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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



priests, 449 Mohammedan priests, 862 devil 

 dancers, 217 Protestant missionaries, and 

 87 Catholic priests. Over 1,500,000 of the 

 people are Buddhists, nearly 500,000 Sivites, 

 and about 183,000 Catholics, while 35,406 

 are parceled out between four varieties of 

 Protestantism. 



In the January Popular Science Month- 

 ly we gave the State Geologist of Minnesota 

 as authority for the statement that iron-ore 

 exists in vast quantities in the neighbor- 

 hood of Black River Falls in that State. 

 Prof. N. H. Winchell, the State Geologist 

 referred to, has since written us that he 

 never made the statement, and is not aware 

 that iron-ore, in any quantity, is found in 

 that locality. The item and the authority for 

 it were taken from the Journal of the Society 

 of Arts, an esteemed contemporary, which 

 had evidently been misled like ourselves. 



The yield of gold in New Zealand up to 

 the end of the year 1872 was 6,718,218 

 ounces, valued at £25,814,260, of which 

 the north island furnished 734,269 ounces, 

 worth £2,563,307. This gold is obtained 

 by lode-mining in igneous rocks of the 

 Neozoic epoch. The south island furnished 

 5,983,979 ounces, value £23,250,953, chiefly 

 obtained from the metamorphic rocks by 

 alluvial washing. 



In the competition last October for the 

 $100,000 prize offered by the State of New 

 York for a satisfactory application of steam- 

 power to canal navigation, one of the com- 

 peting boats, the Baxter, carrying 200 tons 

 of cargo, and drawing 5 feet 8-J- inches 

 water, traveled about 55 miles in a little 

 over 18 hours, consuming only 830 pounds 

 of hard coal. None of the performances, 

 however, were deemed satisfactory by the 

 commissioners, and the prize was again 

 withheld. 



A correspondent of the London Times 

 communicates to that journal some interest- 

 ing notes on the Eucalyptus as a house- 

 plant. He says that he has several of the 

 young trees, grown from seeds, in his 

 house ; that they grow remarkably well, are 

 very pretty, and emit a very pleasant odor, 

 much resembling that of the black currant. 

 They retain their green leaves through the 

 winter. The only objection to them as 

 house-plants is that they become too large ; 

 but it is easy to have a succession of them 

 by sowing seeds again. There are several 

 varieties of the Eucalyptus, three of which 

 — wattle gum, blue gum, and scented gum 

 — the correspondent has growing, and he 

 says that they are very much alike in all 

 respects. 



At the recent meeting of Italian men of 

 science at Rome, the alienist physicians — 

 that is, those who make a specialty of men- 



tal disorders — held sessions of their own, 

 under the presidency of Prof. Girolami. 

 After a long and interesting discussion, pro- 

 tracted through several sessions, they 

 founded a Societa Freniatrica Itahana, or 

 Association of Alienists. This body is to 

 assemble every third year, each time in a 

 different city of Italy, the first meeting to 

 take place at Imola next year. Among the 

 subjects for discussion we notice the two 

 following, viz. : " Uniform Classification of 

 Mental Disorders," and " The Founding of 

 Insane Asylums for Criminals." 



Benjamin Disraeli, in a late speech at 

 Glasgow, made the significant admission 

 that the revolutions of science within the 

 last fifty years have had " much more ef- 

 fect " in moulding the world than any po- 

 litical causes ; and that they " have changed 

 the position and prospects of mankind more 

 than all the conquests, and all the codes, 

 and all the legislators that ever lived ! " 



Before Bessemer's invention, the yearly 

 production of steel in England was 51,000 

 tons ; it is now 481,000 tons, or nearly ten 

 times as much. The production of Besse- 

 mer steel in the United States for the year 

 1873 is estimated at 140,000 tons. 



The great work of the De Candolles, fa- 

 ther and son — namely, the "Prodromus 

 Systematis Naturalis Yegetabilium," which 

 contains a description of every known spe- 

 cies of dicotyledonous flowering plant — has 

 been just completed. The publication of 

 the work was commenced in 1824 by the 

 elder De Candolle. To commemorate the 

 completion of the " Prodromus," the Horti- 

 cultural Society of Belgium has awarded M. 

 de Candolle a special medal. 



Prof. Anstead thus estimates the coal- 

 supply of the world : In the British Islands 

 there are 12,800 square miles ; in France, 

 2,000 ; in Belgium, 520 ; Spain, 4,000 ; in 

 Prussia, 12,000 ; in Bohemia, 1,000 ; in 

 the United States, 113,000 ; in British 

 North America, 18,000, making a total of 

 152,520 square miles, nearly six-sevenths 

 of which is found in America, and over 

 five-sevenths in the United States. This 

 does not include the 250,000 square miles 

 said to exist in the Rocky Mountain dis- 

 trict through which the North Pacific Rail- 

 road passes. 



The Silber light is simply an improve- 

 ment in lamps and burners, which secures 

 the most perfect combustion of the lighting 

 materials yet attained. Air-currents are 

 admitted both into the centre and around 

 the circumference of the flame, and by this 

 means the same amount of oil or gas is 

 made to yield a much stronger and steadier 

 light than that afforded by the appliances 

 in common use. 



