214 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VII., No. 161 



weekly periodical, devoted to the 1 gesammtge- 

 biete der naturwissenschaften.* The first numbers 

 are mostly filled with abstracts and reviews. 



— The London Daily telegraph states that an 

 effort is at last being made to disinter the Sphinx. 

 The work of exhumation is intrusted to Brugsch 

 Bey, brother of the distinguished archeologist, 

 who will carry out a plan formed by Signor Mas- 

 pero. About 20,000 cubic metres of sand must be 

 cleared away. To exjDedite this task a little tram- 

 way has been constructed, and 150 laborers are 

 engaged for the more mechanical portion of the 

 toil. About Easter the work is expected to be 

 completed. Then, when the rock out of which 

 the statue has been hewn is laid bare, a broad 

 circular walk will be constructed around it, and a 

 liigh wall built to guard against future encroach- 

 ments of desert sands. 



— A correspondent of the New York Herald 

 says that it is very probable that Mr. Rousseau, 

 who was sent by the French government to in- 

 spect the Panama canal, must report that the 

 present enterprise is inevitably to be changed from 

 a sea-level canal to a canal with locks, if it is ever 

 to be finished by the present company, thereby 

 not merely falsifying M. de Lesseps's assurances a 

 hundred times reiterated, but also the very basis 

 of the preference given to the Panama route over 

 that of Nicaragua. Regular subscriptions to the 

 funds are exhausted, and it is proposed to raise a 

 hundred or more million dollars by a national 

 lottery. 



— It is expected that the Grecian canal, con- 

 necting the gulfs of Corinth and Aegina, will be 

 completed by the end of the present year. The 

 canal will be less than three miles in length, but 

 the deepest cuttings are nearly two hundred and 

 fifty feet in depth. The canal will admit the 

 passage of the largest ships, and will shorten the 

 sea distance between the Adriatic and the levant 

 a hundred and thirty miles. 



— In a recent paper the eminent French savant, 

 Alphonse de Candolle, reproduces with approving 

 comments the arguments of Prof. A. Graham Bell 

 upon the production of a race of deaf-mutes in the 

 United States. In commenting upon the methods 

 proposed to prevent this result, he adds that the 

 English language is the least favorable of all for 

 spoken use among deaf-mutes, as the movements 

 of the lips are more often replaced by an accentua- 

 tion or intonation that does not produce any visible 

 effect. The vowels are articulated less clearly than, 

 and are not so sharply differentiated from each 

 other as, in the other chief European languages. 

 The French has very few words, such as de and 



crac, in which the lips do not take part in the 

 pronunciation, while in English numerous sounds, 

 as of n, th, and h, are formed almost wholly by the 

 action of the tongue. This is confirmed by the 

 experience of intelligent deaf-mutes. Mr. Can- 

 dolle suggests, in addition to the views of Pro- 

 fessor Bell, that, independently of deaf-mutism, 

 marriage between first-cousins should be wholly 

 prohibited. He also asks whether greater care 

 given to new-born infants would not materially 

 diminish the number of deaf persons. 



— A new edition of ' Berghaus' physikalischer 

 atlas' is announced, to be completed in twenty- 

 five lieferungen, the first of which will appear 

 about the middle of the present month. The work 

 is prepared wholly anew, by the co-operation of 

 Drs. Drude, Gerland, Hann, Hartlaub, Neumayer, 

 and Zittel. 



— The bird-destroying 'slung-shot' boy is not 

 an eastern innovation. A writer in the Santa 

 Barbara, Cal., Press deplores the evil that he has 

 grown to be in the west, in the destruction of the 

 native birds for millinery purposes. 



— The following works are announced by the 

 Smithsonian institution to be now in press : 

 ' Scientific writings of Joseph Henry ; ' ' Flora of 

 North America.' by Asa Gray ; 4 Guesde collec- 

 tions of antiquities,' by O. T. Mason; ' Annual 

 report for 1884 ; ' ' Paleontological bibliographies,' 

 by J. B. Marcou ; ' Bulletin of the Washington 

 philosophical society.* vol. vii., for 1885 ; and the 

 different reports of progress in 1885 : viz., in 

 chemistry, by H. C. Bolton ; in geography, by 

 J. K. Goodrich ; in seismology and vulcanology, 

 by C. G. Rockwood. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 

 Oil on troubled waters. 



One of the most curious things in connection with 

 the use of oil on troubled waters is the frequency 

 with which it appears as a new discovery. Those 

 who would dismiss the subject with a contemptuous 

 sneer at the credulity of people imposed upon by 

 sailors' yarns know little of the prolonged attention 

 the matter has received in the past, and of the hon- 

 ored scientific men who have studied the problem. 

 There is no room here to quote the many observations 

 at hand, but only to sum them up, and to present 

 the explanation that has met with most favor. 



The earliest reference at hand in English is found 

 in Cavallo's ' Philosophy ' (fourth American edition, 

 1879, p. 209). The author points out that oil spreads 

 1 instantly ' over water ; that the wind has little 

 effect in raising waves on the surface of oil, or of 

 water covered with a film of oil ; and that from early 

 times this fact has been utilized in stilling the waves 

 of the sea. The experiments of Franklin and others 

 are cited. 



In Gehler's ' Physikalisches worterbuch ' (Berlin, 



