HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



1S5 



of Commons, 1000 years hence, full of such people ! 

 Anyhow, men get bald sooner than women, soldiers 

 and policemen sooner than civilians, and long before 

 sailors. Is this not attributable to the difference in 

 their head-dresses ? Nothing has produced premature 

 baldness among young men more than deer-stalkers 

 and chimney-pot hats. When the head is not con- 

 fined within such a limited area of ventilation, as in 

 the delightful aerality of women's bonnets, it grows 

 all right, or, at any rate generally keeps on. 



Nevertheless, even on women's heads, the hair 

 is not always strong, nor does it always keep on, if 

 we are to judge by the profusely illustrated advertise- 

 ments in the " Queen " (which inform men so literally 

 and almost shame-facedly how women are made up !) 

 Hair is evidently getting thinner on people's heads — 

 men's first, but on women's also. The purer (as we 

 call it) we make our bread, which literally means the 

 whiter, the less nutriment remains for teeth and hair. 

 Sir James Crichton Browne has just delivered an 

 address on "Tooth Culture," in which he showed 

 that dental caries was related to the change in our 

 method of making bread. Teeth require fluorine (so 

 does hair), and it is only the bran, or husk, of wheat 

 which supplies it. Therefore our modern method of 

 carefully getting rid of this must result in a hairless 

 and toothless race of men and women. Whilst teeth 

 are forming in children it is especially essential that 

 whole meal or brown bread, or oatmeal porridge, be 

 given them. It is " Scotia's halesome food," and in 

 what other country do you find men with such bushy 

 locks, flowing beards, or sound teeth ? 



There is a " red spot " on the surface of our big 

 brother-planet Jupiter which for a dozen years past 

 has much exercised the attention of astronomers. 

 The fact is, Jupiter is a world which has not cooled 

 down sufficiently into the "black heat" stage, but 

 still glows in places, chiefly near its equator, with 

 natural fires. The " great red spot " is a demonstra- 

 tion of this fact. It moves about like an iceberg, 

 and has an area perhaps equal to that of the earth's 

 surface. Recently a French astronomer very in- 

 geniously employed one of Jupiter's satellites or 

 moons to measure the "red spot" by. 



Some sparrows have again taken advantage of the 

 shelter afforded by the recesses in the statues erected 

 in the gardens fronting the National Liberal Club on 

 the Thames Embankment to build their nests. Not 

 only has the armpit of the Bartle Frere statue been 

 utilized this year, but another family has a home 

 behind the legs of the gallant Outram. 



The Suez Canal is capable of admitting other 

 things through its monotonous eighty miles than 

 ships and steamers. Cholera uses that short and 

 narrow watery highway as well to pass from the 

 tropics and equator to Southern Europe. Last 

 January a conference was held in Venice to prevent 



cholera from penetrating into Europe through the 

 canal. This year we are in for a hot summer 

 evidently, and much suppressed fear is entertained 

 lest cholera should take advantage of it. The Venice 

 Conference of January last wisely adopted a system 

 chiefly advocated by the French delegates. This 

 system was practically tested on the Pyrenean frontier 

 during the terrible outbreak of cholera in Spain two 

 or three years ago. On that occasion passengers' 

 linen was disinfected in heating-ovens by steam under 

 pressure, and all the cholera patients (teal and 

 suspected alike) were isolated. It has been demon- 

 strated that it is practically impossible for a vessel to 

 pass the Suez Canal in quarantine without contact 

 with the shores. Consequently, it was resolved that 

 no vessel should be allowed to pass into the Medi- 

 terranean unless it was either free from infection or 

 had been completely disinfected. Therefore, vessels 

 from the East are to have a perfectly free voyage if 

 they have no cases of cholera on board. Those 

 which have had choleraic cases, but none for seven 

 days before arrival, will be allowed to pass the canal 

 in quarantine if they have a medical officer and a 

 disinfecting stove on board. If not, they will be 

 retained at the entrance to the canal, where a 

 sanitary station is being erected, and where disinfec- 

 tion will take place. The patients will be dis- 

 embarked and isolated, and the vessels will be dis- 

 infected. During the last five years about 16,000 

 vessels have passed through the Suez Canal. It is 

 satisfactory to know that science is the watch-dog of 

 civilization. 



Naturalists invariably find that in countries 

 where the struggle for existence is less severe, they 

 may expect to find early types of animals surviving, 

 which elsewhere, where the battle has been most 

 bitterly fought, are extinct. Thus lemurs aud civets 

 are not uncommon in Madagascar — a large island 

 early separated from the African continent — whereas, 

 as long ago as the Eocene period (which must have 

 been nearly two millions of years back), they were as 

 abundant in France, and are found fossilised in that 

 country. In Madagascar there still lives a peculiar 

 rare bird called after a distinguished naturalist, 

 Hartlaubia, which possesses a remarkably inter- 

 mediate position among groups of birds widely 

 separated. A similar fossil bird has also lately been 

 discovered in France. It lived there ages ago, and 

 for ages has been extinct all over the world except in 

 Madagascar. 



" Peace hath its victories no less renowned than 

 war," and its heroes also. Science is dogged as well 

 as courageous, and it is the doggedness that does it. 

 Last year a valorously brave attempt was made to 

 establish an observatory on the top of Mont Blanc. 

 The difficulty is inconceivable ; likewise the hardships 

 which the voluntary scientific martyrs living there 

 would have to endure. Longfellow's youth in 



