22 



ing the observatory the visitor will pick up a small instrument 

 attached to a rope of insulated wire. It contains nine contact 

 keys, and is made to fold like a book, so that it can be put in the 

 pocket. By touching the first key the visitor lights up the building 

 with electric lights. By pressing the second key he moves the 

 dome and at the sama time opens the shutter. By pressing 

 another key the observer can move the telescope in right ascension 

 and a fourth enables him to move it in declination. He has now 

 to bring himself into a position to observe. The dome of the 

 Lick Observatory will be 70 feet in internal diameter. Instead of 

 having to climb into an observing chair, which would be 25 feet 

 high, and very heavy to move, he presses a key, which causes the 

 whole floor to move up or down at will, so that the observer can 

 bring himself within a few feet of the eye-piece, and look through 

 it while comfortably sitting in a low chair." This is a great 

 contrast to the California of 15 years ago. Practical electricity has 

 not apparently made any great progress during the last twelve 

 months, either as a means of locomotion or light. It is true that 

 six telegraphic messages can now be sent through the same wire 

 at the same time, and a small vessel, propelled by electricity, the 

 *' Volta " has actually accomplished a voyage to Calais and back, 

 but the great problem of domestic lighting by electricity remains, 

 practically, unsolved. Mr. George Westingham, however, announces 

 tbat he has discovered a new system of distribution which will 

 reduce the cost of electric lightning some 95 per cent. 



It would almost seem that animal instinct trenches closely on 

 reason, if we are to believe an incident related by a scientific 

 journal. It is here stated that a swallow not only set the broken 

 leg of one of its young, but neatly bound up the injured limb with a 

 horsehair. I should mention that this instance of animal sagacity 

 is quoted from an American journal. But if animals are advancing 

 it appears that man is in some respects retrograding. Herr 

 Oscar Schmidt has lately published the result of his researches 

 on human dentition, fromwhich we learn that man will eventually 

 become a toothless animal. It may be gratifying to dentists, but 

 not at all so to most of us, to be informed that our teeth are 

 going from bad to worse, and that dental caries and decay are 

 becoming more and more frequent. We are told too, that pre- 

 historic man possessed a much stronger and more prominent jaw of 

 a decidedly Simian type, and was blessed with ten more teeth than 

 his puny descendants. These teeth used to wear down to the gums 

 in old age, from grinding roots and gnawing bones, but did not 

 decay. This lasb assertion is apparently confirmed by the recent 

 discovery of two skulls of prehistoric men, of the Neanderthal 

 type, in France. This deterioration of our teeth dates from the 



