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SCIENCK 



[Vol. XV. No. 372 



ingenuous minds, subjected to the influences which control the 

 schools of learning in our day, will revolt from them with the 

 keen dissatisfaction and bitter sense of injury and loss which 

 so many have felt in the past, it does not seem possible to believe. 

 President Oilman delivered an address, on the occasion of this 

 anniversary five years ago, upon a subject closely akin to that 

 which has now been presented. His opening words I will quote : 

 "To he concerned in the establishment and development of a 

 university is one of the noblest and most important tasks ever 

 imposed on a community or on a set of men. It is an under- 

 taking which calls for the exercise of the utmost care, for com- 

 bination, co-operation, liberality, inquiry, patience, reticence, 

 exertion, and never-ceasing watchfulness. It involves per- 

 plexities, delays, risks. Mistakes cannot possibly be avoided; 

 heavy responsibility is never absent." This statement, in no 

 wise exaggerating the arduous and responsible nature of the 

 task, may remind us how large a measure of honor and grati- 

 tude is due to those who have co-operated in the founding and 

 upbuilding of this university, and especially to him, of whom 

 in his absence we may speak more freely, to whose energy and 

 wisdom and self-devotion the success of these years is, by 

 common consent, pre-eminently to be ascribed. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



Walled up in the cellars of a brewsry at Burton-on-Trent, 

 there was discovered not long ago some beer which had been 

 brewed in the year 1798. It resembled sherry more than it 

 did a malt liquor, and was in good condition. 



— The American Society of Mechanical Engineers have pur- 

 chased a commodious building at 13 East 31st Street, this city, 

 for permanent headquarters. Part of the building will be occu- 

 pied by the Institute of Electrical Engineers, and the libraries 

 of both societies will be merged into one. 



— Late reports from the engineers at work on the Nicaragua 

 Canal indicate that the preliminary harbor improvements at 

 Greytown are going ahead successfully and rapidly. Senator 

 Warner Miller has been elected president of the construction 

 company, succeeding Mr. A. C. Cheney, who is now vice-presi- 

 dent. 



— A special train on the Philadelphia and Reading and the 

 Central Railroad of New Jersey, on March 10, made the run 

 between Philadelphia and New York, a distance of ninety miles, 

 in eighty-five minutes. This is at the average rate of 63.53 

 miles per hour. At times the train is said to have exceeded 

 eighty-five miles per hour. 



— Tlie American Tunnel Construction Company have contracted 

 to construct a tunnel under the East River, from New York 

 to Brooklyn, work to begin as soon as the consent of the local 

 authorities shall have been secured. Meanwhile the tunnel 

 under the Hudson, which has passed into the hands of English 

 capitalists, is making slow progress. 



— M. D. Ballet contributes to the Comx)te Rendu, 1889, No. 14, 

 a note on some tables furnished by the director of the McGill 

 Observatory, Montreal, to Gen. Greely. The observations ex- 

 tend over fifty years, from 1839 to 1888 inclusive, and form an 

 exhaustive exposition of the climatic conditions of the country. 

 During those years the variations of the seasons have been con- 

 fined within very narrow limits. The last frosts have occurred 

 at the beginning of May. The earliest spring was that of 1878, 

 when the last frost was on April 2, and the latest was in 1856, 

 in which year the thermometer fell to freezing-point on May 31. 

 The frost, except in 1867 and 1874, always returned before 

 November, the latest recorded being on the oth of that month, 

 and the earliest on Sept. 15 in the year 1859. In 1860 snow 

 fell on Sept. 39, the only occasion when it fell during that 

 month. Its latest appearance was in 1846, on Nov. 28. In 

 1839 snow ceased to fall in March, an event which did not hap- 

 pen again until 1889. The latest snow recorded fell on May 37, 

 1871. Snow fell during this month in only nineteen years out 

 of the fifty. The mean temperature at Montreal during the seven 



years 1851 to 1856 inclusive was 41.56° F., the maximum 

 100.1° F. , and the minimum 36° F. During the fourteen years 

 ending in 1888, the mean was 41.58° F. , though the last year 

 the mean was only 39.83° F. The mean rainfall for 1851 to 

 1857 was 43.004 inches, and for the last fourteen years only 

 37.2 inches; but the figures for the months of July and August, 

 1888, are the largest recorded. The annual fall of snow for the 

 years 1851 to 1857 was 95.76 inches; for the fourteen years- 

 ending in 1889, 135.8 inches. 



— The construction of railways was commenced in Japan 

 about twenty years ago; and now 579 miles of line are in work- 

 ing order, of which 497 are in Hondo, and the remainder in 

 Yezo. Some of these lines, according to Compte Rendu, 1889, 

 No. 14, belong to the state, others to the Japanese Railway 

 Company. The former run from Tokio to Yokohama ; front 

 Yokohama to Kodzu ; from Kobe, through Ozaka and Kioto, to 

 Otsu on Lake Biwa; from Handa, through Nagoya and Naga- 

 hama, to Tsuruga on the west coast of the island; from Taka- 

 saki to Yokokawa ; and from Naoyetsu to Sikiyama. The coi;i- 

 pany's lines run from Tokio to Sendai, and from Tokio to Taka- 

 saki and Mayebashi. In Yezo there are only two state lines, 

 — the one from Otaru to Sapporo, and thence to the coal-mines 

 of Horonai ; the other connecting the sulphur-mines of Kushi- 

 roko with the river of the same name. Besides the above- 

 mentioned lines, there are in course of construction a line con- 

 necting Kodzu and Nagoya, with a branch to the naval statioD 

 Yokosuka ; another from Yokokawa through Nagano to Siki- 

 yama ; a branch from the Sendai line to Utsunomiya and Mito ; 

 and a line from Koyama to Kiryu, through Tochigi, Sano, and 

 Tatebayashi. Lastly, numerous lines are projected, of which 

 one from Sendai to Aomori, at the northern extremity of Hondo, 

 is among the chief. 



— Sir J. H. Drummond-Hay believes that Marocco might 

 export a large quantity of agricultural produce under a just 

 and prudent government, says the London Chamber of Com- 

 merce Journal. The soil is very fertile, particularly in the 

 southern provinces, and produces wheat, barley, maize, and 

 other grains, cotton, oil, fruits, cattle, etc. The people are strong 

 and intelligent, and the climate more temperate than in south- 

 ern Spain. But the inhabitants do not care to waste their labor 

 in producing more than suffices for their maintenance, when 

 any surplus there may be is taken from them by the tax-col- 

 lectors, and any show of wealth attracts the unpleasant atten- 

 tions of the government officials. The prohibitions and duties on 

 exports also exercise a prejudicial influence on agriculture, as 

 was proved in the case of maize. Sir John Drummond-Hay 

 succeeded in getting the prohibition on the exportation of that 

 grain removed by the convention of 1856. Tlie first year one 

 vessel only was laden with maize, but in subsequent yeai-s one 

 hundred vessels were annually laden with it, and a large quan- 

 tity of fresh land was brought under cultivation. Yet, in spite 

 of the fanaticism of the Sultan's advisers and the unsettled 

 state of the country, trade does to some extent increase. Ini 

 the years 1875-85 the value of the imports averaged £1,033,- 

 918 annually, of which about three-fourths represented British 

 goods. The imports at Tangier in 1887 amounted to £748,000,, 

 about £63,000 more than in the previous year. 



— M. V. Turquand presented last year a statistical album tO' 

 the Paris Geographical Society (Compte Rendu, 1889, No. 14). 

 It contained, among others, six maps showing the geographical 

 distributions of the difl'erent nationalities in France. There are 

 80,000 Spaniards living in France, most of them in the Basse- 

 Pyrenees and Pyrenees Orientales. It is curious that there are 

 hardly any in Ariege. The Swiss, who also number 80,000,, 

 occupy chiefly the basins of the Loire and of the Upper Rhone 

 and Saone. The Italians are spread over the country from the 

 Maritime Alps to Paris, but are most numerous in the depart- 

 ments of the Alpes-Maritimes, Var, and Bouches-du-Rhone. In 

 the first-mentioned they form one-twentieth per cent of the 

 population. The total number of Belgians in France is nearly 

 500,000: they dwell in the northern half of the basin of the 

 Seine. Lastly, the Germans are found principally along the 



