1^2 U'esf American Scientist 



ST. NICHOLAS FOR JUL Y. 



St. Nicholas has a strongly patriotic flavor, appropriate to the 

 Fourth of July. Even the Brownies become imbued with the pre 

 valent enthusiasm; and celebrate the day at night. Miss Jessie C 

 Glasier, a new writer, contributes an amusing sketch of negro 

 child-life, called "A Gunpowder Plot," which is capitally illus- 

 trated by E. W. Kemble. Miss Lilian Dynevor Rice presents 

 " A Fourth of July Record" in bright and clever verse. " Betty's 

 Sunday," — charmingly illustrated by R. B. Birch, — carries us back 

 to the War of 1812, and tells of a brave little American girl's ad- 

 venture with the enemy. The installment of " Winning a Com- 

 mission," too, — with its pictures of cadet life at West Point, — 

 falls in line with these timely attractions of the number. 



HOPE FOR CONSUMPTIVES. 



Queen and Co., Phila., have issued a pamphlet on a new treat- 

 ment of the afif ctions of the respiratory organs, and of blood poi- 

 son by rectal injections of gases, after the method of Dr. Bergeon, 

 by Dr. V. Morel, 21 pages, octavo, price 25 cents. This work, 

 translated from the French by L. E. Holman, will be of special 

 interest to physicians, presenting, as it does, a possible though 

 dangerous means of curing hopeless cases. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



A petrified log ten feet long and fourteen inches thick was 

 found in Meco, Kansas, recently. 



A dictionary giving scientific and technical terms in all lan- 

 guages is projected by Prof. Vilanova, and is endorsed by the 

 International Geographical Congress. 



Hydrophobia is unknown in Lapland, but Pasteur has just 

 shown that the dogs may be inoculated with the disease. 



The flatness of Denmark is something remarkable, a recent 

 geographical discussion having shown that the loftiest mountain 

 of the country is only 535 feet high. 



The proportion of colors in eyes in Italy is thus estimated by 

 Prof. Mantegazzi: Black eyes, twenty-two per cent.; chestnut, 

 sixty- four; blue, eleven and gray eyes, three per cent. 



The diminished cost of production in metal work was illustrated 

 recently by Dr. John Percy, in an address to the British Iron and 

 Steel Ir.stitute, by the statement that a gross of steel pens, 

 formerly costing $35, might now be produced for eight cents. 

 The cost of making gold chains has been reduced to an eighth of 

 what it was. 



