1884 .] 
( 5^5 ) 
NOTES. 
We learn that the Corporation of Plymouth has subscribed £1000 
towards the eredtion of a Marine Zoological Station. The 
general public, however, seem little disposed to follow their 
example and that of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales. 
The Academy of Sciences has invited correspondence on the 
treatment of cholera, and has appointed a Commission to exa- 
mine the 240 letters received. The result is summed up as 
follows : — “ Secret remedies, means of no value, therapeutic 
agents already tried.” Most of the writers are laymen, and they 
give not the smallest fact in support of their assertions. 
According to M. A. Barthelemy the respiratory adt in the ani- 
mal Convoluta Schultzii consists in the absorption, through the 
cuticle, of dissolved carbonic acid which the chlorophyll present 
decomposes, producing oxygen. This oxygen is utilised by the 
animal, very little being exhaled. 
At a recent meeting of the Academy of Sciences M. Xamben 
referred to the deplorable custom, still kept up in certain country 
places, of ringing the church-bells during thunderstorms. 
According to MM. Perrin and Dujardin-Beaumetz, alcohol is 
sometimes present in the animal system when it has not been 
introduced from without. 
M. J. Kiinckel (“ Comptes Rendus ”) shows, in refutation of 
Weissmann, that in the pupa-state of the Diptera the heart con- 
tinues to beat during the phenomena of histolysis, and whilst 
those of histogenesis begin to be manifested. The short epoch 
of stoppage of the heart does not mark an appreciable interval 
between these two processes. 
MM. G. Bonnier and L. Mangin (“Comptes Rendus”) con- 
clude from their experiments that sunlight, diredt or diffused, 
diminishes more or less the intensity of respiration in the non- 
chlorophyllaceous parts of plants. For the same individuals the 
ratio CQ of the volume of carbonic acid emitted to the volume 
of oxygen absorbed is the same in light and in darkness. 
We hear that a Ministry of Education is about to be established 
in these realms, and that this important office is to be filled by 
— Mr. Mundella! 
