ISS4.J 
Notes. 
5 03 
Mr. S. Newcomb (“ Science ”), in criticising President Eliot’s 
views on a liberal education,” outdoes Procrustes. He 
suggests that “the end will be best reached by adopting a 
system of training for every man in that class of subjedls for 
which his natural capacity is the weakest!” Surely a “ com- 
m unity and sympathy of thought and feeling among the great 
0 y of educated men ” would be far too dearly bought on such 
terms 1 
M. Montigny maintains that the occurrence of blueness in 
the scintillation of the stars serves, to some extent, as a measure 
of the quantity of water contained in the upper regions of the 
atmosphere. 
The Narcissus refiexus of the Glenan Islands is polymorphous 
presenting a form with the style long and the stamens shorter • 
a second form in which the style is short and the stamens longer; 
and a third, very rare form, in which the three internal stamens 
are abortive. 
H. H. Smith (“ American Naturalist ”) mentions a Lonmcorn 
genus ( Scorpionus ), found in South Brazil, which can inflidt a 
sharp sting with the terminal joint of its antennae. 
The “American Naturalist” mentions that a farmer in 
Arkansas, was stung to death by the “ buffalo gnat,”— a species 
of Simulium. 
The “ Medical Press and Circular,” speaking of the Medical 
Bill at present before Parliament, says that Messrs. Hopwood 
and Wyndham have amendments for the encouragement of 
quackery, which need not be seriously considered. 
Perfectly pure albumen does not coagulate at 212 0 F. and 
forms no precipitate with the salts of barium. 
We perceive that the Chemical Society of Paris proposes to 
assume the title of the “ Chemical Society of France.” 
According to the “ Scientific American ” it would require four 
thousand years for the waters of the Mediterranean to fill the 
valley of the Jordan, if admitted through a channel 100 feet wide 
by 25 feet in depth. At the same rate it would take 40,000 years 
to fill up the Caspian to the sea-level, and thousands of vears to 
fill up the Sahara. 
[As by far the greater part of the Sahara is above the sea- 
level the author’s calculations are evidently ill-founded in this 
respedt.] 
Dr. C. G. Garrison (“ Medical Bulletin ”) contends that “ as 
expert the position of the physician is judicial, and he should be 
called by the Court, not by the contestants.” 
[The same must, by a parity of reasoning, be the case with 
the microscopist, the scientific chemist, and the engineer.] 
