6g2 
Notes. 
[November, 
The connection between the hay Bacilli and those of anthrax 
{Bacillus subtilis and B. anthracis ) is the subject of controversy. 
Buchner maintains their identity, which Koch denies. Praz- 
mowski pronounces them specifically distindt ; but he agrees 
with Buchner and Pasteur that a non-pathogenous race may be 
obtained from B. anthracis, though retaining all its original 
morphological characters. 
S. G. Potter, D.D., winds up an attack on Spiritualism 
with a very neat advertisement of Carpenter’s “ Mental Physi- 
ology.” 
The French Association for the Advancement of Science is so 
largely technological that it might fitly take the title of an 
“Association for the Advancement of Industrial Art.” 
It appears (“ Ciel et Terre ”) that in France fragments of a 
tree which has been struck by lightning are eagerly colledted 
and carefully preserved by the country people as a cure for tooth- 
ache. 
According to M. Kremser, who has recently studied the rain- 
fall of Italy, Germany, and England, we have had in this 
country, from 1845 to 1880, nineteen years too dry and seventeen 
too wet. 
“ Cosmos les Mondes ” concludes that in the experiments of 
Mr. Capper, as in those of Mr. “ Stuart Cumberland,” there is 
nothing marvellous beyond excessive sensibility combined with 
great skill in observation. 
Certain astronomers (“ Ciel et Terre ”), especially Von 
Lindenau, and more recently Dr. J. Hilfiker, of Neuchatel, 
maintain that there is a periodic variation in the apparent dia- 
meter of the sun. Dr. Hilfiker holds that this periodicity coin- 
cides with that of the sun-spots. The maximum diameter 
coincides with the sun-spot minimum, and vice versa. 
M. Alphonse de Candolle has discussed, before the Natural 
History Society of Geneva, the question whether the colour of 
the human eye is hereditary. He maintains that dark eyes tend 
to become more numerous. Most frequently the colour of the 
mother’s eyes determines that of the childrens’, and especially of 
the sons’. 
At the Blois meeting of the French Association M. E. Cartail- 
hac proved that the operation of trepanning was known and 
practised in prehistoric ages. 
Otto Krimmel (“ Meteorol. Zeitschrift ”) states that at Kiel, on 
the evening of July 2nd last, drops of rain fell so large as to 
make spots on the flags of 6 to 8 centimetres (2 to 3 inches) in 
diameter, 
