Notes and Nezvs. 



Capt. L. E. Frazer, who has charge of the Lick Observatory 

 on Mount Hamilton, Cal., was in the city recently. He hopes 

 to have his telescope ready for observation by the New Year. 



Lieut. Thos. L. Casey made a short collecting trip to Fort 

 Yuma, in search of coleoptera, in December. 



The fossil skeleton of a whale over thirty feet in length, has 

 been discovered in Monterey county at over 3,300 feet above the 

 sea. 



A postal left Albany, N. Y. on the first of January, and traveled 

 around the world, returning to Albany, in eighty-nine days. 



Two new species of fungi, collected by Dr. H. W. Harkness, 

 of the recently described genus, Keller mannia are characterized 

 in the October No. of the Journal of mycology. 



A new postal card is to be used by the United States, as soon 

 as the stock of the present one is exhausted. 



The Photographic News states that Abney has succeeded in 

 preparing plates which are sensitive to the rays lying beyond the 

 red end of the spectrum, the dark heat rays, and with such plates 

 used with a rock-salt lens there should be a possibility of photo- 

 graphing bodies which possess a high temperature, although that 

 temperature may be far below that needed to render them self- 

 luminous. 



A London physician, who for six months tested Dr. Jaeger's 

 plan of wearing nothing but wool, day or night, says the result 

 has been a complete immunity from colds and a marked increase 

 in capacity for work. Instead of alternate feelings of heat and 

 cold there has been a uniform and most agreeable glow of warmth. 

 — [Australian Journal of Pharmacy. 



The Cincinnati Medical News says that Dr. Koch tells the fol- 

 lowing story about the origin of his celebrated cultivative experi- 

 ments. He had been, like many others, trying various kinds of 

 decoctions and infusions, when, walking along the street one day, 

 he noticed a potato covered with a fungus growth, and it occured 

 to him that disease germs might thrive equally well on the same 

 nutriment. This was the beginning of his wonderful series of dry 

 cultivated experiments, and thus Professor Whittaker expressed 

 it at New Orleans: "The potato was to Koch what the apple was 

 to Newton." 



Natural gas has been discovered in paying quantities in nine- 

 teen states and territories of the Union. 



A remarkable tree is mentioned in the Gardeners' Chronicle, 

 which is said by Mr. W. T. Thiselton Dyer to be absolutely in- 

 destructible by fire, it surviving in large districts where the dry 

 pastures and bush are burnt twice a year, and everything except 

 this tree is destroyed. It would be interesting to learn to what 



