306 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VII., No. 165 



that is the cause of the secular acceleration of the 

 moon, which the best of astronomers have not 

 been able to account for." The egotistical self- 

 sacrifice that pervades the sheet is more pitiful 

 than its teachings are dangerous. 



— The weather journal, issued weekly at Cincin- 

 nati, by S. S. Bassler, the weather editor of the 

 Commercial gazette of that city, is quite unlike 

 most journals afflicted with meteorological titles 

 in this country : it has nothing to say about cos- 

 mogony, or the influence of Saturn, but gains its 

 high value from a set of twenty-one little maps in 

 each issue, giving the isobars and something of 

 the winds, temperature, and precipitation, three 

 times for every day of the week of its publication, 

 constructed according to the signal-service obser- 

 vations. Although too small to contain much 

 detail, the maps show with sufficient clearness 

 where the centres of high and low pressure are 

 to be found, and the accompanying text is 

 designed to explain the simpler principles of 

 weather forecasting on this basis. "We trust it 

 may secure the large circulation that it well 

 deserves, and that the maps may at the same time 

 gain somewhat in clearness of execution in 

 response to the requests of numerous subscribers. 



— The first annual summary of observations 

 made at the Blue Hill meteorological observatory, 

 near Boston, was lately issued by Mr. Botch. It 

 contains a detailed statement of monthly and 

 annual means, extremes, and ranges for 1885, 

 placed side by side with similar records from the 

 Boston signal office, ten miles north of, and five 

 hundred feet lower than, the observatory. The 

 mean annual values of several elements are as 

 follows : pressure (reduced to 32°, sea-level and 

 standard gravity), 29". 962 and 29". 964 ; tempera- 

 ture, 44°.4 and 47°. 1; total wind movement 166, 

 110, and 102,829 miles ; total precipitation, 39.00 

 and 46.85 inches. Mr. Rotch is contributing a 

 series of articles on the mountain meteorological 

 stations of Europe to the current numbers of the 

 American meteorological journal that will prove 

 of much value to students in this country, not 

 only by informing them where high-level obser- 

 vations are made, but also by directing them to 

 the publications in which they are recorded and 

 discussed. 



— The general detailed map of the United 

 States, proposed and already begun by the U. S. 

 geological survey, will be upon the scale of about 

 four miles to the inch, with contour lines for every 

 twenty-five to two hundred feet, according to 

 the nature of the topography. It is proposed to 

 issue this map in atlas sheets, each composed of 



one degree of latitude by one of longitude, 

 bounded by parallels and meridians. 



— The first number of the International record 

 of charities and correction, edited by Mr. F. H. 

 Wines, and published by Putnam's Sons, has been 

 received. The Record aims to make popular the 

 literature of the subject to which it is devoted, to 

 interest the public in such questions, and to show 

 " what progress is making in the struggle for the 

 relief of human suffering, and the elevation of 

 the race/' The general subject which will be dis- 

 cussed in its columns is ' social evils, then causes 

 and remedy.' The editor names as the five great 

 evils with which humanity has to contend, poverty, 

 ignorance, disease, vice, crime. 



— A local hurricane at Murraysville, Penn., on 

 March 21, which caused considerable damage to 

 property, has been ascribed to the heat produced 

 by the conflagration at the large gas-well there. 



— The French consulting committee of hygi- 

 ene, we learn from Nature, recently advised the 

 prohibition of the use of vaseline for butter in 

 food- preparations. The effects of vaseline on the 

 system, however, seemed to require fuller exam- 

 ination, and Dr. Dubois has made some experi- 

 ments in regard to it. Two dogs were fed ex- 

 clusively on soup in which the usual fat was 

 entirely replaced with vaseline : one of them 

 absorbed twenty-five grams of vaseline a day 

 for ten days : the other fifteen grams (this would 

 correspond, in the case of an average man, to one 

 hundred grams and sixty grains respectively). 

 With this diet the animals even slightly increased 

 in weight. Then general state was good : there 

 was no loss of appetite, nor vomiting, nor diarrhoea. 

 In general, it may be said that the carburets of 

 hydrogen forming vaseline, though they favor 

 neither oxidation nor saponification like fats, are 

 readily tolerated in the alimentary canal, at least 

 in the case of dogs. Further experiments will 

 show if a prolonged use of the substance is 

 equally innocuous. 



— The report of Mr. Hodgson to the Society of 

 psychical research, denouncing the theosophists 

 and Madame Blavatsky, has been replied to, says 

 the London Graphic, by Mr. A. P. Sinnett, in a 

 pamphlet called " The 'occult world phenomena ' 

 and the Society for psychical research" (Red way). 

 It is not, it does not indeed pretend to be, a com- 

 plete answer to the many points raised by Mr. 

 Hodgson. There is no attempt, for example, to 

 explain the existence of the damning Coulomb 

 letters. But Mr. Sinnett scores some points 

 against his adversary, and his pamphlet is to be 

 followed by some memoirs of Madame Blavatsky, 



