38 KANSAS CITY RE VIE W OF SCIENCE. 



find in the summit of the range : Ptarmigan, (Lagopus leucurus) pine grouse, 

 ground sparrows and small, reddish hawk ; in the valleys : moose birds, cerulean 

 jays, blue birds and sparrows and an occasional robin, with the ever-present, 

 mischevious magpie, while a little horned owl is first seen three miles below our 

 camp. 



Truly, we can say, the rule of old " Father Winter" is broken, the birds, 

 the animals, are fast forming new ties, new homes ; all nature teems with renewal ; 

 all breathes new life and a continuation of that struggle, which, if not strictly the 

 survival of the fittest, is at least an indication of the renewal of vital force, an 

 effort to maintain the balance between the active and passive forces of creating 

 nature. I am inclined to believe that this, to us, so precocious an exhibition of 

 the effect of returning vigor and growth, cannot alone be ascribed to the power 

 of the sun's direct rays ; it'must be joined to an evolution of internal heat, stimu- 

 lating plant growth, apart from the action of the sun which cannot, I am per- 

 suaded, act so energetically through three or four feet of snow as to bring out 

 our willows in full inflorescence. E. L. B. 



SCIENCE LETTER FROM PARIS. 



Paris, March 16, 1879. 



Sixty years ago, Sir Humphrey Davy took two sticks of charcoal and pared 

 them to a pencil point; he connected each of them with a powerful electric bat- 

 tery; soon the sticks became red; placing them wider apart, a luminous jet of 

 light, of a convex form and very dazzling, was generated. This was the Voltaic 

 arc, and the origin of the present system of electrical illumination of large build- 

 ings and public squares. Ten yeats ago a focus of electricity was but a curios- 

 ity; it was viewed as a luminous aigrette, flashing from the summit of a building 

 in space like the tail of a comet. To-day this electric light is utilized instead of 

 gas in many theaters, railway termini, markets, public squares, galleries and 

 court-yards. Recently the Prince of Wales visited the printing-office of a leading 

 journal in this city, and was preceded by employes carrying "electric candles." 

 Davy's discovery must be ranked among the most beautiful applications of sci- 

 ence. It was in 181 7 that Mr. Winsor, an Englishman, experimented with coal 

 gas in Paris; two years later, the city hid no less than ten companies — all now 

 amalgamated, and where Englishmen occupy, hereditarily, the chief practical 

 posts. 



Returning to Davy's experiment, the electric current passing between the 

 two carbon points effects a veritable change of matter : one of the points wears 

 away incessantly, while the other, enriched by the loss, becomes enlarged. The 

 sticks, slowly burning, engender such an enormous heat that platinum melts in 

 the arc like butter. The brilliancy of the light depends on the interval main- 

 tained between the charcoal rods — these must be continually brought nearer to 



