582 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
S. N. A,, pp. 2 1. Sixteenth Annual Report of State Board of Agriculture, pp. 
179, Secretary J. W. Sanborn. First Annual Report of Associated Charities of 
Cambridge, pp. 27, Secretary Wm. W Piper. Seventy-Second Annual Cata- 
logue of Officers and Students of Hamilton College, 1883-4, pp. 80. Chart and 
Supplement to Pilot Chart of North Atlantic for December, pp. 11, Commander 
J. R Bartlett, U. S. N. Johns Hopkins University Circulars, Vol. 3 No. 27, 10 
cents, pp. 27. The Pansy, Mrs. G. R. Alden, Publishers, D. Lothrop & Co., 
Illustrated, pp. 40. Scientific Proceedings of Ohio Mechanics Institute, Robert B. 
Warder, Editor, Vol. 2 No. 3, published quarterly, $1.00. Scandinavia, "^whXx^- 
ed 20 N. Clark St., Chicago, 111., monthly, $2 00. The Childhood of Religion, by 
Edward Clodd, F. R. A. S., No. 47, 15 cents. Local Government and Free 
Schools in S. C, by B. James Ramage, A. B., published by Johns Hopkins 
University. Bulletin of Essex Institute, Vol. 14 No. i— 12, pp. 59. 
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY. 
RECENTLY PATENTED IMPROVEMENTS. 
J. C. HIGDON, M. E., KANSAS CITY, MO. 
Automatic Cut-Out for Telephones. — The object of a device recently 
patented by Messrs. C. D. Wright and C. A. Fisher, of Petersburg, 111., is ta 
provide an attachment for telephone instruments so improved that all the tele- 
phones on the line, between any two given instruments of this nature, may auto- 
matically be thrown out of circuit, thereby greatly shortening the same and de- 
creasing the resistance to the current in a degree corresponding to the number of 
instruments cut out. 
A mechanism of clock-work is released by means of an electro-magnet, 
when the current passes, and a lever resting upon a peculiarly notched wheel of 
the mechanism, is virtually brought in contact with one of the binding-posts, 
through the medium of a spring. The current is thus short-circuited, passing 
through the instrument without passing through the transmitter and receiver. 
The necessity of removing a telephone, should a subscriber from any cause 
not desire to operate it for any length of time, and the considerable expense of 
putting one up again in the same room, for another subscriber, seems to be 
cheaply obviated in a very simple and efficient manner by the device. 
RARE FISHES 
A large number of rare and curious specimens of deep sea fishes have just 
been received by Prof. Gill, of the Smithsonian Institution. They were caught 
