608 



SCIUWGJE. 



[Vol. IX., No. 229 



head to the ivory part. It belongs to the large 

 sealing and walrus harpoon. A similar specimen 

 is in the collections of the British museum. Both 

 these specimens show two perforations at the 

 lower end of the harpoon-head which are not 

 found in the modern ones. Probably these served 

 for holding the harpoon-head to the shaft by 

 means of a thin line, in order to prevent the head 

 from coming off before the seal or walrus was 

 struck. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 

 A GEOLOGICAL society has been founded at 

 Brussels. The foundation of such a society was 

 planned in 1872, after the meeting of the archeo- 

 logical and prehistorical congress ; the efforts, 

 however, were unsuccessful, though this became 

 the impulse for the foundation of the geological 

 society at Liege. Mr. A. Houzeau de Letaie took 

 up the old plan, and on April 17, 1887, the founda- 

 tion of the society, under the name ' Societe Beige 

 de gtologie de pal6ontologie et d'hydrologie,' was 

 announced. 



— The fourth annual convention of the Associ- 

 ation of official agricultural chemists will meet at 

 the U. S. department of agriculture in Washing- 

 ton on Tuesday, Aug. 16, at ten o'clock. Tuesday 

 and "Wednesday will be devoted to a discussion of 

 the method of analysis of commercial fertilizers ; 

 Thursday and Friday, to cattle-food and dairy- 

 products. 



— The advance of education in India is marked 

 by the post-office statistics for the ten years end- 

 ing March 31, 1886. The number of letters in- 

 creased from 119,000,000 to 238.000,000 per annum, 

 and the increase in the number of newspapers sent 

 was no less than 115 per cent. 



— Mr. Edwin Arnold has just presented to the 

 Indian institute at Oxford, through the vice- 

 chancellor of the university, the Buddhist manu- 

 scripts and Pali books given to him by the priests 

 of Ceylon during his recent visit to that island. 



— Bates college has received an offer of thirty 

 thousand dollars provided an additional hundred 

 thousand dollars be raised by subscription among 

 the friends and alumni of the college. Of this 

 hundred thousand dollars, it is understood that 

 nearly one-half is already subscribed. It is pro- 

 posed to spend at least twenty-five thousand dol- 

 lars of the total amount in founding an observa- 

 tory. 



— Harvard university announces a considerable 

 expansion of its courses in English for next year. 

 Professor Child Avill offer courses in the English 

 Bible and in Spenser. Professor Briggs will lec- 



ture on English literature from Shakspeare to 

 Dryden, excluding Milton. Professor Hill will 

 add to his usual course on the prose writers of the 

 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries a course on 

 the prose writers of the nineteenth century. Mr. 

 Wendell will take a class through the study of the 

 English drama, excluding Shakspeare. 



— The Students' aid society of Boston has 

 aided over four hundred worthy students since 

 its organization. Most of the beneficiaries have 

 become teachers. President Freeman of Welles- 

 ley recently told what had become of the twenty- 

 five girls aided by the society who graduated from 

 Wellesley in 1886. Three of them are teaching 

 in foreign countries, two among the colored pop- 

 ulation in the south, and two among the Mormons. 

 Six are at the head of girls' schools in various 

 portions of the country. 



— The American public health association will 

 hold its fifteenth annual meeting at Memphis, 

 Tenn., on Nov, 8 to 11, 1887. The topics which 

 have been selected for discussion are, 1°, the pol- 

 lution of water-supplies ; 2", the disposal of refuse 

 matter of cities ; 3°, the disposal of refuse matter 

 of villages, summer resorts, and isolated tene- 

 ments ; 4°, animal diseases dangerous to man. 



— Bacteriologists are studying with great thor- 

 oughness and persistence the characteristics of the 

 typhoid bacillus. M. Chautemesse, in the course 

 of his researches, has found that this microbe forms 

 spores at a temperature between 19" and 48" C. 

 It develops even in sterilized water. At a tem- 

 perature of 45° C. the cultivations live for several 

 days, but ai'e destroyed by boiling. The bacilli 

 are destroyed by a solution of bichloride of mer- 

 cury of the strength of 1 to 20,000, and by a solu- 

 tion of sulphate of quinine, 1 to 800. Carbolic 

 acid, 1 to 400, has no effect upon them, and they 

 are not affected by hydrochloric acid. This latter 

 observation would seem to indicate that the germ 

 would retain its vitality in the gastric juice. 



— We leai'n from the London Electrical review 

 (April 22) that Prof. E. Frankland, the weU-known 

 professor of chemistry, has recently laatented some 

 improvements which he has devised in storage- 

 batteries, the object aimed at being the avoidance 

 of both buckling and the gradual detachment of 

 the active composition from the metallic poi'tion 

 of the plates, both these effects being brought 

 about by the expansion of the active material dur- 

 ing the use of the battery. This is effected, fii stly, 

 by so enclosing or embedding the active composi- 

 tion in the metallic portion of the plate as to pre- 

 vent its falling out ; and, secondly, by giving suffi- 

 cient strength to the plate to enable it to resist 

 bending or buckling. Professor Frankland em- 



