HA R D WICKE ' S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



89 



Man, in which he sketched the results of the investi- 

 gations of all known anthropologists. A discussion 

 ensued, in which Mr. Woodward commented on the 

 value to investigators of Mr. Mello's "impartial and 

 admirable resume " on the question. 



All scientists are agreed that we are on the verge 

 of a great discovery as regards the composition and 

 behaviour of matter. The " atomic theory " of grand 

 old Dalton was the preliminary speculation ; Prof. 

 Cooke, of Boston, in his "New Chemistry," came 

 next ; and Prof. Crookes, one of our most original 

 researchers, followed quickly with newer and more 

 startling opinions. We speak of the seventy odd 

 elements dealt with by chemists in their laboratories, 

 as if they were so many " creations" of distinct kinds 

 of matter, just as naturalists, in the time before 

 Darwin, used to write about the special " creation" 

 of animals and plants. The tendency of modern 

 chemical and physical research is to show there is 

 only one kind of matter, varying according to 

 ' development and environment, just as animals and 

 plants have done. This has been strikingly shown 

 in some recent experiments with nitrogen. Prof. 

 Dewar's still more remarkable experiments with 

 liquid oxygen have thrown an almost lurid light upon 

 the subject, of how matter varies under varying 

 conditions. In its liquid state oxygen is as highly 

 magnetic as iron and steel ! 



It seems probable that we have yet much to learn 

 concerning the behaviour of the universal, force, of 

 whose nature we know nothing. A very remarkable 

 paper has just been read before the Paris Academy 

 of Sciences by Mr. Mascart, showing that gravitation 

 is liable to diurnal variations. Mr. Mascart's 

 apparatus for testing this fact was both simple and 

 ingenious. A barometric tube, enclosing a column 

 of mercury 4-5111. in length, balanced by the pressure 

 of hydrogen contained in a lateral vessel, has been 

 kept surrounded by earth for several years, at the 

 Pare Saint-Maur Observatory, only the short upper 

 end emerging from the ground. A study of the 

 daily motions of the column, by means of photo- 

 graphic registration, has recently, apart from the 

 slow and steady changes due to inevitable differences 

 of temperature, shown sudden variations, lasting from 

 fifteen to sixty minutes, which can hardly be 

 explained otherwise than as due to corresponding 

 variations in gravitation. They have been as high as 

 1-20 mm., or 1-90,000. The differences of sea -level 

 from high to low water would only produce one-fifth 

 of this variation. The phenomena, if due to subter- 

 ranean displacements, would be specially interesting 

 in volcanic districts. 



At the close of the glacial period some beautiful 

 Arctic animals lived in Great Britain. Their 

 fossil remains are frequently met with, even near 

 London in the brick earths of the Thames Valley. 



Of course, the Arctic regions now represent their 

 only home. Colonel Fielden, however, who is both 

 a distinguished naturalist and an Arctic traveller, 

 suggests that the musk ox might, with advantage, be 

 introduced into Great Britain. He sees no reason 

 why it should not thrive on the mountains of the 

 Highlands of Scotland. In the winter season the 

 musk ox is covered with a long-stapled fine wool in 

 addition to its coat of hair. This wool is of a light 

 yellow colour, and as fine as silk. Sir John 

 Richardson slates that stockings made from this wool 

 were more beautiful than silk ones. Young musk 

 oxen are very easily reared and tamed, and Colonel 

 Fielden thinks there could not be any great difficulty 

 in catching either old or young in Jameson's Land. 



All our readers are aware how, ten years ago, a 

 great noise was made about the rediscovered dis- 

 covery, that green fodder for cattle could be stored 

 in prepared pits and otherwise, and that after 

 pressure it would retain all its nourishment, such as 

 albuminoids and sugar, and be available for use as 

 cattle food the following winter. Cattle not only 

 preferred it in winter to any other kind of diet, but 

 throve upon it and got fat, and the milch kine who 

 'were partakers of it produced a more abundant 

 supply of rich milk. Thus breeders of stock and 

 keepers of cows found it better, healthier, and cheaper 

 to store away their green crops in early summer in 

 ensilage pits and stacks for winter use, rather than 

 use the dried grass we call hay. But English 

 agriculturists have not discovered everything them- 

 selves in this important line of observation, and it has 

 been reserved for an Australian farmer to discover 

 that ensilage may not only be stored away for the 

 following winter, but may be kept in store for five or 

 six years without interference with its pleasant and 

 nutritious properties. This is a most valuable dis- 

 covery for farmers, especially those in the colonies, 

 inasmuch as the surplus of bounteous seasons can 

 now be stored away for use in non-bounteous times, 

 after the manner of the seven years of plenty and the 

 seven years of famine. Henceforth, therefore, farmers 

 may regard ensilage as a valuable reserve to fall back 

 upon, when, as not infrequently happens, there is an 

 exceptional shortness of fodder. 



All rodent animals are remarkable amongst 

 mammals for their reproductiveness. Left by them- 

 selves, and not kept down by any natural police, 

 they would increase and multiply and overrun the 

 whole terrestrial globe. One of the chief of the 

 natural police to repress them is the common barn- 

 yard owl. But this, once very familiar bird happens 

 to be in the black books of the pheasant breeders' 

 gamekeepers. Consequently it is trapped, shot, 

 destroyed in every possible way, until now, even in 

 uninvaded country districts, owls are almost as rare 

 as swifts. The late Edward Newman, one of the 

 most practical naturalists of the present century, 



