Notes. 
[November, 
694 
escapades, though committed by men of eminence, cannot be 
too profoundly regretted or too emphatically denounced. 
French writers express dissatisfaction with the Presidential 
Address of Professor Lord Rayleigh, as not doing justice to 
French physicists. 
The proposed International Association for the Advancement 
of Science has our most earnest good wishes, provided only it 
will eschew politics, which would there be more fatal than in a 
national association. 
M. Vial, writing in “ Les Mondes,” seems desirous of con- 
juring up the old ghost “ caloric,” which we hoped had been laid 
for ever. 
M. Bouquet de la Grye connects the inroads of the sea in the 
thirteenth century with the elevated temperature then prevailing, 
which permitted the cultivation of the vine in England. He 
suggests that the ice in the polar regions melted and increased 
the volume of the ocean. 
Dr. Hans Molisch has demonstrated that the roots of plants 
may be deflected from their normal direction by exposure on one 
side to certain gases. If such gases are in moderate quantities 
the roots bend away from their source (negative aerotropism) ; if 
in larger quantities towards such source (positive aerotropism). 
The side of the root most exposed to the aCtion of the gas grows 
more strongly than the other. 
It is said that Dr. Klein, who is studying the cholera question 
at Calcutta, is satisfied that Dr. Koch’s bacillus is not the cause 
of the disease, and has swallowed a number of these microbia 
without any evil results. 
M. de Cherville (“ Cosmos les Mondes ”) records an in- 
stance of friendship between a tame magpie and a pack of fifteen 
dogs. 
Five bursaries have been founded at the University of St. 
Petersburg in honour of Charles Darwin. They are to be em- 
ployed for the support of five students in the five chief branches 
of Natural Science. 
Dr. T. More Madden points out that the evils springing from 
the abuse of alcoholism were never so prevalent as at present, 
and that they are now traceable in the diseases of youth as well 
as in those of mature age. 
In some districts it is believed that the wood of a tree which 
has been struck by lightning will not burn ; that truffles are 
generated by thunder ; that the bodies of those killed by light- 
ning do not putrefy (the very opposite opinion exists also) ; and 
that men are never struck by lightning when asleep. 
