7 he West American Scientist. 163 



monument in honor of the Pilgrims, by the Masonic Grand 

 Lodge which laid the corner-stone thirty years ago. 



The four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America 

 by Columbus will be celebrated by a World's Fair in 1892. New 

 York city is confident of being selected as a site for this great ex- 

 position, but Chicago and St. Louis are both rivals for this honor. 

 St. Louis claims to be more centrally located than any other city 

 of its size in the United States, and to possess a greater population 

 and two and a half times as many miles of railroad within a 

 radius of 500 miles, than either New York or Chicago. 



Rev. M. J. Berkeley, a distinguished English cryptogamic 

 botanist, is dead. 



Prof. F. H. Knowlton is collecting fossil plants in Western 

 New Mexico, Arizona and California, according to the Botanical 

 Gazette. 



Prof E. L. Greene spent the summer months in an explora- 

 tion of the torests of Colorado, Montana, Oregon, Washington 

 and California. 



Dr. George Vasey has returned to Washington, D. C, from 

 his tour through the West. 



There are about 100 species of mosquitoes in the world, occur- 

 ring in all climes. Eight or ten species have been known to in- 

 habit England for more than fifty years — in fact since they were 

 first studied — and no new species have been recorded in Britain 

 in that time. One well-known British species has been recorded 

 from Mexico; though no tropical species has ever visited England 



Dr. Field, a celebrated physician, is reported to have used 

 nothing but common flour of sulphur, a teaspoonful mixed with 

 the finger in a wineglassful of water, and given as a gargle, when 

 diphtheria was raging a few years ago. In ten minutes the pa- 

 tient was out of danger, and he never lost a case of this disease. 

 Sulphur destroys the fungus in man and beast. In extreme cases 

 dry sulphur was blown down the throat through a quill, and sul- 

 phur burned in a shovel so that the patient could inhale it, when 

 a gargle could not be used. 



About 150 colors are obtained from coal tar, which has 

 now almost entirely supplanted vegetable and animal dyes. 



