April 25, 1890.] 



SCIENCE. 



259 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



De. Dixon, professor of hygiene at the University of Pennsyl- 

 vania, has been making some experiments with air and dust 

 obtained in street-cars. He has found in them the germs of many 

 diseases, contagious and otherwise. Better ventilation and more 

 effective cleansing are sorely needed. 



— Mr. Allan V. Garrat has tendered his resignation as secretary 

 and treasurer of The National Electric Light Association, to take 

 effect June 15, 1890. 



— The directorate of the railway intended to connect Hudson 

 Bay with the Canadian railway system has been recently re- 

 organized, and, it is expected, will be able to carry the under- 

 taking to completion. The length of the railway is to be 350 

 miles, starting from North Bay, off the Canadian Pacific Rail- 

 way at Lake Nipissing, thence to Moose Factory, a port on 

 James Bay, the southern prolongation of Hudson Bay. This, it 

 is expected, will become an important feeder to the railways 

 already built, passing as it does through one of the richest pine 

 ■regions in the Dominion, containing forests of red and white pine, 

 spruce, and taniarac of gigantic proportions. The country trav- 

 ersed is also said to be rich in minerals, such as galena, copper, 

 nickel, and iron. 



— M. Georges Holland, an eminent French engineer, recently 

 read a paper before the Acadfimie des Sciences, in which he in- 

 sists upon the necessity of constructing a railway across the 

 Sahara. M. Rolland fays that it is time for France to make up 

 her mind as to the part which she intends taking in the economic 

 conquest of the interior of Africa. In his paper he defines vrhat 

 are the regions of the western and central Soudan upon which 

 French commerce could reasonably reckon, his conclusion being 

 that nothing durable or really useful could be effected in the 

 Soudan without the assistance of Algeria; while, in order to take 

 any effective action in Algeria, that colony would need to be 

 connected with the Soudan by means of a railway crossing the 

 Sahara. 



— A club of students, under the charge of four experienced tu- 

 tors, will be formed at Seal Harbor, Mount Desert, Me. , for studj' 

 and tuition during the summer of 1890. The object of the club 

 will be to prepare students for the college entrance examinations 

 in the fall, and also to assist any who have fallen behind in their 

 studies in making up their defisiencies. The club will be under 

 the charge of Louis L. Hooper (Harvard '89), assi-tant in physics 

 in Harvard College, who was at the bead of a similar club suc- 

 cessfully carried on last summer at North Edgecomb, Me. He will 

 be assisted by L. H. Dow in ancient languages, N. R. George, jun., 

 in mathematics and physics, and J. B. Scott in modern languages, 

 all of whom hold very high rank in the present senior class of 

 Harvard College. They have specialized in their several depart- 

 ments, and are experienced tutors. As each student will receive 

 separate and individual instruction in all his studies, his peculiar 

 needs can be met, and rapid and thorough progress can be made. 

 Although the club is organized principally for study, there will 

 be ample opportunity for exercise and recreation; A tennis court 

 and row-boats have been secured, and, as is well known, the 

 neighborhood offers remarkable advantages in the way of excur- 

 sions and mountain-climbing. For further particulars, address 

 Louis L. Hooper, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 



— At a regular meeting of the Washington Chemical Society, 

 April 11, Dr. Thomas Taylor of the United States Department of 

 Agriculture exhibited a new flash-light intended to take the 

 place of several kinds which have of late proved highly danger- 

 ous in practice. The composition of Dr. Taylor's new flash-light 

 consists largely of charcoal made from the silky down of the 

 milk-weed, — a form of carbon which he prefers to all others, be- 

 cause of its freedom from ash. A few grains of this new com- 

 position placed on tissue-paper and lighted by a punk-match 

 produced a prompt and blinding flash, while it was observed that 

 the paper on which the powder rested was not even scorched. 

 The flash being instantaneous, the heat is not sufficient to ignite 

 the most inflammable material on which the powder may rest. 

 Dr. Taylor demonstrated this by using, with the same paper for 



a base, an inferior flash-light, which set fire to the paper at once. 

 This is owing to the comparatively slow combustion of the chem- 

 icals used in the inferior grade. Dr. Taylor said that the powder 

 of his new flash-light will not explode either by concussion or 

 friction. 



— On Monday evening, April 31, at the meeting of the section of 

 mineralogy of the New York Academy of Sciences with the New 

 York Mineralogical Club, Mr. George F. Kunz spoke on the sub- 

 jects of " The Minerals exhibited at the Paris Exposition of 1889"' 

 and " A Remarkable Group of Meteorites from Kiowa County^ 

 Kan.;" and Dr. Joseph H. Hunt exhibited a collection of speci- 

 mens from Paterson, N.J. , consisting of zeolites and quartz pseu- 

 domorphs after zeolites. Mr. Kunz also exhibited a new and un- 

 described meteoric iron from Colfax, Rutherford County, N.C., 

 and spoke on the asteriation in calcite as observed by patting a 

 light through transparent cleavages, on the native antimony from 

 Kern County, Cal., and on the pallasites and meteoric iron from 

 Kiowa County, Kan. 



— The following is a complete list of the papers read before the 

 National Academy of Sciences, at its Ajjril meeting, 1S90: "The 

 Effects of the Inhalation of Nitrogen, Nitrous Oxide, Oxygen, 

 and Carbonic Acid upon the Circulation, with Special Reference 

 to the Nitrous Oxides, Aneesthesia, and Asphyxia," by H. C. 

 Wood; " On the Application of Interference Methods to Astro- 

 nomical Measurements,'" by A. A. Michelson; " Physiognomy of 

 the American Tertiary Hemiptera," by S. H. Scudder; " Totality 

 of the Eclipse of 1889," Dec. 2S," by D. P. Todd; " The Bud'lingof 

 Salpa considered in Relation to the Question of the Inheritance of 

 Acquired Characters," by W. K. Brooks; " Recent Advances 

 towards a Knowledge of the Fishes of the Great Oceanic Depths," 

 by G Brown Goode and Tarleton H. Bean; " A System of Classi- 

 fication of Variable Stars,'' by S. C. Chandler; " On the Spectrum 

 of Metals," by H. A. Rowland; " On the Cheapest Light,'" by S, 

 P. Langley; "On the Relation of Secular Disintegration to Cer- 

 tain Crystalline and Transitional Schists" and " On the Structure 

 of the Green Mouniains," by R. Pumpelly; "The Interrelation- 

 ships of the lohthyopsida," " The Notacanthoid Fishes as Repre- 

 sentatives of a Peculiar Order," and "The Halosauroid Fishes 

 Typical of a Special Order, '" by Theo. Gill; "Researches on the 

 Double Halides " and "Researches on the Sulphinides," by Ira 

 Remsen. 



— The faculty of the Wharton School of Finance and Economy, 

 at the University of Pennsylvania, have been steadily developing 

 during the past months a library, which, now that it has reached 

 very lai'ge dimensions, is making its impoi-tance felt. The foun- 

 dation was laid by the great collection of the late Stephen ColwelV 

 comprising between seven and eight thousand volumes, and in- 

 cluding nearly every important book on the subjects of finance 

 and political economy in the English, French, and Italian lan- 

 guages published before 1860. This was supplemented by the 

 bequest of the library of the late Henry C. Carey, which embraces 

 many later works and pamphlets, and is especially rich hi statis- 

 tical literature, European government reports, and the like. Some' 

 time since, in addition, a collection of about three thousand Eng- 

 lish pamphlets on financial and economical subjects, formerly 

 the property of Mr. McCalmot of London, was obtained, coiver- 

 ing the period from the close of the seventeenth century to our 

 own time, and bound in chronological order. Professor Bastable- 

 of Dublin has pronounced this to be better than the similar 

 collection of the British Museum. It is necessary, of course, in; 

 order to keep pace with the times, to buy the best of the new- 

 books within the scope of the Wharton School. An annual fantf 

 has accordingly been provided for this purpose; and a number ot 

 works, several of them fresh from the author's hands, whicb 

 were selected by Professor James while abroad last summer, have 

 lately arrived at the university. A department of the library of 

 especial interest is that pertaining to municipal government. It 

 is hoped that all documents pertaining to this subject for cities of 

 over fifty thousand inhabitants may be obtained. The eo opera- 

 ation of all municipal ofiicers is urgently requested, and the 

 receipt of any documents, however trifling, will be gratefulli^ 

 acknowledged. 



