782 



KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



The death, at the Observatory, Armagh, of 

 the Rev. Thomas Romney Robinson, D. D., 

 Royal Astronomer of Ireland, is announced. 

 He was eighty-nine years of age, and had 

 occupied the office of Astronomer Royal for 

 nearly sixty-seven years. 



, The Report of the Fifteenth Annual Meet- 

 ing of the Missouri Press Association has 

 been printed in most tasteful style by J. 

 West Goodwin of The Bazoo^ Sedalia, Mo. 

 It is a model of typography, press-work and 

 paper. 



Havens' Mill at Leavenworth, Kansas, 

 was destroyed on the 23d ult., by an ex- 

 plosion in the dust room, followed by a fire 

 which consumed the entire property. 



ITEMS FROM PERIODICALS. 



A correspondent of the St. Louis Globe- 

 Democrat says that the mounds of the pre- 

 historic people in the overflowed districts, 

 and the uses to which they have been applied 

 as life-saving stations, suggest the means by 

 which the great Mississippi Valley may be 

 peopled and cultivated with safety and profit. 

 These overflows are liable to occur at fre- 

 quent periods, and are of value to the soil; 

 they renew the wornout lands and preserve 

 them forever new. The disadvantages are 

 such as are now apparent in the sweeping 

 away of buildings, drowning of stock, and 

 the loss of human lives. These can all be 

 preserved by building residences, store-hous- 

 es and stock corrals on artificial mounds, 

 which can be made at less cost than is in- 

 volved in abortive attempts to hedge in the 

 mighty floods within the imaginary bounds of 

 a river. 



made for these remarkable monuments of in- 

 digenous American civilization." 



M. Desire Charnay resumes in the North 

 American Review, for April, his account of 

 explorations in Central America. He claims 

 that his recent discovery of bas reliefs depict- 

 ing equestrians and other objects pertaining 

 to the Spanish conquest, show that they were 

 not executed earlier than A. D. 1410, and 

 says that " it is time that an end should be 

 made of the absurd claims of high antiquity 



John Fiske contributes an article to the 

 Atlantic Monthly, for April, of great popular 

 and scientific interest entitled " Europe be- 

 fore the Arrival of Man," and promises an- 

 other at an early day upon " The Arrival of 

 Man in Europe." We copy a portion of the 

 former in this number. 



The Louisville Courier-Journal claims for 

 Captain Ward, of Sumter, S. C, the owner- 

 ship of the oldest book in America, " The 

 Life of William Cavendish, Duke of New 

 Cast'e." published in 1685. The absurdity 

 of this claim is shown by the editor of the 

 New York Observer, who states that ''vol- 

 umes printed between 1450 and 1500 are to 

 be found in numbers of our private as well 

 as public libraries." The editor of the Re- 

 view owns a volume entitled " The Haven of 

 Health," by Dr. Thos. Cogan, printed in 

 1588, and there are several books owned in 

 this city that were printed 300 years ago or 

 or over. 



The new offices of the New York Observer 

 are in Barnes' Building, No. 21 Park Row. 

 It is published every Thursday from its new 

 office, in its unusually handsome style. This 

 veteran of the religious press, having passed 

 uninjured through the fire will continue its 

 former good work with fresh vigor and ac- 

 customed courage while its secular depart- 

 ment will be second to no newspaper of this 

 country in matters relating to literature, art, 

 fecience, etc.; ^3.15 per annum. 



The Popular Science Monthly, for April, 

 says that M. A. Laveran has found in the 

 blood of patients suffering from malarial poi- 

 son, parasitic organisms which are not found 

 in the blood of persons suffering from diseas- 

 es that are not of malarial origin. These or- 

 ganisms rapidly disappeared under the influ- 

 ence of the quinine treatment, and the addi- 

 tion of a minute quantity of a dilute solution 

 of sulphate of quinine to a drop of blood 

 sufficed to destroy the organisms. 



