8 4 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
age of birds might be altered according to desire, by using appropriate reagents. 
— August Vogel, in Popular Science Monthly for October. 
HISTORICAL DEPARTMENT JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY. 
This is emphatically an age of historical study ; in American history there is 
unprecedented activity. Among other indications of an awakened historical 
spirit is the appearance at short intervals of very interesting historical monographs 
from the Johns Hopkins University. In his eloquent "History of the English 
People " Mr. Green says that one studies the early popular meetings of the Eng- 
lish communities before the conquest of England with something of the same awe 
with which one follows a great river back to its sources. It was with some such 
feeling as this that the Spectator, not long ago, found himself seated in the pleas- 
ant rooms devoted to the historical studies and researches of Dr. Adams in the 
Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore, where the data for American history are 
being so rapidly collected. The parlor floor of an old dwelling had been fitted 
up for the work of the historical department of the University ; the walls from 
floor to ceiling are lined with books, including the library of an eminent German 
scholar to whose instruction many American students look back with profound 
gratitude \ a long table, surrounded by comfortable chairs, accommodates the 
classes in history, and the entire absence of any of the conventional features of a 
college recitation-room is very agreeable. The atmosphere of the place gives no 
hint of dry recitations, but rather suggests the pleasant intercourse of a teacher 
with a band of students who are, as in this case, his companions in active histor- 
ical research. In these pleasant rooms a very fruitful and promising historical 
work is steadily going on and bearing visible fruit in monographs on all manner 
of themes in our early history. —Christian Union. 
VIBRATION FROM TRAINS. 
At the meeting of the American Society of Civil Engineers, September 5th, 
a paper was read by James L. Randolph, member of the society, and chief en- 
gineer of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, upon ''vibration, or the effect of pass- 
ing trains on iron bridges, masonry and other structures." Mr. Randolph refers 
to the fact that double-track bridges are moved in the direction of passing trains 
•and are consequently twisted, and strains are produced not provided for. Also 
that cattle-stops and open culverts where built of rubble work have the walls 
shaken to pieces by vibration. The remedy he has supplied for these culverts 
and stops has been to build them of large stone as nearly the same size as possi- 
ble. The tall, thin bridge-piers and abutments on which iron bridges rest have 
their stone so much disarranged by vibration as to make it necessary to secure 
them with timber and iron straps. Iron bridges resting on stone pedestal vibrate 
