56 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VIII, No. 180 



— The Botanical club of the American associa- 

 tion for the advancement of science will hold its 

 meetings, as usual, during the week of the asso- 

 ciation. The first meeting will take place on 

 Wednesday at 9 a.m. in the room assigned to the 

 biological section. Any botanist or person spe- 

 cially interested in botany, who is a member of 

 the association, and has registered for the Buffalo 

 meeting, may become a member of the ckib by 

 filling out a blank to be obtained at the desk of the 

 local committee. The plans for excursions are not 

 yet matured. For further information address 

 Dr. J. C. Arthur, secretary of the club, Geneva, 

 N.Y. 



— The Society for the jDromotion of agricultural 

 science will hold its seventh annual meeting in 

 Buffalo, beginning on Tuesday, Aug. 17. For 

 fui'ther information address Dr. Byi-on D. Halsted, 

 secretary, Ames, lo. 



— The present custodian of the Cincinnati 

 society of natural history, Prof. Joseph F. James, 

 has resigned his position to accept the professor- 

 ship of botany and geology in the Miami univer- 

 sity, Oxford, O. The executive board of the 

 society have appointed a committee to receive ap- 

 plications for the position, and to examine the 

 credentials of applicants. 



The Athenaeum announces that Prof. Karl 

 Pearson will contribute a volume to the ' Inter- 

 national series' which will be to physics what 

 Professor Clifford's ' Common sense of the exact 

 sciences' (which Professor Pearson edited) is to 

 mathematics, and will, iu fact, form a companion 

 work. 



— At the meetiug of the Academie des sciences. 

 May 31, MM. Cailletet and Mathias read a paper 

 entitled ' Researches on the densities of liquefied 

 gases and of their saturated vapors.' They have 

 foUowed the researches of Faraday, Thilorier, 

 Bussy, and D'Andreif upon the density of the 

 liquid gases. The apparatus they have employed 

 was of great simplicity, all of glass, capable of 

 resisting the pressure of many atmospheres. The 

 gases on which they operated were protoxide of 

 azote, ethylene, and carbonic acid. Their results 

 confirm those of M. Sarrau. The authors' experi- 

 ments demonstrate that at the critical point the 

 density of the liquid gas is equal to that of its 

 vapor. M. Fizeau also stated that his observations 

 taught him that the luminiferous ether is entirely 

 unaffected by the motion of the matter which it 

 permeates, and said that he hoped soon to an- 

 nounce the existence of a peculiar variation in 

 the magnetic force of magnets, apparently in re- 

 lation with the du-ection of the earth's motion 

 through space, calculated to throw light on the 



immobility of the ether and its relations to pon- 

 derable matter. 



— There are in the United States about one 

 hundred medical colleges of good repute, at 

 which more than ten thousand students attend 

 annually. From these institutions go out each, 

 year from five to one hundred and fifty or more 

 graduates, to swell the ranks of a profession which 

 now numbers ia the United States more than 

 seventy-seven thousand members. For the ad- 

 ditional instruction of these doctors there are 

 published more than one hundred and fifty medi- 

 cal journals. 



— From the Medical neivs we learn that a Ger- 

 man physician was recently much puzzled by a 

 case which he was called to attend. The patient, 

 a child five weeks old, was incessantly crying, 

 and was undoubtedly suffering from colic, and its 

 skin was of a bluish color. Further examination 

 revealed the fact that the nurse was in the habit 

 of using a cosmetic in which lead entei'ed largely 

 as a constituent. This gave to her face a brilliant 

 tint, which at once attracted the attention of the 

 physician. The use of this cosmetic was at once 

 interdicted, and in a few days the colic and the 

 crying ceased. 



— Instances of extreme old age are reported 

 from Russia. The Novosti, a Russian journal, 

 annomices the death, in the almshouse of St. 

 Petersburg, of a man, aged one hundred and 

 twenty-two years, who had been an inmate since 

 1818. His mental faculties were preserved up to 

 the time of his death, and his general health was 

 excellent to the age of one hundred and eighteen, 

 when he commenced to faU. There is in the 

 same institution a soldier's widow whose age, as 

 shown by documentary evidence, is at least one 

 hundred and ten years. In our own country, at 

 New Holland, O., Mrs. Arnold has just celebrated 

 the one hundred and ninth anniversary of her 

 birth ; and her two sisters are still living, aged 

 respectively one hundred and six and one him- 

 dred and twelve. 



— Dr. Barlow, in the Lancet, expresses the 

 opinion, after a very thorough investigation into 

 the nature of whooping-cough, that it is to be 

 classed among the diseases which are caused by 

 the u-ritation excited by the presence of parasites ; 

 and that these are micrococci, which prohferate 

 in large numbers upon the living membrane of 

 the larynx and pharynx. He also claims for re- 

 sorcine the power to greatly reduce the intensity 

 of the disease, and to directly lead to its cure. 

 This remedy, which is among the most recent 

 introduced to the medical profession, is applied as 

 a one or two per cent solution, either by a brush 



