20 



SCIENCE. 



[YoL. VI., No. 126. 



delegate, proposed " that vessels whicli had cases of 

 cholera on board should be subjected to seven days' 

 isolation, and that all the people on board should be 

 divided off into groups, each of which should be re- 

 leased separately, if, after five days' observation, no 

 case of chf)lera should have appeared among the per- 

 sons composing such a group." 



— The U.S. entomologist informs us that the de- 

 structive locust of California this year, as appears 

 from larvae recently received, is Melanoplus devasta- 

 tor. Caloptenus ditferentialis has also been sent, but 

 the former must be the chief source of injury. 



> — The Meteorological society of Vienna has re- 

 solved, says Nature, to erect a meteorological station 

 on Mount Sonnenblick, near Tauern, in the central 

 range of the Tyrolese Alps, thirty-one hundred metres 

 above sea-level, and thus the highest station of the 

 kind in Europe. 



— The Geological magazine of London attains its 

 majority the present summer; and as the present 

 editor. Dr. Henry Woodward of the British museum, 

 has been connected with it from the beginning, and 

 during almost the whole time as its editor in chief, 

 his friends are proposing to present him with a 

 testimonial for the ability and fairness with whicli 

 this successful magazine has been conducted. Friends 

 of Dr. Woodward and of the magazine can forward 

 any subscriptions to the treasurer, Mr. G. J. Hinde, 

 11 Glebe Villas, Mitcham, Surrey. 



— One 'Prof. A. H. Lockwood,' alias ' llev. J. 

 H. Rockwell,' was arrested on June 17, at Garden 

 Grove, lo., charged with using the U. S. mails for 

 conductimz fraudulent operations in the puichase and 

 sale of scientific books. Any of our subscribers who. 

 have been defrauded will do well to communicate 

 with D. H. Pulcifer, post-office inspector at Des 

 Moines, lo. 



— We learn from Nature that important experi- 

 ments in aerial navi2;ation are now being made by 

 Mr. A. F. Gower, well known in connection with the 

 Gower-Bell telephone. The operations being carried 

 on are more particularly directed towards the adapta- 

 tion of balloons to war purposes. On INIay 31, the 

 wind being favorable, one of the automatic pilot bal- 

 loons invented by Mr. Gower, with appliances forgiv- 

 ing out its own gas and ballast, one compensating for 

 the loss of the other, M^as filled with twenty-three 

 hundred feet of gas, and ascended at about 11 o'clock. 

 In the car a 'vritten statement was of course placed, 

 explaining the ownership of the machine and its 

 object, with the result that it was next heard of at Di- 

 eppe, having made a rapid passage of about seventy- 

 two miles in a straight direction, and descended at 

 2.30 in the afternoon. On June 1 another pilot bal- 

 loon, with a capacity of forty-three hundred feet, was 

 started, and immediately followed by Mr. Gower in 

 his own balloon (containing twenty-three thousand 

 feet of gas). The object of Mr. Gower in ascending 

 was to watch the action of the pilot ; but the smaller 

 machine made such rapid progress, that it got out of 

 his observation, and came down in the vicinity of 

 Paris. Meanwhile, Mr. Gow^er, who ascended about 



noon, reached the French coast at Boulogne at 2.15, 

 and then, taking a northerly curve, travelled overland 

 to Calais, where he made a smooth descent at 4 p.m. 



— Among recent deaths we note the following : Pro- 

 fessor Dunkes of Marburg, a well-known mineralogist 

 and paleontologist; Samuel Cabot, ornithologist, at 

 Boston (the type specimens of his collection are left 

 to the Boston society of natural hi>tory); Prof. H. 

 Weyenbergh, professor of zoology at the University of 

 Cordoba, during a visit to his home in Holland; Dr. 

 Fred. Gustave Henle, physiologist and anatomist, at 

 Berlin, May 18, in his seventy-sixth year; Dr. Rich- 

 ard Bohm of Berlin, African explorer, in his thirty- 

 second year; Dr. Carl Ohrtmann, mathematician, at 

 Berlin, April 22; T. R. Peale, entomologist, at Phil- 

 adelphia, March 13; C. Cornelius, entomologist, at 

 Elberfeld, April 1, in his eightieth year; J. P. Jacob- 

 sen, at Thisthdt, Jutland, April 30; Prof. P. L. 

 Panum, physiologist, at Copenhagen, May 1, in his 

 sixty-sixth year; Paul Desains, physicist, at Paris, 

 May 3; Dr. K. J. Andrae, professor of mineralogy 

 and paleontology at the University of Bonn, at Bonn, 

 May 8; Mr. William Ladd, the well-known scientific 

 instrument-maker, in his seventy-first year; Robert 

 von Schlagintweit, professor of geography and eth- 

 nology at the Ujiiversity of Giessen, in his fifty-third 

 year. 



— Dr. Herman Koch, the bacteriologist, has been 

 created professor in the University of Berlin. 



— Last year was a tolerably productive one for the 

 collectors of prehistoric remains in Switzerland. 

 The water of the lakes was almost constantly below 

 the highest level, which is the most favorable state 

 of things for explorations around the lake-dwellings. 

 The remains discovered belong mostly to the bronze 

 period; and the chief localities in which they were 

 found were Lake Neuchatel, and the settlement of 

 Walleshofen near Zurich, the latter of which is the 

 only station of the bronze period yet known in east- 

 ern Switzerland. Amongst the most remarkable 

 articles discovered at this settlement in 1884 were a 

 splendidly preserved bronze sword, several dozens of 

 bronze hatchets, bracelets, etc. Of the remains of 

 the stone period discovered in the same year, the 

 most notable are those obtained at Robenhausen, in- 

 cluding several pretty knife-handles made of yew ; 

 some excellent specimens of mechanical industry, 

 such as thread, woven fabrics, fishing-nets, etc. ; and 

 ears of barley and wheat, one being a specimen of the 

 rare Tiiticum turgidum. 



— The sultan of Zanzibar claims the whole coast 

 from Cape Delgado to the mouth of the river Juba, 

 which is on the equator. Nevertheless, the German 

 explorers, the brothers Denhardt, have planted the 

 German flag at Vitu, thirty German miles south of 

 the river Juba, and six miles inland. The explorers 

 report the district as fertile. A German squadron, 

 consisting of three frigates and two transports, has 

 been sent to the coast of Zanzibar to protect this new 

 annexation; to which, of course, the sultan objects. 

 Three German exploring expeditions have already 

 started from Vitu for the interior of Africa. 



