24 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XV. No. 362 



necessary, but has always taught in Chinese. Professor Russell of 

 the same institution iinds Chinese sufficient for popular astronomy. 

 On the other hand, Mr. Tenney says that it can only be for the 

 most popular views of science that the vernacular is sufficient. " It 

 is impossible," he says, " for scholars who are ignorant of any 

 European language to attain any such excellence in modern sciences 

 as to enable them to bear comparison with the finished mathemati- 

 cal and scientific scholars of Europe and America." Thus, he con- 

 tinues, as a medium of thought, any Western language is incom- 

 parably superior to Chinese in precision and clearness ; the student 

 acquainted with a foreign language has a vast field of collateral 

 thought open to him which does not and never will exist in Chinese, 

 and he can keep abreast of the times, which the Chinese student 

 who must depend on translations cannot do. The relation of the 

 Chinese student " to the world of thought is analogous to that of a 

 blind and deaf person in the West, whose only sources of knowl- 

 edge are the few and slowly increasing volumes of raised-typp 

 letters which make up the libraries of the blind." As has been 

 said, however, the weight of opinion is against Mr. Tenney. 



— The special board of engineers appointed by the Secretary of 

 War to examine and report upon the most available point on the 

 Gulf coast west of the Mississippi for a deep-water harbor have 

 selected Galveston. Their report is now before Congress. The 

 expense of improving Galveston harbor so as to fulfil the require- 

 ments is estimated at $6,200,000. 



— It is generally recommended that cows at pasture in the sum- 

 mer should have a supplementary grain ration, and a large number 

 of the more progressive farmers pursue this practice with an evi- 

 dent belief that it is profitable. In the absence of data as to the 

 value of this practipe it was deemed worth while to conduct, as 

 carefully as might be, a somewhat extended experiment intended 

 to afford, if possible, some light on the point in question. To this 

 end a trial was instituted at the Cornell Agricultural Station, and 

 conducted by I. P. Roberts and H. H. Wing. The experiment was 

 made with six cows, selected from the University herd, making 

 two lots mated in pairs, as nearly alike as was possible It age, 

 breeding, time since calving, yield of milk, and time to next calv- 

 ing. The conclusion reached as the result of the experiment is, 

 that, while all the data so far go to show that it did not pay to give 

 cows on good pasture a supplementary grain ration, yet there is 

 not as yet sufficient data to warrant recommending those who 

 follow this practice to give it up. So far as results in butter are 

 concerned, they are so close as to be almost identical. It is quite 

 possible that the milk yield may have been more influenced by the 

 " milking habit^' of the cows than by the grain fed. By milking 

 habit is meant the tendency that different cows have to milk for a 

 longer or shorter period after calving. All the cows used in the 

 experiment had been in milk for a considerable period, four of 

 them about five months, and the other two considerably longer. It 

 is not only possible but quite probable that these last two were 

 more influenced by the individual tendency to " run dry " than by 

 the extra grain feed in the ration. Several conditions arose during 

 the course of the experiment that may or may not have influenced 

 the results ; and while in a certain sense they might be considered 

 as foreign to the real discussion of the result, it seems worth while 

 to mention them in this connection, (i) The rain-fall at Ithaca in 

 the growing season of 1889 was phenomenal, especially in the 

 months of June and July, the amounts in inches being as follows : 

 June, 6.74 ; July, 6.73 ; August, 3.32 ; September, 2.57, while the 

 average for the past 11 years has been June, 3.52; July, 3.95; 

 August, 3.02 ; September, 2.44, and during the time of the experi- 

 ment, June 8 to September 21, rain fell on forty-nine days. The' 

 pastures remained green, fresh, and luxuriant throughout the whole 

 season. The grass, almost entirely blue-grass, grew continuously ; 

 but, owing to the gravelly character of the soil, the grass did not 

 become soft and watery, as often happens in soils that are natu- 

 rally more moist. Perhaps had there been the usual midsummer 

 drought with its accompaniment of parched pastures, the results 

 from the supplementary grain ration would have been more 

 marked. (2) A striking feature of the experiment was the large 

 increase in the percentage of fat in the milk of lot 2 during the 

 period from Aug. 4 to Sept. 7 inclusive, and a similar slight in- 



crease in the milk of lot i for the same period. This period coin- 

 cided almost exactly with the period of least rainfall and highest 

 temperature of the whole summer. From Aug. 5 to Sept. 5 in- 

 clusive, there was but one rain of any considerable amount, witb 

 some half dozen light showers on various intervening dates. Thus 

 in the only time during the whole course of the experiment in^ 

 which the conditions approached those of an ordinary season, there 

 seemed to be the greatest effect from the grain ration. (3) An- 

 other peculiarity that seems to be traced to climatic conditions 

 was seen in the last two weeks of the experiment. Beginning on 

 Sept. 6, more or less rain fell on every day but one till the close of 

 the experiment on the 21st. During this period the weather was 

 almost continually cloudy and what may be expressively termed 

 "raw." From Sept. 7 to 21, the percentage of fat in the milk of 

 lot I fell from 4.47 to 4.10, or nine per cent, while the fat in the 

 milk of lot 2 in the same period, decreased from 5.77 to 4.61, or 

 twenty per cent. (4) In view of the fact that a citizen of a neigh- 

 boring State has been imprisoned for selling milk that was below 

 the legal standard of twelve per cent of solids, it seems worth 

 while to state that while, when the average analysis for three days, 

 is taken into account, the milk in this experiment was far above 

 the required standard, yet there was one day when the milk fron> 

 one lot fell below the legal requirement of 12 per cent total solids, 

 and several others on which the percentage of total solids came 

 dangerously near the " dead line." Had a sample been taken on 

 that day by the Stateauthorities the experimenters would have been 

 liable to conviction under the law, and to a fine of not more than 

 two hundred dollars and to imprisonment for not more than six 

 months. It seems that no law can be just that fixes an arbitrary 

 standard for the purity of milk which may depend upon the results 

 of a single analysis. 



— Cocoa-nut butter is now being made at Mannheim, and, ac- 

 cording to the American Consul there, the demand for it is steadily 

 increasing. The method of manufacture was discovered by Dr. 

 Schlunk, a practical chemist at Ludwigshafen. Liebig and Fre- 

 senius knew the value of cocoa-nut oil or fat, but did not succeed 

 in producing it as a substitute for butter. The new butter is of a 

 clear whitish color, melts at from 26° to 28° C, and contains 

 0.0008 per cent water, 0.006 per cent mineral stuffs, and 99.9932 

 per cent fat. At present it is chiefly used in hospitals and other 

 State institutions, but it is also rapidly finding its way into houses 

 or homes where people are too poor to buy butter. The working 

 classes are taking to it instead of the oleomargarines, against 

 which so much has been said during the last two or three years. 



— In a recent number of Humboldt, as quoted in Nature, Herr 

 Fischer-Sigwart describes the ways of a snake, Tropidonotiis tessel- 

 latiis, which he kept in his terrarium in Zurich. It was fond of 

 basking in the sun on the top of a laurel, from which it climbed 

 easily to a high cherry-tree fixed against a wall, its night quarters. 

 Sometimes, after lying still for hours, it would hasten down into a 

 small pond (about four square yards surface) containing gold-fish, 

 and hide itself for a long time, quite under water, behind some 

 stone, or plants, the tongue constantly playing. When a fish came 

 near, the snake would make a dart at its belly. Often missing, it 

 would lose patience, and swim after the fishes, driving them into 

 some corner, where it at length seized one in the middle of the 

 belly, and carried it to land, much as a dog would a piece of wood. 

 Curiously, the fish, after being seized, became quite still and stiff, 

 as if dead. If one then liberated it, the skin of the belly was seen, 

 to be quite uninjured, and the fish readily swam away in the water. 

 The author thinks the snake has a hypnotic influence on its prey 

 (and he had observed similar effects with a ringed snake). It 

 would otherwise be very difficult for the snake to retain hold of a 

 wriggling fish. The snake usually carried off the fish some dis- 

 tance to a safe corner, to devour it in peace. 



— The International Marine Conference' at Washington con- 

 cluded its labors with the end. of the year. Tne work it has done, 

 though not so much as had been anticipated, will be of value to 

 the merchant marine of all maritime nations. The chief work of 

 the conference related to the rules of the road at sea and the pre- 

 vention of collisions. One important reform recommended is uni- 

 formity in the buoyage system in all parts of the world, and others 



