tz)ig Journal, and the deposits in the Black 



Hills prove any thing like as extensive as they have been repre- 

 sented, it ought to aid the establishment of a vast tin-plate industry 

 to compete with the foreign producers. 



— The success of the petroleum borings in Galicia would lead us 

 to expect, according to The Engineering and Mining Journal, 

 that the Austro-Hungarian Empire will be totally independent of a 

 foreign supply of oil. Formerly there was a tendency to speak 



slightingly of Galician oil-deposits, owing to the fact that a large 

 proportion of the wells were dug by hand. Of late years the 

 American method of drilling has been introduced, and many Gali- 

 cians have become accomplished drillers. In the Lodyna district, 

 wells of a profitable character have been bored. Galician wells 

 have not the copiousness of Russian ; but a readier market exists 

 for the oil, and the demand for Lodyna petroleum is such that it is 

 sold at a high rate long in advance of appearing on the surface. 

 The oil belt of Lodyna is five miles long, and intersected by a rail- 

 way, thereby enabling the oil to be sent to the refineries at a trifling 

 expense. A few years ago all the refineries in Galicia did not pro- 

 duce 1,000,000 gallons of refined oil, but now their production ex- 

 ceeds 6,000,000 gallons. The Austrian Government takes great 

 interest in the development of the petroleum industry, and has 

 adopted a protective policy which has already succeeded in estab- 

 lishing the Galician oil-trade on a firm basis. In consequence of 

 this and of such successes as the recent borings at Lodyna, where 

 wells have been struck giving a profit of 500 or 600 per cent, 

 the financial and commercial world in Austria has been deeply 

 moved, and petroleum has caused much excitement. 



— Forest and Garden states that important rose-shows in England 

 this summer will be held as follows : July 2, Boston, Sutton ; July 

 10 and II, Brighton, Ealing; July 17, Bedford; July 26 and 27, 

 Wilmslow. 



— James K. Reeve, in The Chautauqiian for July, makes some 

 very practical suggestions regarding perfume flower-farming. He 

 says, " The Hon. Norman J. Coleman, late commissioner of agri- 

 culture of the United States, in a recent personal letter to the 

 writer of this paper, stated that in his opinion there is in this 

 country, undoubtedly, a vast and undeveloped field suitable for the 

 culture of perfume-yielding plants and flowers, notably on the bor- 

 ders of the Gulf of Mexico, and expressed the belief that the com- 

 mercial floriculture of this region may yet rival the production of 

 the Mediterranean coast, and become not only the great flower- 

 garden of America, but of the world. A leading perfumer of New 

 York tells me that experiments in perfume flower-culture have 

 been made in most of our Southern States, and that domestic po- 

 mades have been frequently offered to dealers, but not of a quality 

 sufficiently good to warrant their use. They attribute this to ig- 

 norance of the conditions necessary to the proper production of the 

 pomades, and not to any lacking element in our floriculture. As a 

 home industry in which the surplus labor of a household could be 

 profitably employed, there is nothing which seems at once so prac- 

 ticable and pleasing as this. When flowers are introduced into 

 our gardens as a commercial factor, the gardens will receive more 

 of the time and attention of that portion of our households who 

 most need the out-door life, the strength and color, the health and 

 happiness, that may be found in them. 



— The site for the zoological garden in Washington has been 

 selected. It comprises about one hundred and fifty acres to the 

 north-west of the city, about two miles from the White House, 

 along the banks of Rock Creek, and is said to be in every way well 

 adapted for its purpose. Before next winter the necessary arrange- 

 ments will probably be so far advanced that the animals now 

 housed in the grounds of the Smithsonian Institution can be re- 

 moved to their new quarters. 



— Professor Patrick of the Iowa Agricultural College, says 

 Garden and Forest, undertook last winter to make a chemical 

 study of apple-twigs to ascertain whether he could detect differ- 

 ences of composition between the young growth of such varieties 

 as are hardy and those which are not hardy in that region. At the 

 same time and for the same purpose a microscopic examination 

 was made of apple-twigs by Dr. Halsted. It would be a great 

 advantage if hardy and tender varieties could be distinguished from 

 each other by a chemical analysis or an examination of their cell- 

 sti-ucture. Professor Budd, indeed, has expressed the opinion that 

 there was an apparent difference in the structure and composition 

 of the trees which proved hardy in Iowa and those which were 

 tender. The results of Professor Patrick's analysis " lend, per- 

 haps, some slight encouragement" to this idea. Professor Hal- 

 sted found " no parallelism between microscopic structural differ- 

 ences and ability to withstand the influences of a trying climate." 



