January 7, 1887.] 



SCIENCE. 



11 



the bullet. Then a pistol with a simple-acting 

 magazine, containing twelve bullets, was tried, 

 allowing to give ofif forty shots per minute." 



— Baltimore is about to build a crematory mod- 

 elled after that of Buflfalo. 



— From the Medical and surgical reporter we 

 learn, that, among the recruits recognized as un- 

 fit for military service in Switzerland in 1885, 

 were 66 per cent of the tobacco-workers, 67 per 

 cent of the basket-makers. 60 per cent of the 

 tailors, 25 per cent of the butchers, and 25 per 

 cent of the stonemasons and carpenters. Of 

 6,154 recruits in canton Berne, 1,833 were re- 

 fused ; of these, 581 suffered from goitre, and 

 162 from flat-foot. 



— The Abbe Laflamme, of the University La- 

 val, Quebec, has presented a note to the Royal 

 society of Canada (' Memoirs,' 1886) on the con- 

 tact of the paleozoic and archean formations in 

 his province. Numerous exposures were exam- 

 ined, and in nearly all of them the Trenton lime- 

 stone was found resting immediately on the clean, 

 firm, rather smooth surface of the gneiss, without 

 transitional deposits. Fragments of the crystal- 

 line rocks in the stratified are seldom found. The 

 limestone beds follow the irregularities of their 

 foundation, mantling over the mounds, and de- 

 scending into the hollows. At certain points a 

 sandstone lies on the crystallines : this is regarded 

 as a time-equivalent of the Trenton, owing its 

 composition to local geographic control not felt 

 elsewhere. The change from the Trenton lime- 

 stone to the overlying Utica slates is described as 

 abrupt, without traces of gradual transition. 



— The Franklin institute of Philadelphia has 

 recently determined to attempt the formation of 

 a state weathei'-service for Pennsylvania on the 

 plan generally pursued by these organizations. 

 The offer of the chief signal officer to furnish a 

 member of the signal corps to assist in the work 

 is accepted, and the legislature is to be petitioned 

 for an appropriation of three thousand dollars for 

 instruments and publications. The chairman of 

 the committee in charge of the matter is Mr. W. 

 P. Tatham, who should be addressed, in care of 

 the Franklin institute, Philadelphia, by volunteer 

 observers in Pennsylvania qualified for the work 

 proposed. 



— An account of the hurricane of March 3 and 

 4, 1886. over the Fiji Islands, was read at a recent 

 meetin<4 of the Eojal meteorological society in 

 London, by Mr. R. L. Holmes. This storm was 

 the most destructive that has ever been known to 

 occur in the Fiji group. The lowest barometer 

 reading was 27.54 inches at Vuna, in Taviuni. 



The storm was accompanied by a great wave from 

 18 to 30 feet in height, which swept over the land, 

 and caused an immense amount of damage. It 

 was reported that 50 vessels were wrecked, and 64 

 lives lost, during this hurricane. 



— The state board of health of Pennsylvania 

 has issued its first annual report. It includes re- 

 ports on the pollution of the Schuylkill River, the 

 sanitary condition of Harrisburg, a detailed ac- 

 count of the typhoid-fever epidemic at Plymouth. 

 In this famous epidemic there were 1,153 cases of 

 sickness, with 114 deaths, and an expense of $97,- 

 120.25. A description of the disinfection appara- 

 tus employed at the municipal hospital of Phila- 

 delphia is also given. 



— The ninth biennial report of the state board 

 of health of California has just been issued. For 

 the year ending June 30, 1885, there were 8,238 

 deaths recorded in the state : 1,227 deaths occurred 

 from consumption. The rate from this cause is 

 but little less than that of Massachusetts. 



— The state board of health of Massachusetts 

 has issued a manual containing the statutes of 

 that state relating to the public health, and the 

 decisions of the supreme court relating to the 

 same. 



— A wood-turner of San Francisco died ten 

 days after receiving an injury to the brain which 

 was not discovered until several days afterward. 

 While at work at his trade, a steel chisel became 

 detached from a grooving-machine, and struck 

 him in the head, producing a fracture of the 

 bones of the nose, and severely injuring the left 

 eye, so seriously as to destroy that organ and 

 necessitate its removal. After the removal of the 

 eye, the surgeons found behind it a piece of steel 

 three and a half inches long, one inch wide at the 

 centre, and tapering to sharp points at the ends. 

 One end was buried one inch and a half in the 

 brain. The velocity and force with which this 

 chisel must have entered the brain may be im- 

 agined when it is stated that the drum to which it 

 was attached was making twenty-three hundred 

 revolutions a minute. 



— A correspondent of the Medical press writes 

 from Berlin that the toxic qualities of the cholera 

 bacillus have been investigated by Professor Can- 

 tani of Naples. He claims that tlie poison may 

 be due to ptomaines, to the secretions of the 

 bacilli, or to the bacilli themselves. Experiments 

 made on dogs lead him to incline toward the last 

 theory. Pure cholera cultures in beef-tea steril- 

 ized by heating to 100* C. , injected into the dog's 

 peritoneum, produced all the symptoms of cholera- 

 poisoning ; while pure beef-tea, injected in the 



