( 434 ) 
U»iy, 
NOTES. 
In a scientific, and as we always thought non-political, contem- 
porary we find an entire page devoted to the recent abortive 
“ Affirmation Bill !” 
If the “ Academy ” is not misinformed, the Canadian Collector 
of Customs has recently seized and confiscated a set of the 
works of Professors Huxley and Tyndall, and of Mr. Herbert 
Spencer, as “ immoral and irreligious.” So the British Empire 
still has a censorship of the press, administered not by scholars 
and thinkers, but by revenue officers ! Happy thought : may it 
not be necessary in future to “examine” candidates for the 
Customs in criticism, ethics, and theology ? Let a certain De- 
partment take this into due consideration. 
Dr. Krause (“ Kosmos ”) considers the close resemblance of 
certain moths (such as the so-called “humming-bird hawk- 
moth,” and especially to Macroglossa Titan ) is due to positive 
mimicry. The close resemblance may, it is suggested, proteCt 
the moths from the humming-birds which are apt to attack them. 
(But humming-birds, even of different species, attack each 
other.) 
M. V. Burq (“ Comptes Rendus ”) confirms the reported im- 
munity of workers in copper from cholera and typhoid fever. 
The Bon Accord trade society, consisting of 300 to 400 bronze- 
turners, fitters, &c., has not, since its foundation in 1819, lost a 
single member by either of these diseases. 
The epoch of wheat-harvest, in France, is retarded by three 
days where the altitude exceeds 100 metres. 
Dr. Doelter (“ Petermann’s Geog. Mittheilungen ”) finds that 
the Cape Verde Islands contain, along with eruptive rocks, lime- 
stones, slates, gneiss, &c., and have probably once been con- 
nected with the continent ; not, however, direCtly opposite, but 
in a northern or north-eastern direction. 
MM. Wroblewski and Olezewski (“Comptes Rendus”) have 
obtained nitrogen as a colourless liquid by cooling it down to 
— 136° F., and gradually releasing it from a pressure of 150 at- 
mospheres. 
M. E. Cosson (“ Comptes Rendus,”) still combats the pro- 
jected creation of an inland sea in Northern Africa, as, if prac- 
ticable, of little utility. 
