THE YOUNG SCIENTIST. 
319 
Ye Ancient Dude.— The iEsthetic Won- 
der of the Eighteenth Century. 
A new kind of dandy appeared in 1770. It was 
customary in tlie last century for young men 
of rank to finish tlieir education by making tlie 
grand tour of the Continent, and a number of 
them at the close of their travels formed a club 
in St. James Street, which tliey called the Savoir 
Vivre Club. They had periodical dinners, at 
which they introduced the now familiar, but 
then unusual dish, macaroni, and, first applied 
to members only, this strange name was after- 
wards used to describe all such exquisites as 
they were. 
They were the objects of as much ridicule as 
the modern " dude." Wf^aring their hair drawn 
high above the scalp in the shape of a bee hive, 
witli long curls at the side and an enormous 
chignon, they crowned this superstructure with 
an exceedingly small cocked hat. Their coats, 
waistcoats, and breeches were scant, the latter 
being of striped silk, with bunches of ribbon at 
the knee. They carried long canes, decorated 
with silk tassels, and wore two watches, with 
large bunches of seals hanging from them. 
Around their necks' they had wh ite ties, fastened 
under their chins with an immense bow. TluAv 
calves were displayed in wliite stockings, and 
their feet encased in small slioeswith diamond 
buckles. The ladies vied witli the men in the 
/extravagance of their costiune, and likewise 
wore their hair in groat puffs, which seemed to 
overbalance their bodies.— Boston Herald. 
Sticiitifit llttos. 
—The whistle of a locomotive is heard 3,300 
y.u'ds, the noise of a train 2,800 yards, the report 
of a musket and the bark of a dog 1,800 yards, the 
roll of a drum 1,600 yards, the croak of a frog 900 
yards, and a cricket's chirp 800 yards. 
—It has been observed that " right-handed- 
ness" extends far down in the scale of creation. 
Parrots take hold of their food in their right foot 
by preference, and insects, like wasps, beetles 
and spiders, use the right anterior foot most fre- 
qneiitly. 
—Deaf mutes are taught to speak and compre- 
hend by watching the movements of the lips. 
According to the Photographic News, M. Wanerke 
has photographed the face of a man in which 
these movements were perfectly defined, so as to 
have the exact form corresponding to each sound. 
By means of these photographs inexperienced 
persons have been enabled to recognize the dif- 
ferent articulations. 
—The following is the estimated railway 
mileage of the world, January 1st, 1883; United 
States, 113,000 miles ; Europe, 109,000; Asia, 8,ooo; 
'South America. 7,000; Canada, 8,500; Australia. 
3,200; Africa, 2,200; Mexico. 2400. Grand total, 
253,000 miles. These figures, however, are not 
claimed to be exact, being based upon the latest 
available returns, to which the probable Increase 
since such period has been added. 
—Professor H. G. Williams has been engaged 
in the study of the Devonian section of Western 
New York, under the direction of the Paleontolo- 
gic Branch of the United States Geographical 
Survey. He reports good progress. Mr. L, C. 
Wooster was engagtid during July in the collec- 
tion and study of Potsdam fossils. He has been 
quite successful in these collections, and has 
already forwarded eight boxes to the National 
Museum here. 
—The name of Roebling, the man who built the 
Brooklyn bridge, which has just been completed 
at a cost of more than $20,000,000, is put as archi- 
tect on a wooden bridge across Little Hickman 
creek, in Jessamine county, Ky., dated 1855. The 
father was killed in the construction of the 
Brooklyn bridge and the son so wounded that he 
was confined to a room from which he watched 
the construction with a telescope, while his wife 
was the bearer of his orders. 
—An interesting experiment in heliograph y, or 
signalling by sunshine, was successfully made in 
Errypt during the recent campaign. Colonel 
Keyser ascended one of the pyramids near Cairo, 
and by means of a heliographic mirror refle.cted 
a ray of sunlight to Alexandria, 120 miles a.way. 
At that grea.t distance the signals, appearing like 
pin points of brightness, were easily ascertained 
to l)e a message from Sir Garnet Wolseley to the 
IChedive. 
—The utilization of slag waste is fast assuming 
considerable economical importance. The manu- 
facture of bricks from granulated blast-furnace 
slags will soon be begun in Germany. The slags 
are run into water, and the grit thus obtained is 
mixed up with lime, concrete, or plaster-of- 
Paris, and formed into bricks, which are dried 
for a month. They possess greater solidity tlia,n 
common brick, and seem to resist a much greater 
pressure. 
—Prof. Sir W. Thomson, in his new treatise on 
natural philosophy, is led by a consideration of 
the necessary order of the cooling and consolida- 
tion of the earth to infer that the interior of our 
globe is not, as commonly supposed, all liquid, 
Avith a thin solid crust of from 30 to 100 miles 
thick, but that it is on the whole more rigid than 
a continuous solid globe of glass of the same di- 
ameter, and probably more rigid than such a 
globe of steel. 
—It seems to me I can best lay this ghost of 
our animal origin by drawing attention to the 
fact that the swinging of any part that is suffi- 
ciently free may be used for steadying the body 
in walking. In man the arms are used, because 
most movable; but in lower animals the head is 
most often used. The domestic fowl moves the 
head back and forth alternately with the move- 
