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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



terror cerebral lobes. He claims that his 

 theory is confirmed by the results of several 

 autopsies, and asserts that, wherever he has 

 had an opportunity to examine the brain of 

 patients affected in this way, he always found 

 the anterior lobes softened, inflamed, and 

 more or less profoundly disorganized. These 

 views gave rise to a warm discussion when 

 they were first published to the Academy, 

 and Flourens contributed an important me- 

 moir on the subject, in which he took the 

 ground that while the cerebral lobes possess 

 the faculties of will and perception, they do 

 not coordinate movements, the latter func- 

 tion appertaining, according to him, to the 

 cerebellum. 



M. Bouillaud sums up as follows the 

 conclusions to which he has been led in the 

 course of his studies : 1. All lesions of the 

 faculty of speech have their origin in affec- 

 tions of the frontal lobes. In some instances, 

 this lesion to the faculty of speech is owing 

 to the fact that the coordinated movements 

 requisite for the pronunciation of words can- 

 not be executed. Therefore, there exists in 

 these anterior lobes a coordinating .centre 

 for this description of voluntary movements. 

 In other instances, lesions of the faculty of 

 speech have a bearing on the words them- 

 selves, and not on the act of pronouncing 

 them. Therefore, there exists in the same 

 lobes another centre, without the coopera- 

 tion of which speech is impossible. 



2. When either or both of these condi- 

 tions exist, the faculty of speech may be 

 injured or utterly lost, while all the other 

 special intellectual faculties remain intact, 

 and vice versa. 



The Rebuilding of Antioch. — In the re- 

 building of the city of Antioch, destroyed 

 by earthquake last year, the chief engineer 

 of the province of Aleppo, Mr. Haddan, an 

 Englishman, did his best to induce the peo- 

 ple to profit by the experience of the past, 

 and to construct their houses and lay out 

 their streets in such a manner that the 

 recurrence of earthquake might not again 

 prove so destructive. But immobility is 

 the law of the East, and the people will not 

 quit the ancient paths. It is a significant 

 fact, says the Builder^ that many of the vic- 

 tims on the occasion of the last earthquake 

 might have escaped, if the houses had been 



built with lime or bound with wood, and if 

 the streets had not been so narrow that the 

 rows of falling buildings met as they crum- 

 bled down, to form one destructive heap 

 over the crowds of people. Mr. Haddan 

 proposed that skeleton houses should be 

 erected with timber battens, well tied to- 

 gether with iron bands, on which overhang- 

 ing roofs would rest. Stone-walls, cemented 

 with lime, were then to be run up around 

 the wooden frames, in order to afford pro- 

 tection from sun and rain. A shock of 

 earthquake (which is a matter of frequent 

 occurrence at Antioch), how formidable 

 soever it might be, could then do no more 

 than throw the stone-walls outward, while 

 none of the falling stones could injure those 

 in the houses. The new plan of the town, 

 by straightening and widening the labyrinth 

 of tortuous lanes which previously existed, 

 would save the inhabitants from much of 

 the danger after escaping from their houses. 

 But, as has been already said, these sugges- 

 tions have been disregarded, and the town 

 is beginning to rise again on its old founda- 

 tions, built with mud instead of lime, and 

 likely to destroy its future population in 

 even greater proportion than it did last 

 year, for increased poverty makes the new 

 houses weaker than even the old ones were. 



Intelligence of the Toad. — At the re- 

 cent meeting of the American Association 

 for the Advancement of Science, held at 

 Portland, Mr. Thomas Hill read a note on 

 the intelligence of toads, giving, among other 

 interesting examples of their sagacity, a de- 

 scription of the means by which the creature 

 contrives to force down inconvenient forms 

 of food. " When our toad," says Mr. 

 Hill, "gets into his mouth part of an in- 

 sect too large for his tongue to thrust down 

 his throat (and I have known of their at- 

 tempting a wounded humming-bird), he re- 

 sorts to the nearest stone," and uses it as a 

 piece de resistance in a very literal sense. 

 This can be observed at any time, con- 

 tinues the author, by tying a locust's hind- 

 legs together, and throwing it before a 

 small toad. 



On one occasion Mr. Hill gave a small 

 locust to a little toad in its second summer. 

 At once the locust's head was down the 

 creature's throat, the hinder parts protrud- 



