er, 
528 
jun., of Auburn, and now issues a monthly bulletin. 
It is hoped, that, during the next session of the legis- 
lature, the service may be placed on a permanent 
footing. 
— The Massachusetts charitable mechanic associa- 
tion announces its fifteenth exhibition to open in 
September, 1884, and to continue for not longer than 
ten weeks. 
—Professor Angelo Heilprin began a course of 
fifteen lectures on geology, before the Teachers’ in- 
stitute of Philadelphia, in the hall of the Academy 
of natural sciences, Wednesday, April 23. 
— The Ottawa field-naturalists’ club, which for five 
years has been engaged in developing the natural his- 
tory of that district, has issued a circular calling at- 
tention to its success in the past, aud urging its 
members and others to still greater exertions. The 
excursions the coming season are expected to be of 
especial interest, and through them it is hoped that 
many may be enticed to help in the scientific work. 
Observations of the migrations of birds are especial- 
ly called for. 
— What a blow it would be to the scientific farmer, 
if it should be proved that the Ohio floods are due to 
some extent to the large amount of drainage-pipe 
and ditches which have been introduced of late years! 
A writer in the New-York herald urges the farmers to 
turn their backs on the drain-tile dealer, and devote 
their energies to deep ploughing, that the rain may 
the better be absorbed. 
— The Missionary herald for March prints the fol- 
lowing account from Mr. Gulick, one of its mission- 
aries in Japan: — 
No matter how cold it is, shoes are not allowed in 
the clean, matted rooms of any Japanese hotel or 
dwelling. Slippers are permitted as a concession to 
the foreigner. After making your prostrations to 
your callers, the proper position for yourself and all 
your company is to sit in a circle about the brazier, 
while tea and cakes or candies are passed around. 
After the tea the inevitable pipe, each individual 
carrying his own, is produced. A little pinch of dry 
fine-cut, half the size of a pea, is pressed into the mi- 
croscopic bowl: the gentleman bends forward on his 
knee with the long pipe-stem in his mouth, touches 
the pipe to a live coal, gives a suck, bloats his cheeks 
for a moment with the warm smoke, and then expels 
it in two streams from his nostrils; a second whiff, 
then with a sharp rap of the pipe on the side of the 
brazier, or of a box for the purpose, the ashes are ex- 
pelled, and he is ready to repeat the dose, or, with an 
air of satisfaction, tucks his pipe back into his belt. 
Each member of the circle is likely to repeat this 
operation from five to fifteen times in an hour; and 
you, the one abstainer, have the full benefit. 
This is but one of the discomforts. The polite 
manner of sitting —the only manner admissible in 
refined society — is anotherand very greatone. Your 
caller is announced. He drops on his hands and 
knees, and touches his forehead to the mat: you do 
the same. Perhaps a second bow, and you ask him 
SCIENCE. 
[Vou Tie No. 64. _ 
to be seated: modestly he subsides at a little dis- — 
tance to the rear. You urge him to come up to the 
brazier and warm his hands: he declines. You 
urge him again, and he crawls forward. You are. 
seated; all are seated. Your instep and the top of 
your stockinged or slippered feet press the floor, while 
you sit back full weight upon your heels and the up- 
turned soles of your feet, with your knees straight 
before you. You, or your travelling-companion, pass 
the tea and cake. You exchange a few words with 
your caller, perhaps spread the palms of your cold 
hands over the few red coals, and try to look serene 
and composed. If you are an average foreigner, and 
not of the loose-jointed kind, about five minutes in 
this position is all you can endure, and you are ready 
to exclaim, ‘ Who shall deliver me from bondage to 
Japanese etiquette?’ Your agony betrays itself in 
your face, and one of your polite visitors begs you to 
unbend and stretch out your feet. Thankful enough, 
you relieve your aching ankles and knees by assuming 
the attitude of the Turk, or the Hawaiian, on the 
mats. Occasionally the hotel-keeper, or your host, 
knowing the weakness of the foreigner, offers you a 
chair. But as vain is the effort of the man in a chair 
to be sociable with those on the mats as for a man on 
horseback to identify himself with a company of foot- 
passengers. Half an hour of enforced endurance of 
the standard polite position will render the ripe for- 
eigner as lame as a foundered horse. ‘The once flexi- 
ble knee-joint refuses duty. But then, the Japanese 
are the most polite people in the world, and they will 
pardon any attitude in one whom they know and re- 
spect. 
— We learn from Nature that a London Times cor- 
respondent writes from Iceland that reports of a vol- 
canic eruption in the interior were current last year, 
and were founded on peculiar appearances of the 
sky, and especially on the observation from some of 
the remote inland farms of columns of smoke or 
vapor rising in the far distance. Nothing definite 
has, however, been ascertained as to these phenomena. 
An unusually large number of scientific men, —geol- 
ogists, botanists, and philologists, —chiefly German 
and Swedish, visited Iceland last summer, and in- 
vestigated its structure, flora, and language; and at 
present Professor Sophus Tromholt, well known in 
scientific circles by his researches as to the aurora 
borealis, is pursuing these investigations there, and 
intends to remain all the winter, as, from the clear- 
ness of the atmosphere and the frequency and bril- 
liancy of the aurora, Iceland is exceedingly well suited 
for his observations. 
— Some figures relative to the effect of different 
forms of artificial illumination on health have re- 
cently been published in the English Science monthly. 
A tallow candle is far the most unhealthy agent, 
and the electric light the best. The heat produced 
by the incandescent lamp is only about one-thirtieth 
of that produced by the tallow candle, while there is 
no carbonic acid or water produced at all. It is said, 
one gas-jet in a room vitiates the air as much as six — 
human beings in a room. ey . 
