SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIX. No 466 



yeai's ago. During the greater part of the time he has had charge 

 of its operations relating to the determination of the force of 

 gravity. Some of the results of his investigations have been pub- 

 lished as appendices to the Annual Reports and have embodied 

 contributions of great importance to science. It is understood 

 that Mr. Peirce will continue to furnish the Survey from time to 

 time special discussions of topics related to the subject to which 

 he has devoted so many years. 



— The routes, both northern and southern, now formally 

 adopted by the principal transatlantic steamship companies are 

 shown on this month's Pilot Chart issued by the United States 

 Hydi'Ographic OfBce. The northern routes remain in force until 

 the middle of January, but steamers that take their departures 

 from Sandy Hook Light-vessel, Boston Outer Light, Fastnet, or 

 Bishop's Rock, on or after the 15th, follow the southern routes, 

 which then remain in force till the middle of July next. As 

 stated last month, on the chart, five steamship companies (the 

 Cunard, White Star, Inman, Guion, and National) have adopted 

 these routes to and from the Fastnet, and the following compa- 

 nies have now come into the agreement (taking the great circle 

 between Rishop's Rock and the Banks): North German Lloyd, 

 Hamburg-American, Companie Generale Transatlantique, and 

 Red Star. It will be remembered that the Pilot Chart recom- 

 mended that the Channel steamers adopt the same routes (west of 

 the 20th meridian) as the Queenstown steamers, but these com- 

 panies have decided to follow the great circle direct to the Grand 

 Banks. The objection to this course is that the region within 

 which eastward and westward bound vessels are liable to en- 

 counter one another is broader than in case the point of junction 

 is shifted farther east, say to the 30th meridian, while the dis- 

 tance saved is comparatively slight (only six miles for the north- 

 ern and nine miles for the southern routes). Possibly at some 

 future time a compromise will be made by which the junction 

 will be fixed at some point that may be mutually agreed upon 

 (say about the 15th meridian in latitude 51° north). Until such 

 an arrangement is made by the companies interested, the routes 

 already adopted and actually in force will be shown on this Chart. 



— A correspondent of the London Spectator, writes os follows: 

 I have studied the habits of the scorpion for many years, and have 

 often noticed how very sensitive scorpions are to the most delicate 

 sound, musical or otherwise. Under the thorax the scorpion has 

 two comb-like appendages, which are the antennas (pectinatae). 

 It is pretty well settled by ijhysiologists and entomologists that in 

 insects the antennae represent the organs of hearing. These deli- 

 cate structures are easily affected by the vibrations of sound, and 

 there can be no doubt whatever that they are also affected by 

 sounds quite inaudible to the human ear. The slightest vibration 

 of the atmosphere, from any cause whatever, at once puts in 

 motion the delicate structures which compose the antennae, to 

 which organs insects owe the power of protecting themselves 

 against danger, as well as the means of recognizing the approach 

 of one another. Spiders have wonderful eyesight, but I am quite 

 sure that the scorpion's vision, notwithstanding his six eyes, is 

 far from being acute. It is very difficult to catch a spider with a 

 pair of forceps, but a scorpion can be easily captured, if no noise 

 is made. Spiders see their prey before they are caught in the 

 web; but the scorpion makes no movement whatever to seize flies 

 or cockroaches until they indicate their whereabouts by move- 

 ments. This being the case, it can readily be understood how 

 easily the scorpion may be roused into motion by the vibrations of 

 music, as described in the article alluded to. If a tuning-fork be 

 sounded on the table on which I keep my caged scorpion, he at 

 once becomes agitated, and strikes out viciously with his sting. 

 On touching him with the vibrating tuning-fork, he stings it, and 

 then coils himself up, as scorpions do when hedged in. In 

 Jamaica, the negroes believe that scorpions know their name; so 

 they never call out, " See, a scorpion," when they meet with one 

 on the ground or wall, for fear of his escaping. They thus 

 indirectly recognize the scorpion's delicate appreciation of sound ; 

 but if you wish to stop a scorpion in his flight, blow air on him 

 from the mouth, and he at once coils himself up. I have repeatedly 

 done this; but with a spider it has a contrary effect. Music 



charms a enake into silence, as the experiments at the Zoo and 

 elsewhere prove; but the agitated contortions and writhings of 

 the scorpions when roused by the sound of the violin only prove 

 that they are roused by the vibrations of sound caused by music, 

 and this would happen if they were disturbed by the discordant 

 sounds of a penny trumpet or any other unmusical instrument. 



— At the recent French Surgical Congress MM. Henocque and 

 Bazy reported the results of a series of examinations of the blood 

 with the spectroscope made on persons who were compelled to 

 undergo surgical opei'ations. According to these investigations 

 the demonstration of the quantity of haemoglobin in the blood 

 affords the surgeon some valuable information in cases where it 

 is necessary to decide whether the patient's health is sufficiently 

 good to permit of the performance of an operation which may 

 not be urgently required. In ovariotomies and laparotomies un- 

 dertaken for the removal of tumors it is of advantage to deter- 

 mine the degree of anaemia and the condition of nutrition by "this 

 method, so that the operator may be able to select the most favor- 

 able time for operation. The authors also made, according to the 

 International Journal of Surgery, some exceedingly interesting 

 experiments with the view of studying the effects of chloroform 

 ansethesia upon the quantity of oxy-haemoglobin in the blood and 

 upon tissue metamorphosis. These investigations were carried 

 on before, during, and after the performance of surgical opera- 

 tions. It was demonstrated in eight cases of major operations 

 that chloroform actually tends to augment the quantity of haemo- 

 globin in the blood, unless a condition of asphyxia is produced, 

 and that this quantity may remain stationary despite severe losses 

 of blood. One of the constant effects of chloroform anaesthesia, 

 however, is to retard the reduction of oxy-liEemoglobin; that is to 

 say, it decreases tissue metamorphosis. These phenomena there- 

 fore illustrate that chloroform does not exert a toxic influence on 

 the blood, although it has a marked efilect in retarding the vital 

 chemical processes in the body. In cases of sudden death at the 

 commencement of chloroform anaesthesia a complete arrest of 

 tissue metamorphosis takes place, and to this, in the authors" 

 opinions, should be attributed the extraordinary severity of this 

 form of syncope. They also believe that these facts demonstrate 

 the advantage of determining before operation whether an indi- 

 viduil tendency to retarded tissue metamorphosis be present. In 

 striking contrast to the results obtained by MM. Bazy and Hen- 

 ocque, however. Dr. Mikulicz found that the prolonged adminis- 

 tration of chloroform produced a decrease of haemoglobin even 

 in operations unattended with loss of blood. This fact simply 

 illustrates the wide discrepancy in the results obtained by different 

 investigators of the same subject. 



— In a bulletin just published by the Entomological Division of 

 the Cornell University Experiment Station, Professors J. H. Corn- 

 stock and M. V. Singerland report upon a series of experiments, 

 continued for three years, the object of which was to discover a 

 practical method of preventing the ravages of wireworms. Some 

 of the results of these experiments are summarized as follows : 

 Grains of corn were coated with a fiour paste containing Paris 

 green and planted. The only apparent result was to retard the 

 sprouting of the seeds, the wireworms apparently thriving upon 

 the poisoned paste. The rose bug is another insect which it is 

 practically impossible to kill with Paris green. Coating the seed 

 corn with tar or soaking in salt brine, copperas solution, kerosene 

 oil, or turpentine interfered with germination much more than it 

 did with the appetite of the wireworm. Soaking in strong solu- 

 tion of strychnine failed to render the corn either distasteful or 

 destructive to the worms. Starvation was found to be as inef- 

 fectual as feeding on poison, as the soil was kept entirely bare of 

 vegetation for an entire season without reducing the number of 

 worms. Buckwheat, Chinese mustard and rape have been rec- 

 ommended as crops upon which wireworms will not feed, but in 

 these experiments the worms lived and thrived as well upon the 

 roots of these plants as they did upon those of timothy and clover. 

 Kerosene oil, crude petroleum and bisulphide of carbon were ap- 

 plied to the soil as insecticides, the kerosene and petroleum being 

 also used in the form of emulsions. They killed the wireworms 

 when applied in sufficient quantity to de.stroy all vegetation also. 



