1884.1 
( 627 ) 
NOTES. 
The following startling paragraph is taken from “ Invention and 
Inventor’s Mart ” : — “ A contributor to a local contemporary 
hears of a house, not a hundred miles from the broad, open 
thoroughfare of High Holborn, in which there are no less than 
forty persons living, and in which there is no water laid on to 
flush the drains. This is a practical antithesis certainly to the 
Health Exhibition, at which scientific sanitarians are daily 
theorising.” 
“ La Lumiere EleClrique ” is represented by a technical con- 
temporary as speaking of the “ decomposition ” of hydrogen in 
presence of a large number of bodies. 
The water wagtails have an intense dislike for larks. The 
yellow wagtail, or “ dish-washer ” as he is called in some locali- 
ties, never fails to chase away any sky lark which he happens to 
espy. 
The late Prof. Dumas said— “ If the causes of our marasmus 
appear complex and manifold they are still reducible to one 
principle, — administrative centralisation, — which, applied to the 
University, has enervated superior instruction.” 
Several chestnut trees on the Boulevard St. Germain, at 
Paris, which had lost all their leaves from the intense heat and 
drought, began to put forth fresh leaves and flowers about 
August 15th. The flower- and leaf-buds have not the same 
structure as those formed in early spring, which have to proteCt 
the future shoot against probable frosts. 
“ Ciel et Terre ” has received a copy of the “ Historical and 
Geographical Almanac of Artois ” for 1784. It contains a notice 
of the pleading of M. de Robespierre — the Robespierre— before 
the Council of Artois in support of the appeal of his client, the 
Lord de Vissery de Bois-Vale, against a decree of the sheriffs of 
St. Omer, who had ordered him to remove a lightning-conduCtor 
which he had fixed to his house ! 
According to MM. Werner and Ncelting (Ind. Soc. Mulhouse) 
the poisonous properties of commercial benzol depend upon the 
presence of a small quantity of ethyl iso-cyanide. 
