Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 2.djvu/263

Rh better than to subscribe for this exceedingly valuable little monthly. He will there always find, in the "Monthly Hints," just the information he is likely to want, coming precisely in season for him; while in the department of "Communications" he will have detailed in brief the experience of some of the most successful amateur and professional gardeners in the country. A glance at the headings of the various departments of this magazine will perhaps best show the ground it is intended to cover. Besides the two already mentioned, we have the following: Editorial, Scraps and Queries, Book Notices, New and Rare Plants, Fruits, etc., Foreign Correspondence, Horticultural Notes. Mr. Thomas Meehan is the editor; and, this said, there is no need of further commendation of the magazine. $2.00 per annum. Philadelphia: Published by Charles H. Marot, 814 Chestnut Street.

(H. A. King & Co., 14 Murray street, N.Y)., the initial number of which is out, presents a very creditable appearance, and will no doubt be favorably received by the special public to which it is addressed. It has a very interesting table of contents, and a handsome chromo frontispiece, "A Group of Honey Plants."

Annual Report of the Director of the Meteorological Observatory, Central Park, New York, 1871.

Reports on the Observations of Encke's Comet during its Return in 1871. By Asaph Hall and William Harkness. Washington: Government Printing-Office, 1872.

The Health and Wealth of the City of Wheeling, etc. By James E. Reeves, M. D. Baltimore, 1871.



Facts relating to Niagara.—We have received a letter stating that the article on Niagara Falls, which was published in the September, contains various inaccuracies, the following being the most important. The author of the article states that a barrier fifteen feet high, stretching across the plateau at the head of the rapids, would throw the water back on Lake Erie. Our correspondent objects that this barrier would have five feet of water flowing over it. The critic further states that the writer of the article blunders about the source of Gill Creek, in such a way as to require its waters to rise 350 feet before they could discharge into Niagara River; and, finally, the author of the article affirms that the falls, in cutting their way southward, have lost 35 feet in height each mile, which, in 6 ½ miles, the distance to Lewiston, would amount to 227 feet, while our correspondent affirms that this loss of height is but 99 feet.

The Monas Prodigiosa.—In our common household experience we may often observe the sudden appearance of a phenomenon, which, as is remarked by a writer in the Danziger Zeitung, is of great interest, both from the historical and the scientific point of view. The writer says that housewives in Danzig must have noticed blood-red spots making their appearance on farinaceous articles of food, when laid aside for a little while. This phenomenon has been often observed in that city lately, and is attributable to the presence in the food of a microscopic animalcule in the lowest stage of organic development, and consisting of a single mucous sac; though the botanist would perhaps class it among plants. It is probable that house-flies transfer from place to place these animalcules, which adhere to their feet, and thus occasion in provisions those apparent spots of blood which cause housewives so much annoyance. These animalcules acted an important and tragic part in the history of the middle ages, producing the phenomenon of bleeding hosts which repeatedly gave the signal for fearful persecutions of the Jews. It will be remembered that in those ages of fanaticism the Jews were often accused of stabbing the consecrated Host, and causing it to bleed, and on this charge over 300 Jews were at one time put to death in Basle, during the fourteenth century. Bolsena, a town in the late Pontifical States, was once the scene of a great miracle, produced by these animalcules. Down to the present day they exhibit at Bolsena, as a famous relic, the robe worn by a certain priest who,