NOTES. 



43i 



cause of such irregularity may be sought in 

 some temporary interruption of the vigorous 

 functions of the tree, induced by defoliation, 

 for instance, or by extreme climatic condi- 

 tions — such as sudden changes of tempera- 

 ture, cold days followed by sudden warm 

 weather, or droughts followed by rain. The 

 absolute breadth of the ring depends on 

 the length of the period of vegetation, and 

 is affected by the depth and richness of the 

 soil, and the influence of light upon the tree. 



NOTES. 



According to the " Medecinische Presse," 

 of Vienna, a Dr. Terc has found a cure for 

 rheumatism in bee-stingings. Having found 

 that every stinging is followed by a swelling 

 up to a point when the body seems to have 

 become hardened against further effect, he 

 tried the stingings on a rheumatic patient. 

 Upon saturating the patient's system with 

 the bee-poison the rheumatism disappeared 

 — not to return for a long time. Dr. Terc 

 has applied his remedy in one hundred and 

 seventy-five cases and has inflicted thirty- 

 nine thousand stingings ; and now keeps a 

 colony of bees on his premises, to be em- 

 ployed in this work. 



According to a count by Dr. W. J. Beal, 

 of the Michigan Forestry Commission, there 

 grow wild in Michigan seventy species of in- 

 digenous trees and three exotics that have 

 escaped from cultivation ; and of shrubs, one 

 hundred and fifty native and five escaped 

 exotics. 



A Dictionary of Volapiik, compiled by 

 Assistant Surgeon M. W. Wood, U. S. A., is 

 announced by Charles E. Sprague, New York. 

 It will contain more than three hundred 

 pages, and will embody the additions and 

 emendations contained in the fourth edition 

 of Schleyer's dictionary. A peculiar feature 

 will be the arrangement of the Volapiik- 

 English and English- Volapiik parts on the 

 same pages ; each page containing a Volapiik- 

 English and an alphabetically corresponding 

 English-Volapiik part. 



Pertinently to the interest that is taken 

 in testing the vision and color-sense of sea- 

 men, a writer in the " Lancet " urges the 

 importance of accuracy of hearing in men of 

 this class. During fogs, sounds are the only 

 means vessels possess of giving notice of 

 their presence, and the only means by which 

 they may be warned against danger of col- 

 lision. It often requires a nice ear to hear 

 a distant fog-whistle, and a nicer one to de- 

 termine from what direction it comes. Sea- 

 men are as liable to affections which will 

 blunt the acuteness of their hearing as they 

 are to faults of eye-sight. 



IIere is another instance of how observa- 

 tion trips up a priori reasoning. A corre- 

 spondent of " The Spectator " relates that 

 some one wrote to an English paper to say 

 that " blackbirds did not eat fruit because 

 they liked it, but because they were thirsty, 

 and recommended we should place pans of 

 water on the gravel walks and so save our gar- 

 den fruit. A cottager in Montgomeryshire, 

 being told of this interesting fact, replied in 

 the dialect of that part of the country : 

 ' Dern the bruts ! they cross the bruck to 

 come to my geerding.' " 



An opinion is growing that bovine tuber- 

 culosis is frequently transmitted to the hu- 

 man subject by eating the flesh and drinking 

 the milk of tuberculous cows. It is to be 

 hoped that thorough boiling of the meat de- 

 stroys the vitality of the bacilli, which are 

 assumed to produce this disease, but we are 

 not warranted in believing that roasting the 

 meat, as usually practiced, will have that 

 effect ; and as milk is seldom boiled before 

 being partaken of, it is clear that the milk 

 of a tuberculous animal is unfit for food, 

 and dangerous to life. 



British North Borneo is fast approach- 

 ing the state of a regularly organized colony, 

 with a fine promise of prosperity. The ter- 

 ritory has been divided into nine provinces, 

 named after the founders of the company, 

 and grants of land have been issued cover- 

 ing 475,289 acres, in five of the provinces, 

 those on the coast having the preference. 

 The grantees are mostly Dutch ; and a large 

 proportion of the land granted is intended 

 for tobacco cultivation. The total area of 

 the territory will probably be found to be 

 more than 20,000,000 acres. The price of 

 the land, originally one dollar an acre, has 

 been raised to two dollars. Regular steam 

 communication was instituted September 1, 

 1888, between Sandakan and Hong-Kong 

 and Singapore. 



A story is told in the Ohio papers of a 

 railroad engine-driver who was suspended 

 because the examining physician pronounced 

 him deaf. He asked to be reinstated be- 

 cause, when on a moving engine, he could 

 hear perfectly well. This was found, on 

 experiment, to be the case. Prof. W. M. 

 Williams matches this story with another, 

 within his own observation, of a man who 

 was painfully deaf in a quiet house, but 

 " could hear ordinary conversation with per- 

 fect ease in a cab or railway-carriage, pro- 

 vided the jolting was considerable." 



A " Dictionary of Universal Climatolo- 

 gy " is announced as in preparation by the 

 Observatory of Rio Janeiro, M. L. Cruls, di- 

 rector. It is intended to present methodi- 

 cally the climatological data of as great a 

 number of places on the earth as is possi- 

 ble, reduced to uniform standards of nota- 

 tion and terminology. 



