Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 16.djvu/897

 were developed from exceedingly small pipes with flat heels to larger barrel-shaped pipes, and then to pipes with long handles and pointed spurs. The makers' marks were put on the heels of the oldest specimens, on the bowls of more recent ones, and on the stems of still later ones.

Stammering and its Causes.—M. Chervin, founder and director of the Institution for Stammerers, at Paris, has recently made researches into the prevalence of stammering in France, as shown by the reports of the recruiting officers for the army during the last twenty years, and into the climatic and other influences that are favorable to the development of the infirmity. He has represented the results of his inquiries by a map which exhibits the relative number of stammerers in each of the departments at a glance. The map shows that the country may be divided into two distinct parts, by a lino running from Bordeaux to Geneva, on the south of which the number of stammerers is vastly greater than it is on the north of it. The proportion of stammerers to the whole number of young men who have reached the age when they are liable to conscription appears to be about five to one thousand. The districts along the Mediterranean coast seem to be the most liable to the affliction; and it has been found that stammering is also extraordinarily frequent in Piedmont, which has a similar climate and population. M. Chervin attributes the origin of the habit in this region partly to the extreme animation of the speech of the southern people, partly to the hot winds which are the cause of nervous disorders with which stammering may be connected. Stammering may be produced by a sudden fright suffered during childhood. Sometimes the habit comes on gradually, or is developed by association with stammerers. Men appear to suffer more from it than women, as all authors agree, so that out of a hundred stammerers hardly more than ten or twenty will be women. This may, however, only signify that men feel more inconvenience from the evil and notice it more. The reports of the recruiting officers show that the proportion of stammerers is three or four times less in the cities than in the country; a fact that is very suggestive by the side of another which M. Chervin has brought out, that stammerers are most rare where there are the most schools. It is evident that as youth become more accustomed to using their language and learning to distinguish words, to spell and write them, they learn to have a clearer conception of them, to articulate more distinctly, and escape confusion. The great number of stammerers in savage countries has been observed by travelers. It is ascribed to the absence of a knowledge of their language, and to the frequent repetitions of the same syllables which appear in their words.

Investigating the Lightning-Rod.—Delegates were appointed in the summer of 1878, by a number of British societies, to consider the possibility of formulating the existing knowledge on the subject of the protection of property from damage by electricity, and the advisability of preparing and issuing a general code of rules for the erection of lightning-conductors. These delegates have held several meetings, and have already collected a large amount of information. Several of their number are also engaged in forming abstracts of the literature of the subject. In order that their report may be as trustworthy and exhaustive as possible, the delegates ask, through Mr. G. J. Symons, their secretary, for information to be communicated to them by correspondence, on the following points: "Full details of accidents by lightning, stating especially whether the building struck had a conductor or not. If there was a conductor, state its dimensions, construction, mode of attachment to building; whether its top was pointed, distance of its upper terminal from the place struck, nature and extent of the connection between the conductor and the earth, and whether the earth was dry or moist; whether the conductor was itself injured, and whether the conductor or the point struck was the most salient object in the vicinity. Information is also desired, either verbally or by sketches, as to the position of metal spouting and lead roofing relatively to the point struck, and to the conductor. Details of the thickest piece of metal melted by a flash of lightning are much needed. Unimpeachable evidence of the failure of conductors is much desired, as such failures would be extremely instructive."