NOTES. 



43i 



peredly together, and rejoin the line, to let 

 another pair take their turn of activity, but 

 presently, and again and again at intervals, 

 to repeat their own performance. It has been 

 said that the most active players of this ex- 

 traordinary game are the men and boys. But 

 occasionally the women take a part also. And 

 it is noteworthy that when this is the case a 

 wooden figure of a bird, a heron, is substi- 

 tuted for each of the whips, and a gentle 

 peck with this bird is substituted for the far 

 more serious lash of the whip. " I do not 

 know," says Mr. Im Thurn, "that any equiva- 

 lent example of the fact that the germ of the 

 idea of courtesy to the weaker sex exists 

 among people even in this stage of civiliza- 

 tion is on record." 



Cleansing Function of the Hair. — Dr. 



Henry Sewell calls attention, in Science, to 

 an example of the subservience of form to 

 function afforded by the arrangement of the 

 epidermic scales constituting the outermost 

 layer of animal hairs. The buried edges of 

 the scales point toward the root of the hair, 

 while the free edges project obliquely to- 

 ward the tip ; and a hair glides between 

 the thumb and finger far more easily when 

 pulled from root to tip than when pulled in 

 the opposite direction. When rolled between 

 the fingers it will gradually move parallel to 

 its length in the direction of the root. It 

 follows that foreign particles may be easily 

 moved outward toward the tip of the hair 

 and away from the body, while it would be 

 hard to push them in the opposite direction. 

 Every movement of the hair, especially f ac- 

 tional disturbance, must set up a current of 

 foreign particles toward the hair tip. The 

 value of this property as a cleansing factor 

 is evident. 



Telephotography. — Telephotography is 

 the name of an art the purpose of which is 

 the production of photographs of objects at 

 considerable distances from the operator, of 

 such quality and scale that they can be ex- 

 amined and interpreted in a manner that 

 would be impossible to the naked eye. The 

 term is parallel in meaning with telescopy, 

 and the art has as its aim the recording on a 

 photographic plate of a combination of a 

 number of distinct and separate telescopic 

 impressions that can be obtained by sweep- 



ing a telescope over a greater field than that 

 included in its own field of view, in the same 

 manner, but to a less degree, that ordinary 

 photographs record a number of distinct and 

 separate visual images or impressions ob- 

 tained by passing the eyes rapidly and al- 

 most unconsciously through the "wide" and 

 " deep " fields of view, as they are termed. 

 The apparatus consists of a combination of 

 the telescope and photographic apparatus, 

 with special supplementary lenses for magni- 

 fying the image and obtaining a flat field, 

 the descriptions of which, by Thomas R. 

 Dallmeyer, the inventor, are too technical 

 for available use here. By it magnified and 

 clearly depicted views are obtained of objects 

 that are situated at such distances from the 

 photographer that ordinary photographic 

 means have hitherto rendered so small and 

 insignificant as to be useless — views that are 

 superior beyond comparison to enlargements 

 of ordinary negatives. 



NOTES. 



Japanese jugglers have exhibited a trick 

 which consists in throwing knives at a person 

 extended against a structure of boards, in- 

 to which the knives appear to stick alarm- 

 ingly close to the subject. The trick has 

 been copied or imitated by European presti- 

 digitateurs ; but instead of real knife throw- 

 ing and sticking, an illusion is arranged. 

 Knives are hidden in recesses in the board 

 structure, skillfully concealed by shutters, 

 which open by a spring controlled by the 

 target-subject. When a knife is thrown he 

 moves one of these springs, and causes the 

 hidden knife to emerge and appear as if 

 stuck in the board, while the shutters in- 

 stantly close; or the same is effected by 

 means of wires controlled by persons behind 

 the scene. The operator who throws the 

 knife either casts it skillfully behind himself, 

 among the scene-slides, or else throws it so 

 that it shall strike, not into the boards, but 

 on one side, where it falls noiselessly upon 

 the carpet. The latter method is the best, 

 because it enables the spectator to see the 

 knife pass across the stage. 



A fttll account of the Polynesian canoe 

 is in preparation by Dr. N. B. Emerson, of 

 Honolulu. The author points out in an arti- 

 cle on the subject that the various migrations 

 of the ancient Polynesians and their progen- 

 itors, from whatever sources derived, must 

 have been accomplished in canoes or other 

 craft, and that the waa, the paid, etc., of 

 to-day, however modified they may be under 

 the operation of modern arts and appliances, 



