240 Notes and Memoranda. 



the existing species of elephant, hut correspond with those of the mammoth. 

 Taken in connection with the analogous discovery of M. Lartet, M. Vihraye thinks 

 that no doubt can now exist that the men who sculptured these figures were 

 contemporaneous with the mammoth. 



Development oe Steiated Muscr/iAB Fibbe. — Dr. Wilson Fox has a 

 paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, in which he states that " the 

 earliest form in which muscular tissue appears in the tadpole is an oval 

 body containing one or more nuclei, and densely filled with pigmentary mat- 

 ter. This body has a well-defined outline, which induces the author to 

 regard it as a cell, though he has not succeeded in isolating any distinct 

 membrane. Such bodies increase in length with or without multiplication 

 of their nuclei, and after a short period a portion of their structure loses in great 

 part its pigment, and exhibits a striation sometimes transverse, sometimes lon- 

 gitudinal, or occasionally both conjointly, but there is no distinct line of demar- 

 cation at this stage between the striated and non-striated portion of the cell con- 

 tents, showing that the change takes place within the contents of the cell." 



The Size oe Stab Discs. — It is a very general opinion amongst telescopists 

 that Mr. Dawes spoke without due caution and limitation in affirming at the 

 Astronomical Society that the size of star discs depended upon the aperture of a 

 telescope only ; and that Mr. Pritchard was over hasty in declaring his accordance 

 with an opinion that absolutely denies the effect of aberrations, chromatic and 

 spherical, in making the spurious discs look larger than in well-corrected instru- 

 ments. Steinheil has noticed Mr. Dawes' contradiction of his statement that the 

 focal length of an object-glass directly affected the size of the discs, the latter 

 being smaller as the focal length assigned to any given aperture was diminished. 

 In the Astronomische Naehrichten, Steinheil accepts this correction, and he 

 explains the fact that his Leipzig 8-inch telescope does not separate stars which 

 other instruments of the same size will divide, by ascribing it to the superior 

 light of his own instrument. By augmenting the apparent brightness of 

 a star, he says its disc is increased, and may be diminished by lessening its 

 brilliance. Some of our readers who have large telescopes will be able to test this 

 theory by adopting various modes of lessening the light. The late Admiral Smyth, 

 acting, we believe, on a suggestion of Sir John Herschel, occasionally stopped out 

 a portion of the centre of his object-glass. Mr. Knott of Woodcrofb, Cuckfield, 

 who has a very fine 7J inch object-glass, and who is familiar with this plan, has 

 just been kind enough at our request to make a special trial of its effect and let us 

 know the result. He does not profess adhesion to Steinheil's theory, but on stop- 

 ping out 2 inches in the centre of his object-glass he found that it cleared [up the 

 disks of that difficult object 7 s Andromeda?, when powers of 360 to 791 gave a 

 beautiful vision of two unequal disks crushed together with a dusky streak across 

 the base of junction. 



To Distinguish Linen eeom Cotton. — Cosmos states that Professor 

 Bottger asserts that, the mixture of cotton with linen may be detected by unra- 

 velling a piece of the tissue, both warp and weft, and plunging it into a weak 

 solution of aniline and fuchsine. It should be taken out, and washed with 

 plenty of water, and while moist, dipped in water containing a little ammonia, 

 when the cotton threads will lose their colour, while the linen will remain bright 

 rose red. 



