SCIENTIFIC NEAAAS. 



[Feb. 17, 1888. 



It seems likely that the magnesium flash-light may be 

 useful to naturalists and others, for recording the 

 motions of nocturnal insects, etc., when under examina- 

 tion • for instance, Darwin would no doubt have been 

 delighted to have secured a picture of his interesting 

 earthworms at work above the surface of the ground, 

 moving his fragments of coloured paper, etc., which 

 would be quite possible by this means, but impossible 

 by any other, owing to the retiring habits of these slimy 

 little agriculturists ; indeed, if the invention develops as 

 it promises at present, the uses to which it may be put 

 in the arts and sciences are innumerable. 



CONTRACTED HANDWRITING. 



'X'HE writing of the future will probably be done 

 mechanically by the Morse code, or something like 

 it. Printers, schoolboys, and in time everybody, will 

 learn the dots and dashes, which are as yet familiar only 

 to telegraph clerks and the inmates of certain schools for 

 the blind. But this is looking a good way ahead. Short- 

 hand is more immediately available. Useful, and even 

 indispensable, as it is to many people, shorthand can 

 never meet the case of all who wish to write fast. It is 

 subject to two striking disadvantages — (i) that several 

 hours a week must be spent in practice to maintain speed 

 in writing and reading, and (2) that the first copy needs 

 transcription for the press or for ordinary readers. 

 Accordingly, many people in our generation, who are not 

 writers by profession, have felt the want of some time- 

 saving method of long-hand. Macaulay, Darwin, and 

 other authors gained the rapidity so essential to free 

 writing by hasty abbreviations in their rough drafts, 

 putting cle for castle, and so on. This is no doubt a good 

 plan for important work, which needs thinking over 

 again, but, like shorthand, it implies transcription. 

 Newspaper men have established a system of useful 

 contractions, which are free from ambiguity, and under- 

 stood by all compositors. Omitting such conventions as 

 H o C, which are less important to non-political writers, 

 we give a selection of symbols generally serviceable. 

 All may safely be used in writing for the press. 



By actual trial we find that the adoption of these con- 

 tractions saves between one-ninth and one-tenth of the 

 space. A little contrivance will bring to light many 

 abbreviations useful in special cases. For instance, the 

 student, reporting chemical lectures in his note-book, may 

 write Cate (C-ate), Sate, Pate, for Carbonate, Sulphate, 

 Phosphate, and so on with other technical words, where 

 the chemical formula is unknown, or too complicated for 

 instant use. More important than the saving of time and 

 space is the relief to the attention, which is spared a 

 certain number of tiresome and mechanical details. 



W^HISTLING LANGUAGE. 



AN observation made by Lieutenant Quedenfeldt, a 

 German officer, during a residence in the island of 

 Gomera, is something more than a mere anthropological 

 curiosity. This island is one of the Canary group. Its 

 aspect is peculiarly rugged. Its surface is intersected by 

 a number of gullies and ravines, which branch out in an 

 intricate manner from the central table-land. As there 

 are no good roads and bridges these ravines can only be 

 crossed at particular spots, and there only with difficulty. 

 Hence, two persons living within a stone's-throw of 

 each other as the crow flies, might have to travel miles 

 to get within speaking distance of each other. They 

 communicate, therefore, by whistling, which is audible 

 to a greater distance than speech. These whistles are not 

 mere signals, but, as a contemporary puts it, are speech 

 translated into whistling. According to Lieutenant 

 Quedenfeldt, a Gomero can in this manner carry on a 

 long and complicated conversation with an interlocutor a 

 mile off. 



Here, therefore, we have rational communication con- 

 ducted, and ideas — not mere signals — conveyed without 

 the use of articulate speech. We are thus enabled to 

 understand that the lower animals may be able to com- 

 municate with each other without anything like human 

 speech, without anything traceable to " roots," and having 

 a grammatical structure. We believe that this fact, if 

 carefully weighed, will be found to annihilate the objec- 

 tions to evolution — so far as man is concerned — which 

 have been formulated by certain philologians. 



In this connection we are reminded of the conversa- 

 tions carried on by traders in Arabia, Persia, and Africa 

 with their fingers. This is nothing like a dumb-and- 

 deaf alphabet. The hands of the two parties are covered 

 with a cloth, and by mutual touches, pulls, and pressings 

 they are able to discuss a bargain, and come to an under- 

 standing without any possible interference from by- 

 standers. Wherein does such a finger-language differ 

 essentially from the antennal language of bees and 

 ants ? 



RECLAMATION OF WASTE LANDS. 



'X'WO of the most successful improvements on record 

 have been effected in France within the last few 

 years, both due to M. Chambrelent. One of the 

 localities thus transformed is the plain of Camargue, 

 extending from Aries to Marseille. It was, until recently, 

 a tract of salt marshes, unproductive and unhealthy, and 

 exposed to inundations. It has been protected by dykes 

 against the Rhone and the sea, and its waters are 

 drained into a lake, the Valcares, whence they are run 

 off by opportunity into the sea. Two large pumping 

 stations irrigate the land with soft water from the Rhone, 

 thus washing away the salt which rendered it barren. 

 More than to,ooo acres of this land are now laid out in 

 vineyards, which are already doing well. A still more 

 important reclamation, is that of the Grandes Landes on 

 the way from Bordeaux to Pau. This territory, nearly 

 two million acres in extent, was till lately barren 

 and fearfully unhealthy, but is now both productive 

 and salubrious. It has exported during the last two 

 years 130,000 telegraph poles and nearly 2,000,000 rail- 

 way sleepers. 



