92 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. IV., No. 77. 



was known, they were reduced to a daily allowance 

 of 14.88 ounces each; and this was afterwards still 

 further reduced to 6 ounces, making it last until 

 May 14. During this entire time all the game they 

 obtained was twenty-four small foxes averaging four 

 pounds each, fourteen ptarmigan, and sixty dovekies, 

 excepting a small seal and a bear, killed in April. 

 The last, weighing 257 pounds, undoubtedly saved the 

 lives of the last survivors of the party. 



— The managers of the Philadelphia electrical ex- 

 hibition announce that the buildings are finished, and 

 ready for the preliminary arrangements to accommo- 

 date exhibits. The committee urge upon all who 

 have applied for space to begin preparations for in- 

 stallation. 



— Dr. Lewis Swift, director of the Warner obser- 

 vatory, has received intelligence of the discovery of 

 a comet by Prof. E. E. Barnard of Nashville, on the 

 night of July 16; and the discovery was verified by 

 the motion of the comet July 20. It is in the head 

 of the Wolf (right ascension 15 hours, 50 minutes, and 

 30 seconds, declination south 37: 10), and is moving 

 slowly in an easterly direction. It seems to be grow- 

 ing brighter, and is probably coming toward the 

 earth. This is the first comet discovered in the 

 northern hemisphere this year. 



— From Nature we learn that the following are 

 some of the special questions which have been ar- 

 ranged for discussion at the next social science con- 

 gress, which is to be held at Birmingham on Sept. 

 17-24: — How far are the requirements of the country 

 for well-trained teachers in elementary schools met 

 by the pupil-teacher system and the existing training 

 colleges ? In testing the efficiency of schools, should 

 processes, or ' results,' be chiefly regarded? Health: 

 1°. What is the best method of dealing with (a) town 

 sewage, (b) the products of house and street scaven- 

 ging, and (c) the products of combustion ? 2°. What 

 are the best means, legislative or other, of securing 

 those improvements in the dwellings of the poor 

 which are essential to the welfare of the community? 

 3°. How far may the average death-rate of a popula- 

 tion be considered an efficient test of its sanitary 

 condition, and by what means can the high death- 

 rate of children be reduced? 



— Nature states, that Dr. Chavanne, who is travel- 

 ling on the Kongo for the Brussels national institute 

 of geography, has established a meteorological obser- 

 vatory at Boma. Mr. Stanley has transferred the 

 site of his station of Vivi to a tableland some fifteen 

 hundred metres to the north; and a railway from the 

 new station to the Kongo is in course of construction. 

 A new station, called Sette-Cana, has also been es- 

 tablished at the mouth of the small river Sette. 

 Numerous small wooden houses are being made in 

 Belgium to be transported to the new Vivi. A sana- 

 torium has been constructed at Boma. 



— In the report of the surgeon-general of the navy 

 for 1881 (Washington, 1883, p. 70) are to be found 

 photo-micrographs, and a short account of a comma- 

 shaped bacterium, a rather unusual form, observed 



by Surgeon J. H. Kidder in water through which 

 air had been aspirated (summer of 1881), and in well- 

 water near Washington (1883). Until we have more 

 precise descriptions of Koch's cholera bacillus than 

 are yet available, it will be judicious formicroscopists 

 to bear in mind, in case of the appearance of cholera' 

 on this side of the Atlantic, that similar forms have 

 been found in water when no case of cholera was 

 known to exist. Dr. Kidder supposed the form which 

 he photographed to be the same as, or very similar to, 

 that noted and figured by Billroth {Untersuch. ilber 

 coccobacteria septica, Berlin, 1874, taf. ii. B., C), 

 found in the droppings from an imperfect water- 

 faucet in his work-room, and called by him Siphono- 

 ruyxa nostocomii vienniensis. 



— The treasurer of the local committee of the 

 American association reports that fifteen thxmsand 

 dollars have been raised for the entertainment of the 

 association while in Philadelphia, and recommends 

 that the expenditures be kept within that sum, as 

 it is doubtful whether more could be obtained. 



— Dr. Benjamin Apthorp Gould, director of the 

 observatory at Cordoba, Argentine Republic, has been 

 elected an honorary member of the Royal meteoro- 

 logical society. 



— An exhibition of appliances used in brewing will 

 be held next September in Hanover. 



— The Kansas city review states that Prof. J. G. 

 Porter of the coast-survey has been elected astronomer 

 of the Cincinnati observatory. 



— By some good fortune whose explanation is too 

 deeply political for our fathoming, the monthly Pilot 

 charts continue to be issued from the hydrographic 

 office; and the number for July maintains the value 

 of its predecessors. It is notable for the number of 

 waterspouts, of which eight are charted, and for the 

 indication of currents by floating wrecks that have 

 been observed on different dates. The schooner 

 Warbeck drifted eastward just south of latitude 40°, 

 from longitude 64° on April 9, to longitude 44° on 

 June 12, thus travelling about nine hundred miles, 

 or fourteen miles a day. A buoy, adrift from Cape 

 Hatteras on June 1, was noticed on its way north-east 

 on June 11, and was unfortunately picked up in 

 latitude 40°, longitude 63° 30', on June 21, having 

 floated about five hundred miles in twenty days. 

 These having followed the main extension of the Gulf 

 Stream, their rate of motion was relatively rapid. 

 The bark Ponema, that collided with the British 

 steamer State of Florida on April 18, latitude 49°, 

 longitude 36°, is reported from London to the hydro- 

 graphic office as having been sighted on June 7, in 

 latitude 49° 15', longitude 33°, about thus having aver- 

 aged only about two miles of eastward drifting a day. 

 Again : the schooner Maggie M. Rivers, wrecked off 

 Cape Hatteras on Jan. 7, was sighted on the eastern 

 margin of the Gulf Stream on Feb. 6, and since then 

 has been seen four times, the last date being June 14, 

 wavering about with small change of position in 

 the slack water a third way from the Bermudas to 

 Norfolk. 



