Febeuaey 12, 1897.] 



SCIENCE. 



269 



other benzoline motor-vehicles ; its double 

 small horizontal cylinders, with opposite cranks 

 and other details, including a very satisfactory 

 tubular water cooler, with simple force pump 

 circulator, secures steadier motion, freedom 

 from escaping steam or water vapor, and more 

 power in a given space. He has placed before 

 us a carriage which only needs the develop- 

 ment to which experience will point the way. 



' ' These latter remarks pertain equally with 

 regard to the steam vehicles exhibited and 

 worked. The steam vehicles undoubtedly 

 showed the greatest power and the greatest 

 flexibility or range of power. The ability to 

 stop the motor and start without manual as- 

 sistance was seen to be a noteworthy advan- 

 tage, not only as a matter of convenience, but 

 as a means of avoiding an otherwise very per- 

 sistent vibration of the vehicle when standing. 

 The steam carriage exhibited by M. Serpollet, 

 although not of the maker's most recent form, 

 is one which merits particular notice for its 

 originality, its value as an indication of the pos- 

 sibilities with a steam boiler and engine of the 

 types used, its superiority with regard to range 

 of power, and its exemplification of the advan- 

 tages already referred to as to convenience in 

 several respects. 



' ' The steam van exhibited by the Thornycroft 

 Steam Carriage and Wagon Company we also 

 recognize as a very meritorious illustration of 

 the most useful lines upon which arrangement 

 and development of a most important class of 

 motor-vehicles may proceed. The jurors con- 

 sidered it matter for regret that no electri- 

 cally propelled vehicle had been submitted 

 for trial. ' ' 



GENEEAL. 



Hon. James Wilson, of Iowa, will be Secre- 

 tary of Agriculture under the next administra- 

 tion. He is director of the Iowa Agricultural 

 Station and professor of. agriculture in the Iowa 

 Agricultural College. He was for many years 

 a teacher in the country schools and has been 

 since a practical farmer, having earned the 

 money for the purchase of the farm of 1,200 

 acres, said to be one of the best equipped and 

 best managed in the State, which he now culti- 

 vates. Professor Wilson has served three terms 



in Congress. He was born August 16, 1835, in 

 Ayrshirp, Scotland. 



It is reported that Judge Joseph McKenna, 

 of California, will be the next Secretary of the 

 Interior. 



The St. Petersburg Academy of Science has 

 elected M. Joseph Bertrand, the permanent 

 secretary of the Paris Academy of Sciences, an 

 honorary member. 



Peofbssok E. E. Baknaed, of the Yerkes 

 Observatory, University of Chicago, has sailed 

 from New York for Southampton, on his way 

 to London. He will attend the meeting of the 

 Royal Astronomical Society on February 12th, 

 to receive the gold medal awarded to him for 

 distinguished service to the cause of astronomi- 

 cal science. 



A sanitary conference on the Bubonic 

 Plague opens at Venice to-day. The represent- 

 atives of Great Britain will not favor quaran- 

 tine regulations, but the Continental govern- 

 ments seem apprehensive lest the plague may 

 spread to Europe. Dr. Koch has been sum- 

 moned by the German government from South 

 Africa, where he has been studying the rinder- 

 pest, to head a special commission which will 

 be sent to Bombay to investigate the plague and 

 report on measures that should be taken to pre- 

 vent its introduction into Europe. Similar 

 steps are being taken by the governments of 

 Russia and of Italy. The plague has not ap- 

 peared in eastern Europe since 1721 and not 

 in England since 1665, when upwards of 100,- 

 000 persons died from the disease. The Black 

 Death of the fourteenth century, which in three 

 years destroyed 24,000,000 Europeans, was per- 

 haps the bubonic plague. The plague is essen- 

 tially a miseriee morbus and the present sani- 

 tary conditions are such as to make an epidemic 

 unlikely. Still a man who is so little an alarm- 

 ist as Lord Lister said in a recent address in 

 Belfast that the plague might be easily carried 

 from Bombay in ships. "Rats were liable to 

 contract it, and a rat making its escape ii'om a 

 ship coming from Bombay — say, to the Thames 

 or to Belfast Lough — might carry the plague 

 ashore and, entering any of their slums, might 

 affect human beings with this dreadful disease." 



Mt. Aconcagua, in the Andes, over 24,000 



