1884.] 
Notes. 
307 
It is surely a sign of the times that a journal exists bearing 
the name of the “Competitor,” and further styling itself “A 
Civil Service and University Examination Journal and Review.” 
Even China can scarcely go so far ! 
The “ Warrington Guardian ” remarks that “ the ‘ cramming ’ 
system is flourishing all over Britain undisturbed, and is working 
havoc among both the youth of the land and their teachers, who 
are succumbing to the mental strain put upon them at a most 
uncomfortable rate.” 
Dr. Landwehr (“ Zeitschrift fur Physiolog. Chemie ”) has suc- 
ceeded in obtaining an animal gum, closely resembling the plant 
gums in its physical and chemical properties, and forming a new 
link between the animal and the vegetable kingdom. 
We hear of a chemical manufactory, in Cheshire, in which not 
a single British subjedt is employed in any position of trust. 
What a commentary on our system of scientific and technical 
education, and on the “ Department ” by which it is adminis- 
tered ! 
Mr. E. A. Freeman, the historian, has made himself conspi- 
cuous at Oxford as a Bestiarian, and has shown his complete 
misconception of the very nature of Science. 
A tornado which passed last month over Alabama, Georgia, 
and the Carolinas, killed outright over 300 persons in Georgia 
alone. 
Dr. N. A„ Randolph, in a paper on the digestion of infants, 
reprinted from the “ Transactions of the College of Physicians 
of Philadelphia,” and courteously forwarded to us, proves expe- 
rimentally that many infants under three months can digest 
starch foods ; that no broad and general statement can be made 
as to the period at which infants begin to digest starches ; and 
that the physician can be absolutely certain that a farinaceous 
ingredient in the diet of a young infant is beneficial only by an 
analysis of the dejedta und'er such diet. 
The International Geodetic Association has recommended the 
universal adoption of the meridian of Greenwich, reckoning 
longitude in one direction only, from west to east. 
We have great pleasure in learning that the statue of Liebig 
has been completely freed from the stains by which it had been 
so shamefully disfigured. The spots consisted of silver nitrate 
and potassium permanganate. By treatment with ammonium 
sulphide these metals were converted into sulphides, and were 
finally removed by applications of potassium cyanide, the marble 
remaining uninjured. The perpetrator of the outrage has not 
yet been detected. 
