472 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. V., No. 122. 



and other towns, in order to study the experiments 

 that are being made. In reference to this subject, 

 Dr. Cameron, M.P., writes to the Standard that the 

 under-secretary for foreign affairs has promised to 

 instruct the British minister at Madrid to send home 

 translations of any reports bearing on the system 

 of inoculation with cholera virus attenuated by arti- 

 ficial cultivation, as a protection against Asiatic 

 cholera, discovered by Dr. Ferran of Valencia. This 

 having come to the notice of Dr. Ferran, that gentle- 

 man has sent Dr. Cameron a telegram giving the 

 results up to date of a great test experiment which 

 is at present being conducted by him, under the eyes 

 of scientific commissioners at Alcira, a town near 

 Valencia, where an epidemic of cholera is raging. 

 According to Dr. Ferran's telegram, the population 

 of Alcira is 16,000, and since the first of the present 

 month 5,432 of its inhabitants have been inoculated 

 with his protective virus. That would leave the 

 number of those not inoculated about 10,500, or, 

 accepting 16,000 as an exact figure, precisely 10,56**. 

 Of the 10,500 persons who are not inoculated, cholera 

 has attacked 64, and proved fatal to 30. Of the 5,432 

 who have been inoculated, it has, according to Dr. 

 Ferran, attacked only 7, and proved fatal in no single 

 case. In other words, since the commencement of 

 the experiment on May 1, one person out of every 

 163 has been attacked among the uninoculated popu- 

 lation, and one person in every 352 has died of cholera; 

 while among the inoculated population only one per- 

 son in 776 has been attacked, and not a single person 

 in the entire 5,432 has died of the disease. Dr. Fer- 

 ran concludes his telegram by expressing the desire 

 that a British commission should be sent to Alcira 

 to verify these results. 



— The first edition of Johne's little book upon the 

 cholera bacillus ("Ueber die Koch'schen reinculturen 

 und die cholera bacillen," Leipzig, Vogel) was pub- 

 lished in January, and a second is already out. It is 

 a pamphlet of some twenty-eight pages, giving the 

 most complete directions for cultivating and observ- 

 ing the so-called comma bacillus according to Koch's 

 method, from the preparation of the 'meat extract 

 gelatine' to the microscopic examination. A wood- 

 cut showing the different rapidities of liquefaction 

 of the gelatine culture-medicine by the comma ba- 

 cillus of cholera, and the curved bacillus of Finkler 

 and Prior, is given, and adds to the value of the 

 work. It is an important contribution to the litera- 

 ture of bacteriology, furnishing, as it does, our first 

 concise and complete statement of the methods of 

 investigation of the special organism of which it 

 treats. 



— Capt. Sawyer of the bark Vidette reports that 

 on May 17, 1885, a water-spout appeared to form, and 

 rise to the north-east in a long, spiral column; posi- 

 tion at the time, latitude 32° 10' north, longitude 78° 

 5' west. It rose until the sky above, extending over 

 an area of a mile, was an inky black mass of heavy 

 clouds, gradually moving in a south-west direction 

 until within half a mile of the vessel, when it seemed 

 to burst, the rain coming down in torrents for two 

 hours. This was accompanied by sudden strong 



gusts of wind, shifting suddenly from one quarter 

 to directly the opposite one, and with a force of six 

 to eight. To the south and south-west before and 

 during the formation of the water-spout, the sky, to 

 an altitude of about sixty degrees, was black and very 

 threatening, with thunder and lightning. This con- 

 tinued during the time alluded to, and finally ended 

 with several sharp claps of thunder and a fifteen- 

 minutes' fall of hailstones. The peculiarity of these 

 disturbances was that the wind would change very 

 suddenly with considerable force, throwing all aback 

 without any warning. The temperature of the water 

 was 81°, and of the air 60° to 78°. 



— The time-ball of the U. S. naval observatory is 

 to be transferred from the dome of the observatory 

 to a flagstaff on the new State, war, and navy de- 

 partment at Washington. In its new position it will 

 be more easily seen from the city. It will be dropped, 

 as at present, by the observatory clock, on 75th me- 

 ridian time. 



— Among recent deaths we note the following: Dr. 

 A. Enneper, professor of mathematics in the Univer- 

 sity of Gottingen, at Hannover, March 24, in his fifty- 

 fifth year ; Eugene Holland, professor of mechanics, 

 at Paris, March 31 ; J. C. Doll, botanist, at Karlsruhe, 

 March 10, in his seventy-eighth year; Gustave A. von 

 Kloden, geographer, at Berlin, March 11, in his 

 seventy-first year; Dr. Wilhelm Duncker, geologist, 

 at Marburg, March 13, in his seventy-seventh year; 

 Dr. J Roeper, botanist, at Rostock, March 17, in his 

 eighty-fifth year. 



— Capt. George E. Belknap, TJ.S.N'., has been or- 

 dered by the secretary of the navy to assume charge of 

 the naval observatory on June 1, relieving Commander 

 A. D. Brown, who has been acting superintendent 

 since April 1, when Admiral Franklin was ordered to 

 the command of the European squadron. 



— The Harvard university bulletin for May con- 

 tains nine pages more of Mr. Winsor's collation of 

 the Kohl collection of early maps, which in this case 

 deals with the east coast of North America, and four 

 pages of Mr. Bliss's index to the maps in the English 

 geographical publications, comprising a part of those 

 of Asia. 



— The third session of the International geologi- 

 cal congress will be held this year at Berlin, com- 

 mencing on the 28th of September. The meetings 

 will occupy one week, and will be followed by geo- 

 logical excursions from the 5th to the 10th of October. 

 The congress will be accompanied by an exhibition 

 of geological charts and other collections illustrating 

 the different branches of mineralogy and geological 

 science. It will be remembered that this meeting 

 was to have taken place last year, but was prevented 

 by the outbreak of cholera. 



— A memorial tablet to Professor Louis Agassiz 

 has just been erected in the Sage Chapel of Cornell 

 university, and will be unveiled at the approaching 

 commencement. 



— A National textile microscopical association was 

 formed last Saturday by members of the correspond- 

 ing societies of Boston and New York. 



