Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 18.djvu/591

Rh one of the boys who had died was examined, and the microscope showed living trichinæ in his muscles, but none of the appearances of enteric fever were discovered. A new cask of salt pork had been opened just before the disease appeared, the meat from which is supposed to have communicated the trichinæ to the boys. This view is confirmed by the fact that the disease ceased soon after the use of the pork was stopped. The method of cooking the meat on the vessel seems to have been defective and not sufficiently thorough to insure the heating of the whole mass to the temperature at which the trichinæ are destroyed.

Sensitive Organs of Deep-Sea Animals.—M. O. Grimm has sought to explain how it is that we find in the great depths of seas and lakes animals without eyes, and besides them others in which those organs are highly developed. According to his view, the light received by animals living in these depths is extremely feeble, but is never totally wanting. An adaptation to these special conditions has taken place. With certain crustaceans, the eyes have gained a considerable volume; with others, the eyes tend to disappear and to be replaced by other sensitive organs. In the Niphargus and Onesimus, for instance, the existence has been detected of extremely developed sensitive organs which may be supposed to serve as organs of touch, taste, and smell. Niphargus Caspius has very small eyes, which can hardly be considered as anything but the remains of normal organs, and can hardly be of any use to an animal living at a depth of from thirty-five to ninety fathoms, but it has highly developed organs of smell and touch on its antennæ. The Onesimus, whose eyes are also very rudimentary, have neither on the antennæ nor other parts of the body sensitive organs like those of the Niphargus, or at least such as they have are very little developed; but a close examination will discover, on the external blade of their foot-jaws (maxillipedes), well-constituted organs of sense, although they are hidden and of a very different structure from those of Niphargus. In explanation of this difference in the nature of the sensory organs of genera so nearly related to each other, M. Grimm remarks that the species he has found with organs of sense on their antennæ always live in the water and never go into the mud. The Onesimus, on the other hand, keep constantly in the mud of the bottom and seek their food by digging, as the moles do. Under such conditions, delicate organs of sense on the antennæ would be of no use, and have become nearly obliterated, while the situation has favored the development of organs in a protected position.

 

next meeting of the French Association for the Advancement of the Sciences is to be held in the city of Algiers, on the 14th of April. The people and authorities of the city are busily making preparations to give the Association a worthy reception and welcome. Liberal appropriations have been made by the council for the material organization of the meeting, and a large committee of citizens, under the presidency of M. Pomell. Senator and Director of the Superior School of Sciences, is preparing a programme of excursions, which will be well filled out. M. Chauveau, Director of the Veterinary School at Lyons, will be president, M. Janssen, the astronomer, vice-president, and M. Maunoir, of the Geographical Society, secretary, of the meeting.

have news of the recent death of Michel Chasles, the eminent French mathematician. M. Chasles was the author of an historical memoir on the origin and development of methods in geometry, and of numerous works in pure mathematics, and in 1865 received, in recognition of his discoveries, the Copley medal of the Royal Society.

name of the author of the useful little work noticed in our last number, under the title "What to do first in Accidents or Poisoning," is Charles W. Dulles, not Dallas, as it was there erroneously printed.

death is announced of Dr. John Stenhouse, F. R. S., a distinguished Scotch chemist, at the age of seventy-one. He was a pupil of Graham, Thomson, and Liebig, held the chemical lectureship at the Medical School of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London, for six years, and was subsequently appointed non-resident Assayer of the Royal Mint. He wrote a large number of papers on chemical subjects, and was the recipient of a medal from the Royal Society, of which he was long a member.

to the researches of Gustav Hausen, the antennæ of insects are organs 