- 
Marci 14, 1884. ] 
may decline if she please. The Ghiliaks burn their 
dead; while the Oltchas and Orotches suspend theirs 
from the trees, or bury them. Their superstitions 
and religious practices are very interesting, especially 
the féte of the bear, which takes place in January, 
and lasts fifteen days. ' 
—Mr. J. G. Vassar has given an additional ten 
thousand dollars to Vassar college for the better sup- 
port of the chemical and physical departments of the 
Vassar brothers’ laboratory. 
—A prize of five thousand pounds was offered by 
the Indian government for the best machine for the 
treatment of rhea fibre. In 1869 a Mr. Greig of 
Edinburgh made a machine for this purpose; but it 
did not fulfil the conditions laid down, so the full 
prize was not awarded. Another competition took 
place, but was unsuccessful. Some rhea fibre experi- 
mented on in 1852 by Dr. Forbes Royle was in 
strength, as compared with St. Petersburg hemp, in. 
the ratio of 280 to 160, while the wild rhea from Assam 
was as high as 343. Rhea has the widest range of 
possible applications of any fibre, as shown by an 
exhaustive report on the preparation and use of rhea 
fibre by Dr. Forbes Watson. Last year, however, 
says the Engineer, witnessed the solution of the 
question of decortication in the green state in a satis- 
factory manner by Mr. A. Favier’s process. This 
process consists in subjecting the plant to the action 
of steam for a period varying from ten to twenty-five 
minutes, according to the length of time the plant had 
been cut. After steaming, the fibre and its adjuncts 
were easily stripped from the wood. Mr. Favier’s pro- 
cess greatly simplified the commercial production of 
the fibre up to a certain point; but it still stopped short 
of what was required, in that it delivered the fibre 
in ribands, with its cementitious matter and outer 
skin attached. Various methods of removing this 
were tried without success, untila year ago the whole 
case was submitted to the distinguished French chem- 
ist, Professor Frémy, member of the Institute of 
France. Professor Frémy carefully investigated the 
nature of the various substances, and found that the 
vasculose and pectose were soluble in an alkali under 
certain conditions, and that the cellulose was insolu- 
ble. He therefore dissolves out the cutose, vasculose, 
and pectose by a very simple process, obtaining the 
fibre clean, and free from all extraneous adherent 
matter, ready for the spinner. 
— An account and hysometric chart are published 
by Alfred Grandidier of the district of Madagascar, oc- 
eupied by the so-called Hovas, whose stout resistance 
to the French has recently attracted much attention. 
The country is very different from one’s preconceived 
ideas of a tropical island. The word ‘Hova,’ it 
seems, refers only to the middle class of the nation, 
properly called ‘ Antai-merina,’ or ‘ Merinas,’ in con- 
tradistinction to the other two classes of nobles and 
slaves. The superior intelligence and discipline of 
the Merina race have enabled them to conquer, dur- 
ing the present century, most of the tribes which 
inhabit thatimmense island. The district which they 
specially inhabit is called ‘Imerina.’ It is a moun- 
SCIENCE. 
341 
tainous country, completely destitute of trees and 
shrubs, and often uncultivated. The higher parts 
are hardly inhabited, but the valleys and lowlands 
sustain a dense population. The hills, which are 
composed of masses of granite and dense red clay, are 
not fertile; but the smallest valleys, when their situ- 
ation permits, are transformed into rice-fields by the 
intelligent and industrious natives. West of the 
capital, there is a large plain twenty miles square, 
once a lake or marsh, but now one huge rice-field, 
which presents a beautiful appearance in the wet 
season, with little hamlets or large houses rising out 
of it here and there like islands. Other vegetables 
and fruits of a sub-tropical character are cultivated 
with moderate success on the hillsides. In the south- 
ern part is an assemblage of peaks reaching to eight 
or nine thousand feet above the sea. From the high- 
est of these the entire district is visible, and appears 
like a sea of barren mountains destitute of shrubs 
or trees, and with numerous detached rocks amid 
coarse grasses not suitable for cattle, and only use- 
ful for fuel. Only the rich can afford to send for 
fagots to a limited strip of woodland which borders 
the district on the east. Even the dry grass used 
by the people for cooking becomes very dear in the 
rainy season; a single fire, perhaps, costing twelve 
cents. The population of the district reaches a mil- 
lion, and of Antananarivo, the capital, one hundred 
thousand. The villages are usually built on the 
summits of hills, and surrounded by a ditch. They 
contain for the most part but a few dwellings of 
inexpensive character, and are near the cultivated 
rice-lands of their owners, which are very valuable, 
in some places worth eight thousand dollars an acre. 
The houses are of an oriental character, commonly 
with one door and one window opening westward to 
avoid the raw south-east winds. The houses are ar- 
ranged quite irregularly, and generally are not very 
clean. The roads are mere footpaths, and, notwith- 
standing the multiplicity of water-courses, bridges 
are very rare. 
The people are somewhat smaller than those of 
other Malagasy tribes, but full of energy and intel- 
ligence, and in spite of faults peculiar to barbarism, 
from which they are only just emerging, exhibit 
industry, economy, and relative sobriety. In these 
qualities the other tribes cannot be compared with 
them. They have large families, though the Merina 
women are said to become sterile if they leave the 
mountains for the coast. Manufactures have made 
but little progress, and are chiefly due to white in- 
struction. The rainy season commences toward the 
end of November, and lasts until March; but there 
are few severe storms, except during the period from 
Dec. 15 to Feb. 25. 
— In a paper in the Bulletin of the Moscow soci- 
ety of naturalists upon periodic oceanic oscillations, 
Trautschold attacks the problem of oceanic altera- 
tions of level, and their relations to geological phe- 
nomena. His conclusions, based upon acareful study 
of the past and present physiography of eastern and 
central Europe and western Asia, are to the effect 
that many of the phenomena of sedimentation and 
