October 32, 1886.] 



SCIEN'CE, 



363 



water, shaking the coal on deck (for the donkey- 

 engine) all over, and causing the boats to strain 

 their davits severely. No damage was sustained, 

 but the captain doubts if any heavily laden vessel 

 could have ridden the sea as his vessel did, she 

 being tu ballast only. 



— Nature states that advices from the waters of 

 Spitzbergen now confirm the former news from 

 Iceland and from the mouth of the Pechora, on 

 the Siberian coast, to the effect that the ice in the 

 Arctic Sea has this year extended unusually far 

 southwards. Spitzbergen, the sealers report, was 

 found to be surrounded with an ice-belt from five 

 to eight miles broad, and there was firm pack-ice 

 from Hope Island to Forltmd, about fifty-six miles. 

 The great bays on the Storfjord, Hornsund, Bell- 

 sund, and Isfjord, were quite inaccessible ; and 

 the sealers, after waiting all the spring and most 

 of the summer, returned at the end of August, as 

 there was no prospect of the polar ice dividing. 



— Mr. H. B. Gibson of Harvard college pre- 

 sents in the American meteorological journal the 

 results of a study of the water-spouts on or near 

 the Galf Stream, recorded on the monthly pilot- 

 charts of the hydrographic office. He shows that 

 they are here by no means so rare in winter as 

 observations from other parts of the ocean have 

 led vtriters to suppose; and, on comparing the 

 dates of their occurrence with the corresponding 

 signal-service weather-maps, it appears that they 

 coincide with the extension of cold north-west 

 winds, or 'cold waves,' from the land out over 

 the relatively warm sea. A similarly exceptional 

 winter frequency of spouts might be looked for 

 on the warm Kuro Siwo, east of Asia. 



— The need of a neat and comprehensive record- 

 book for meteorological observations has been 

 supplied by Sergeant O. N. Oswell, of the signal 

 service (now at Cambridge, Mass.), who has pre- 

 pared a blank volume giving appropriate pages, 

 columns, and daily lines for temperature, pressure, 

 precipitation, humidity, wind, weather, and re- 

 marks, followed by a page for the monthly sum- 

 mary. Its use would safe much time to the many 

 volunteer observers who have to rule their col- 

 umns to suit their needs. 



— A statement to the effect that glass railway 

 rails were being manufactured in Germany, which 

 has been going the 'rounds of the press,' was 

 based, it is discovered, upon the mistake of a 

 translator, who should have written ' sleeper ' in- 

 stead of ' rail.' Samples of these glass sleepers for 

 railway rails, recently tested in Glasgow, resisted 

 a weight of four hundred pounds falling nine feet 

 and a half, not breaking until the sixth blow. 



Cast-iron sleepers are expected to stand a similar 

 test up to seven feet only. 



— A report on the Charleston earthquake, by 

 Prof. T, C. Mendenhall, at that time an assistant 

 in the U. S. signal service, states that the origin 

 of the disturbances appears to have been some- 

 where below a point fifteen or twenty miles north- 

 west of Charleston ; that is, in the neighborhood 

 of the town of Summerville. A chart of provis- 

 ional coseismal lines, drawn by Mr. Hayden of 

 the geological survey, and published in Science 

 for Sept. 10, seems to locate this centre somewhat 

 farther north than the point indicated above. At 

 the time of its construction, however, information 

 from many points was lacking, and that which 

 was at hand was admittedly doubtful in some de- 

 gree. 



— The British medical journal reports the case 

 of a workman who fell a distance of 110 feet from 

 the steeple of a church. In his fall he broke a 

 scaffold, and, after passing through the roof of an 

 engine-house, broke several planks and two strong 

 joists, finally falling upon some sacks of cement. 

 As a consequence of this fall, one leg was broken, 

 several small bones about the wrist were dislocated, 

 and the back and hips were bruised, notwithstand- 

 ing all of which the man left the hospital where 

 he was takan for treatment in twelve days, with 

 his broken leg in a splint of plaster-of-Paris. 



— El thifaa (' the cure ') is the name of the only 

 medical journal published in Egypt. It is printed 

 in Arabic, and published monthly. Its price is 

 thirty-five cents a number. The principal con- 

 tributors are Egyptians and Syrians. It has 

 proved in every way a success. 



— The St. Petersburg Novoe vremya of Oct. 1 

 contains an article on the Afghan frontier ques- 

 tion, exhibiting surprise at the recall of the British 

 commission, expressing the opinion of the possi- 

 bility of further misunderstandings as to the 

 north-eastern frontier at the foot of the Pamir 

 range, which section is insufficiently explained by 

 the agreement of 1873, and dwelling on the neces- 

 sity of defining the frontier on the middle and 

 upper Oxus, where Afghanistan borders on Bok- 

 hara. The Afghan frontier commission reached 

 Haibak, 190 miles from Khamiab, on the 26th of 

 September, and halted for a few days to explore 

 the Hindoo Koosh passes. It probably reached 

 Cabul on Oct. 14. 



— That cholera has obtained a strong hold in 

 Europe is becoming daily more apparent. The 

 disease still exists in Pesth, and it is reported that 

 at Szeged in, Hungary, seven persons died within 

 twenty-four hours. The Austrian state director 



