184 
Notes. 
Anti-vivisedlionists deplore the existence of biologists who are 
not physicians as a modern innovation. A better acquaintance 
with the history of Science would show them that the early phy- 
sicians had little to do with the development of biology, and 
that the early biologists did not much concern themselves with 
medicine. 
Mr. W. E. Coleman (“ Kansas Review of Science ”) shows 
that the true destroyer of the Alexandrian Library was not the 
Caliph Omar, but the fanatical Bishop Theophilus, A.D. 390. 
Prof. Trowbridge (“ Kansas City Review of Science ”), in an 
able plea for museums of Natural History, curiously says “ as 
the question of Evolution or of Creation is racking the whole 
scientific and religious world.” Are the two mutually exclusive, 
unless we read “ mechanical creation ” ? 
It is generally supposed that all the Arabian philosophers were 
believers in alchemy. This, according to “ Wiedemann’s Anna- 
len,” is an error. Not only Ibn Khaldun, but At Kiudi and 
Avicenna and his school proclaim the transmutation of metals 
impossible, the philosopher’s stone a chimera, and the study of 
alchemy hurtful. 
During the discussion which followed the reading of a memoir 
by Prof. Fairchild (New York Academy of Sciences), on a pecu- 
liar coal-like transformation of peat, lately discovered at Scran- 
ton, it was mentioned that Dr. Elsberg had — by the combined 
agency of moisture, heat, and pressure — converted peat into 
coal. 
According to Morselli suicide becomes increasingly common 
with the growing density of population. Since the beginning of 
the century it has increased more rapidly than population and 
than the general mortality. The cases in the United States are 
35 per million; Ireland, 16; England, 67; Belgium, 55 ; Hol- 
land, 35 ; Hanover, 140 ; Prussian Saxony, 228 ; Gallicia, 98. 
Climate is not an important fadtor. 
M. E. Blanchard has laid before the Academy of Sciences a 
memoir showing the existence, at a comparatively recent date, of 
a large Austral continent, of which New Zealand is the chief 
relic. He does not suppose that it was ever connected with 
Australia. At the conclusion of the paper M. Milne-Edwards 
thought it necessary to make some remarks quite foreign to the 
subjedt. 
M. J. M. Charcot (“ Comptes Rendus ”) recognises in 
“hypnotism” three distindt stages, i.e., the cataleptic state, 
lethargy, and somnambulism. 
Errata. — Page 109, line 19 from bottom, for “ etorigo" read “ et origo. 
Page no, line 14 from bottom, for “ Protogoras ’’read “ Protagoras.” 
