7 bias 
SCIENCE. ” 
368 
known, that, during the process of boiling, certain 
gases are given off; and the behavior of the fluid 
afterwards, under certain reagents, is different from 
that in its original state. If rennet be added to boiled 
milk at the temperature of the body, no change occurs 
for some hours; while, if added to raw milk, coagula- 
tion takes place rapidly. If diluted acid be added to 
boiled milk, it produces immediate coagulation; but, 
if mixed with the raw fluid, coagulation takes place 
much less rapidly. If alkali be added to the former, 
cream arises with rapidity and completeness, while 
no marked change occurs when it is added to the 
latter. Observations made, of forty-six specimens of 
gastric contents obtained from six men fed on milk, 
established the fact that unboiled milk had slightly 
the advantage as a nutrient, being somewhat more 
digestible than when boiled. Peptone was found 
to be present at all stages of digestion. His obser- 
vations on the effect of rennet confirmed those of 
Schreiner, published some time ago in Munich. 
A communication was read from Miss 8S. G. Foulke 
on the structure and habits of Manayunkia speciosa, 
the fresh-water worm recently described by Professor 
Leidy. Miss Foulke has had an opportunity of study- 
ing mature specimens, and has consequently been 
able to make important additions to Dr. Leidy’s 
account of the species, which was based on young 
specimens. 
NOTES AND NEWS. 
A GENERAL meeting of the American forestry 
congress will be held at Washington, D.C., on May 7. 
Time and place have been chosen contrary to prece- 
dent, in order to find an opportunity of calling 
attention to the society’s active work, and impress- 
ing upon Congress, then assembled, the needs and 
requirements of forestry in this country. It is there- 
fore desirable that such meeting should be well at- 
tended; and no individual efforts should be spared 
by the members and friends of this association to 
make the same particularly interesting and effective. 
The following subjects have been selected as leading 
topies of discussion, referees having been appointed 
to prepare papers in regard to them: Value of Ameri- 
can timber-lands; Management of timber-lands and 
timber in Canada, and legislation thereon; Value 
and management of government timber-lands; Best 
method of planting trees on unoccupied government 
lands; Influence of forests on climate and health; 
Insects injurious to trees, causes and dangers of their 
excessive multiplication, and how to meet them in 
their wholesale ravages; Growing forests from seed 
by farmers; Preservation of forests on head waters of 
streams; Planting of trees by railroad companies; 
Irrigation in connection with tree-planting; Experi- 
ment-stations and forest-schools; How can we best 
promote the interest in, and knowledge of, forestry 
among all classes of this country ? 
— The yearly meeting of the Russian geograph- 
ical society was, as usual, largely taken up by 
the report of the secretary about the yearly work. 
Nothing of special interest, not yet known, was in- 
cluded. In the yearly award of the medals which 
followed, the greatest gift of the society, the Con- 
stantine medal, was given to N. A. Sewertzow, the 
celebrated zodlogist and explorer of central Asia, for 
his lifelong work. The great gold medals of the sec- 
tions of ethnography and statistics were not awarded 
this time. The Lutke medal was given to H. A. Wild 
for meteorological works. Four gold medals and a 
considerable number of silver and bronze ones were 
also awarded. 
At the February meeting of the society a com- 
munication was received from Bukharow, Russian 
consul at Hammerfest, Norway, about his extensive 
travels in the Lapland peninsula in the fall of 1883. 
The fourth number of the society’s Izviestiya has been 
issued. It contains, besides matter mentioned here, 
Konshin’s account of the Kara-Kum sands in central 
Asia, and Vasenew’s travels into western Mongolia. 
— At a meeting of railroad engineers in Moscow in 
December, 1883, the establishment of meteorological 
stations at the railroad-stations, and of weather-tele- 
grams sent by the railway-wires to Moscow, so as to 
be able to get information about the state of the 
weather, and predictions of events of interest to 
railroads (as snow-storms, heavy rains, and sudden 
thaws), was proposed. A meeting of the railroad 
boards, held soon after, agreed to this proposal; and 
so it is to be hoped Russia may soon have a system of 
observations by properly paid and controlled men, 
instead of relying entirely, as now, on unpaid and 
voluntary observers. 
— A call has been issued for a meeting of inventors 
and persons interested in the perpetuation of the 
present system of U.S. patent-laws, to be held at 
Music Hall, Cincinnati, March 25, 26, and 27. The 
call is signed by gentlemen from twenty states, and 
delegates are expected from thirty-two states. Ar- 
rangements are being perfected for a probable attend- 
ance of three thousand. 
The first object of this meeting is to effect a per- 
manent organization for the purpose of protecting 
the rights of inventors and patentees. Over two hun- 
dred and fifty thousand patents have been issued by 
the United States, from which it is clear that very 
large interests are at stake in any changes of the pat- 
ent-laws such as are now pending before Congress. 
Twenty-eight bills have been introduced in the pres- 
ent Congress, which interfere more or less directly 
with patents or their owners, and diminish in one way 
or another the protection afforded to inventors. One 
bill provides that no damages can be recovered for 
infringements prior to written notice served on the 
infringed by the patentee, thus rewarding the secret 
manufacture of patented articles. Another bill is to 
prevent the recovery of damages in cases where the 
amount involved is less than twenty dollars; and an- 
other bill fixes this amount at fifty dollars. 
—On the 11th of February died John Hutton Bal-- 
four, for many years professor of botany in the Uni- 
versity of Edinburgh, director of the Royal botanic 
garden, and Queen’s botanist for Scotland. He was 
born in that city on the 15th of September, 1808, and 
fina 
