EDITORIAL NOTES. 
to be struck in commemoration of the 
event. The medal bore the following in- 
scription: ‘‘ Presented to the United States 
by Ismail, Khedive of Egypt, 1881. Quar- 
ried at Syene and erected at Heliopolis by 
Thothmes III. MRe-erected at Alexandria 
under Augustus. Removed to New York 
through the liberality of W. H. Vanderbilt, 
by the skill of Lieutenant-Commander H. H. 
Gorringe, U.S. N.” 
For the first time in the history of the 
Franklin Institutea woman has delivered a 
course of lectures there. Professor Rachel 
Bodley, of the Women’s Medical College of 
Pennsylvania, was the lecturer, and she gave 
a course of six lectures on ‘‘ Chemistry, as 
applied in the household.” They were 
largely attended. 
THE Kansas City REVIEW OF SCIENCE AND 
InNDuSTRY, edited by Theo. S. Case, presents 
an extensive array of general scientific in- 
formation, clearly and cencisely put, the 
most recent developments and latest move- 
ments in that line of progress upon which 
we base great hopes for the future. It is 
now running upon the fourth volume, and 
may be said to be an established institution. 
— Boston Post. 
The great event of the year in this section 
was the completion of the second trans-conti- 
nental line to the Pacific by the connecting 
of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Rail- 
road and the Southern Pacific Railroad at 
Tucson. On the 17th of March the first 
through passenger train for California, by 
this route, left the Kansas City Union De- 
pot. 
Pror. CLARENCE KING has resigned the 
position of Chief of the U. S. Geological 
Survey, and the president has appointed as 
his successor, Major S. W. Powell, the well 
known explorer of the western mountains, 
the Colorado river, etc. 
Pror. JNO. D. PARKER, of this city, has 
recently invented and patented a gauge for 
the accurate setting of compositors’ sticks to 
781 
and convenient aid to printers in presery- 
ing that uniformity in the width of columns 
which is indispensable to the proper locking 
up of forms. It is a simple and cheap de- 
vice which every printer should have. 
WE take pride anticipating all other jour- 
nals in announcing the valuable discoveries 
recently made by Dr. Heath in South Amer- 
ica. The exploration of the Beni river has 
hitherto defied all effort, but Dr. Heath has 
accomplished this result, so long desired, un- 
aided. He will hereafter;be counted among 
the noted explorers of South America. His 
brief letter in another column will prove of 
general interest. 
ITEMS FROM THE PERIODICALS. 
The New York Tribune says: ‘‘ The rava- 
ges of a parasitic insecton orange and lemon 
trees are attracting much attention in Italy 
and the West Indies, and have begun to 
create alarm in Florida, Louisiana and Cali- 
fornia. J. H. Bostwick, Inspector of Customs, 
who has charge of the Fruit Department of 
the New York Custom House, is taking great 
interest in the matter, and has some speci- 
mens from cargoes of oranges, the rinds of 
which are covered with incrustations of these 
parasites.”’ 
Since observing the above, we have been 
shown by Mr. John H. Ramsey of this city, 
an orange with an incrustation answering to 
the above description. The general shape of 
these parasites is similar to the Hemzpronites 
Crassus and its, dimensions about three lines 
in length and one line in diameter at the lar- 
ger end. 
THE Journal of the Franklin Institute, for 
March, comes to us with a supplement 
equivalent to sixty pages, being the plates to 
S. Dudley’s artitle on ‘‘ The Wearing Power 
of Steel Rails, in Relation to their Chemical 
Composition and Physical Properties.”” The 
article is the result of long study and the il- 
lustratiors are very interesting and curious. 
THE result of the census of 1880 shows the 
‘ different ‘‘ems,”? which will prove a useful | center of population of the United States to 
