GO KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



sulphate (traces), magnesium (probably phosphate), potassium phosphate, sodium 

 chloride, iron (compound not determined), and water. Plastin can be separated 

 by pressure from the liquid portions of protoplasm. The albuminoids collectively 

 scarcely amount to 30 per cent of the dry substance. Hence the supposition that 

 protoplasm consists of albumen must be abandoned, and we must cease to com- 

 pare a plasma cell with a particle of white of egg. — Scientific American. 



THE BLACK RACES OF OCEANICA. 



Negro forms are figured among the earliest representations of men on an 

 cient monuments. As early as the eighteenth dynasty (seventeen hundred years 

 before the Christian era), the artists of Egypt represented at least five races of 

 negroes. Nigritic types were also figured by the Greeks, Romans, Assyrians, 

 Babylonians and Persians, although none of these people had as extended knowl- 

 edge of Africa as the Egyptians had. The examination of all the monuments 

 which have come down from antiquity makes it evident that the negro races of 

 Africa and Asia were well known. Scientific investigations of negro charac- 

 teristics began to be made in the sixteenth century. The first to record one was 

 Albert Durer, who, in 1525, drew a profile of a negro inclosed in a system of lines, 

 of which an oblique and a horizontal line formed at their junction a real facial 

 angle. MM. de Quatrefages and Hamy, in their " Crania Ethnica," begin the 

 study of the negro races with the negroes of Oceanica, and select as their point 

 of departure the Negritos, the most brachycephalic race. The Negrito race 

 proper, which was first observed in the Phihppine Islands, has been found in the 

 interior of the Peninsula of Malacca, the Sunda Islands, and the Andaman Islands. 

 M. Hamy has been able to trace it even to the interior of India. — Dr. Verneau, 

 ■in Popular Science MontJily. 



GYMNASTICS AS A CURE OF DISEASE. 



Physical vigor is the basis of all moral and bodily welfare, and a chief condi- 

 tion of permanent health. Like manly strength and female purity, gymnastics 

 and temperance should go hand in hand. An effeminate man is half sick ; with- 

 out the stimulus of physical exercise, the complex organism of the human body 

 is liable to disorders which abstinence and chastity can only partly counteract. 

 By increasing the action of the circulatory system, athletic sports promote the 

 elimination of effete matter and quicken all the vital processes till languor and 

 dyspepsia disappear like rust from a busy plowshare. " When I reflect on the 

 immunity of hard-working people from the effects of wrong and over-feeding," 

 says Dr. Boerhaave, "I cannot help thinking that most of our fashionable diseases 

 might be cured mechanically instead of chemically, by climbing a bitterwood tree or 

 chopping it down, if you like, rather than swallowing a decoction of its disgust- 

 ing leaves." 



