640 
race was always to the swift, and the battle, without 
fail, to the strong. Thus the voice of science pro- 
claimed a new beatitude: ‘ Blessed are the fit, for they 
shall inherit the earth.’ This doctrine seemed to 
constitute might the only right. But if this world 
was a world of sorrow, struggle, pain, and death, at 
all events, the result, so far, had not been altogether 
profitless. Whatever the ‘far off divine event’ 
might be, to which ‘the whole creation moves,’ the 
whole creation, with all its pain, and in all its travail, 
was certainly moving, and moving in a direction 
which made, if not for righteousness, certainly for 
improvement. 
— The Italian government has determined to offer, 
on the occasion of the opening of the Turin exhibi- 
tion, a prize of four hundred pounds for the most 
practicable process for the transmission of electricity. 
— At a recent meeting of the New-York academy 
of sciences, Mr. G. F. Kunz stated, that while un- 
packing some specimens of fluorite from Amelia 
county, Va., he had noticed the display of phospho- 
rescence, a pale greenish light, by the mutual attrition 
of the specimens, the same being excited also by the 
warmth of the hands. By the heat of acandle, this 
phosphorescence was increased, and, on a red-hot 
stove, became a deep emerald-green. This led Mr. 
Kunz to examine fluorite from over a dozen localities, 
and he found that only chlorophane yielded phospho- 
rescent light by attrition. In Phillips’s Mineralogy, 
edition of 1828, a specimen of fluorite, described by 
Pallas, frgm Siberia, is mentioned, which yielded 
light by the warmth of the hand. ‘The fact that at- 
trition will cause phosphorescence, Mr. Kunz consid- 
ered new; and as the same result was produced by 
chlorophane from Branchville, Conn., it was looked 
upon as a new distinguishing characteristic between 
chlorophane and common fluorite, as pectolite from 
Bergen Hill is distinguished from the fibrous zeolites 
and other associated minerals. 
— Dr. Otto Struve states, in a letter to Dr. David 
Gill, that, during the publication of vol. x. of the 
Pulkova observations, he has reduced a series of 
parallax measurements of a Tauri (Aldebaran) made 
thirty years ago. Twenty observations give for the 
parallax (from position-angles), 0’.500 + 0”.075; while 
the distance-measures give 0”.538 + 0”.089, the mean 
being 0”.516 = 0.057. The agreement of the values 
obtained by these totally different methods is to be 
regarded as evidence of a comparatively large paral- 
lax, and shows that there are still large parallaxes to 
be looked for among the stars. 
—Mr. Khersevanoff, director of the Institut des 
ingénieurs des ponts et chaussées of St. Petersburg, 
has elaborated a project for a grand work on the 
physical geography of Russia. Woeikof, the well- 
known meteorologist, has just issued a volume on the 
climates of different parts of the earth. Barabosh 
has devoted some years to the study of Manchuria. 
The results of these studies, made on the spot, have 
at last been printed by the authorities, but the work 
is not on sale. The annexation of Merv has again 
called the attention of geographers to the great work 
SCIENCE. 
[Vou. III., No. 68. 
of Grodekoff on the Turkoman country, of which the — 
third volume has recently appeared, and the fourth 
is printing. A work by Alikhanoff, printed by the 
general staff, as well as the detailed report of Lessar, 
recently summarized in these columns, have been 
issued, but are also withheld from publication. Les- 
sar has received the gold medal of the Imperiai geo- 
graphical society, and is again at work in the field, 
where he is charged with the reconstruction and im- 
provement of the wells along the route from Askabad 
to Merv. 
— The great chart of Russia in Asia, comprising 
not only the Russian possessions, but portions of 
China, India, Persia, the whole of Beluchistan and 
Afghanistan, and nearly the whole of Russia in 
Europe, has been appearing in sheets during the last 
six months, and is now completed. In spite of the 
faults inherent in such a vast undertaking, it will 
prove most useful; and the eight large sheets, on a 
scale of 1: 4,200,000, are sold at the low price of ten: 
francs. 
— There has recently been formed at St. Louis the 
St. Louis society of microscopists. This organization 
is distinct from the St. Louis microscopical society. 
The officers are: president, Frank L. James, Ph.D., 
M.D.; vice-president, W. B. Hill, M.D.; secretary, 
H. Ohman-Dumesnil, M.D.; treasurer, Thomas F. 
Rumbold, M.D. 
— A prison congress is to be held in Rome in Octo- 
ber, 1884. The circular calling attention to the con- 
gress is issued by the U.S. bureau of education, with 
an apology for touching upon such matters as having 
to do with the discipline of this life. 
—In the discussion at a meeting of the London 
Society of arts, on Dr. Percy Frankland’s paper on 
Thames water-supply, Sir Robert Rawlinson gave 
some facts, from his long experience as a government 
sanitary engineer, that are of special interest with 
reference to the theories brought into prominence by 
the cholera commissions. He denied that the much- 
praised mountain streams were any purer in regard 
to organic matter than ordinary river-water, since 
‘‘every particle of growing matter was imbued with 
ammonia, which would combine with the water, and 
there was also the chance of other forms of impurity 
from decaying organic matter,’’ and they often had a 
bad effect on the health of strangers, who were well 
enough where the water was supposed to be much 
worse. ‘‘It seemed to be a question of acclimatiza- 
tion,’’? and he believed that the changing from one 
class of water to another might be very injurious. 
‘‘But, taking water as it is found on the surface of 
the earth, he would say, that, out of the whole popu- 
lation of the globe, ninety-five per cent must be 
drinking water, which, according to chemical tests, 
ought most seriously to injure the health; and more 
than fifty per cent of the water would horrify any 
person who had its chemical contents explained to 
him.”’ 
almost invariably sunk in farmyards. In 1838, 1849, 
and 1854, cholera prevailed in the district of Stafford- 
In India and China, water was always pol- 
* s | 
luted; and on the European continent wells were 
