Nov. 30, 1888.] 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



55i 



general i£ote$* 



The Pyreneean Association. — According to La 

 Nature, an association has been formed under this name 

 for the study of the geology, botany, ornithology, and 

 entomology of the Pyrenees. It includes among its mem- 

 bers a number both of Spanish and French naturalists. 



The Explosions at Krakatoa.— In the report on this 

 outburst issued by the Royal Society it is stated that the 

 noise of the explosions was heard at a distance of 2,000 

 miles from the volcano in all directions, whilst to the 

 south-west it was heard at Rodriguez very nearly 3,000 

 miles from Krakatoa. 



The Nature of Milk. — M. A. Bechamp, in a memoir 

 read before the French Academy of Sciences, shows that 

 milk is not an emulsion, but that its globules are vesicles 

 formed on the type of the cellule, being provided with 

 coatings which hinder them from being separated from 

 the milk by means of ether. 



Bricks for Paving Streets. — According to the 

 Chicago Journal of Commerce, bricks steeped in bitumi- 

 nous matter are used in many cities in the United States 

 for paving the streets with very good results. In locali- 

 ties where there is a very heavy traffic such pavements 

 are found in good repair after being in use for six years. 



Abnormal Sense Perceptions. — The peculiar asso- 

 ciation of a colour with a sound, so that a certain sound 

 heard at once vividly arouses the sensation of a given 

 colour, is, according to Science, not uncommon. The 

 association of colours with smells is a much rarer pheno- 

 menon, and that of colours with tastes rarer still. Dr. 

 Fere gives an account of a woman who, after tasting 

 vinegar, saw everything red for a few minutes, and then 

 everything bright green for more than an hour. 



able progress has been made in religious ideas, when 

 the older form of religion becomes secondary. It owes 

 its existence to the confusion of the material with the 

 immaterial; to the belief in an indwelling God being 

 gradually lost sight of, until the power originally 

 believed to belong to the God is finally attributed to 

 the tangible and inanimate object itself. 



Novel Phenomena with Glow-Lamps. — According to 

 the Electrical World, glow-lamps in the vicinity of 

 apparatus giving considerable static discharges have a 

 very short life. On holding near a Weston lamp (no 

 volts) the end of a wire connected with a Holtz machine, 

 if the lamp be burning and the machine is turned 

 rapidly, the filament will break in from one to five 

 minutes. The life of lamps can be prolonged by putting 

 over the bulb a wire netting connected with the earth. 



Quackery Rampant. — Dr. B. F. Davenport, chemist 

 the Massachusetts Slate Board of Health, has been 

 analysing some fashionable tonics or bitters, and has ob- 

 tained startling results. Of forty-seven of these concoc- 

 tions which he has examined, forty-six contain alcohol 

 in proportions varying from 6 to 47^5 per cent., the 

 average being 21 '5 (!). This is the more deplorable as 

 several of them are stated by the vendors to be free 

 from alcohol. One tonic, containing 4f6 per cent of 

 alcohol, is, as we learn from Science, wickedly recom- 

 mended to " inebriates struggling to reform." 



Fetishism. — Major A. B. Ellis, in his work on the "Tshi- 

 speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast," takes a new view 

 of fetishism. He does not think it characteristic of pri- 

 mitive peoples, or of races low in the scale of civiliza- 

 tion, but believes that it is reached only after consider- 



Restrictions on Hypnotism. — We find the following 

 good examples recorded in Science : The Belgian 

 Academy of Medicine, after a prolonged discussion, has 

 recommended a law prohibiting public hypnotic perform- 

 ances. Austria, Italy, Denmark, Germany, and most of 

 the Swiss cantons have already adopted similar 

 measures. Trie public have become strongly impressed 

 with the dangers of an unskilled or evil-minded use of 

 hypnotism, and a healthy sentiment prevails in favour of 

 its restriction to experts. At the last session of the 

 French Association for the Advancement of Science it 

 was voted in the section of Hygiene that all public exhibi- 

 tions of hypnotism should be legally prohibited in France. 



Encroachments of the Sea in Bretagne. — In a 

 letter read at a recent meeting of the French Academy of 

 Sciences, M. Dechatellier described a submarine peat- 

 digging near Pont l'Abbe. The fact is not novel, and in 

 1882 Alexandre Chevremont wrote, in his work on the 

 " Movements of the Ground :" " From the mouth of the 

 Loire to that of the Coesnon, all round the Peninsula, 

 there are found imposing vestiges of forests beyond the 

 present coast lines. M. Dechatellier describes Roman 

 remains 800 metres in advance of the coast, at a point 

 which is now always under water. MM. Gosselet and 

 Rigaux have found on the Flemish shore marine deposits 

 covering remains of the Roman epoch. 



The Earth's Cloud Belts. — We learn, from the re- 

 searches of M. Teisserene de Bort, that there is a marked 

 tendency of the earth's cloudiness throughout the year 

 to arrange itself in belts parallel to the equator. A belt 

 of maximum cloudiness may be traced near the equator, 

 two bands of light cloudiness extending from 15 to 35 

 degrees of latitude north and south, and two zones of 

 greater cloudiness between 45 and 60 degrees, beyond 

 which the sky seems to become clearer towards the 

 poles. These zones have a noticeable tendency to follow 

 the sun in its change of declination, moving northward in 

 spring and southward in autumn. The zones of clear 

 sky correspond with regions of high pressure. The dis- 

 tribution of cloudiness, according to M. De Bort, is a 

 direct consequence of the course of the wind. 



Vulcano in a State of Fresh Eruption. — Shortly 

 before November 15th this island showed fresh signs of 

 volcanic activity, and at present its many craters are in 

 a state of eruption more intense than that of last August. 

 Every two minutes ashes and stones are thrown high 

 into the air, each outburst being accompanied by 

 tremendous noises and falls of rock. No one is now on 

 the island, nor does any one approach it, save an old man 

 who goes for a few minutes each day to trim and light 

 the lighthouse lamp. Stones from Vulcano are said to 

 fall frequently at Milazzo, the point of Sicily nearest it, 

 whilst at Messina clouds of volcanic dust, driven thither 

 by the wind, blacken the streets and irritate the eyes of 



