220 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. IV., No. 83. 



musee Teyler, ser. ii. part 4. He denies the former 

 views, that it is due to pressure of the air, or to the 

 effect of a viscous liquid exuded by the foot, and 

 says that it can be accounted for only by capillary 

 action. In order to study the process, he enclosed a 

 fly in a thin box with a glass plate as a bottom ; and, 

 when the box was turned so that the glass was up- 

 permost, the feet could easily be studied under the 

 microscope. The cushions of the fly's feet are dis- 

 tinctly seen to be covered with club-shaped hairs (fig. 

 1., la.) to the number of eight hundred or one thou- 

 sand, arranged with considerable regularity. From 

 these a fatty liquid is exuded, which leaves on the 

 glass a trace of their contact (fig. 2). The ability to 



from whalers, and gives the position of many locali- 

 ties first named by him. 



— Dr. Chervin has been studying the medical geog- 

 raphy of the department of the Seine inferieure with 

 reference to disabilities which are developed by the 

 annual conscription. The period chosen covered 

 twenty years. After those cases of feeble constitu- 

 tion, evidently unfit for military duty, the most 

 frequent disability was dental caries, after which fol- 

 lowed hernia, etc. In considering the department as 

 a whole, the average number of conscripts rejected 

 on this account was fifteen per cent; but, in con- 

 sidering the separate cantons, it was shown that 

 they vary greatly in this regard, the least average 



adhere to the glass arises from the attraction exer- 

 cised by each of these little drops of liquid on the 

 hair from which it is exuded. Various experiments 

 with hairs are recorded to show that capillary force 

 would be sufficient to easily bear the weight of a fly, 

 even were the fluid pure water. 



— The accompanying map of the north-western 

 shores of Hudson's Strait is of interest at the present 

 time, on account of the expedition which lately went 

 there under the command of Lieut. A. K. Gordon, 

 to gather information as to the possibility of using 

 the strait in a line of water-connection from the 

 west to Europe. The map was compiled by Lieut. 

 Frederick Schwatka, from surveys made by him 

 while on boat-journeys in August, 1880, and winter 

 sledge-journeys, and from information gathered 



being eight per cent, and the highest nearly twenty- 

 four per cent. In seeking a cause for this singular 

 difference, that sometimes alluded to, the drinking 

 of sour Norm an cider, was considered to have little 

 real influence. The question of race was believed to 

 be more important. So far as form and height are 

 concerned, the tables for twenty years showed two 

 physical groups or races, — the smaller in the west ; 

 the larger in the east, especially about Dieppe and 

 Neufchatel. The taller race is much more subject 

 to dental caries than the other, and this is confirmed 

 by testimony from other departments. Baldness pre- 

 vails to such an extent, that two per cent of the re- 

 cruits examined weie exempt, on that account, at the 

 early age of twenty. Some connection appears to 

 exist between this deficiency and decay of the teeth. 



