Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/587

Rh a Moorish temple; while, from the central points to which the edges of those singular designs converged, a long single icicle hung down, several inches in diameter at its base, perfectly round, smooth, and as clear as crystal, tapering off toward its end with a point us sharp as a needle." Wherever the water poured over the rocks it left a white deposit, which, when tasted, produced a marked astringent feeling upon the tongue, with a strong impression of alum, sulphur, and iron.

Malaria-Factories in Mauritius.—Reference having been made in a recent health lecture at the Society of Arts to an outbreak—the first in the history of the island—of malarial fever which occurred in Mauritius in 1866, Mr. F. Guthrie, who was there at the time, gives a statement of what he found, upon examination, was the cause of the outbreak. The embankments of the new railroad had caused the accumulation of water in ponds on either side of the track. This became stagnant and impregnated with the sewage that surged down from the higher land, till it was strongly offensive to the sight and the smell. In view of the existence of these cess-pools on a grand scale, Mr. Guthrie does not believe that the outbreak was due to the "clearing of the forests" or to the "upturning of the virgin soil," but simply "to the infatuation of those who did not know, and who, even when it was pointed out to them, could not see that, when lagoons of sewage and saltwater are reeking beneath a semi-tropical sun, fever is the rule rather than the exception."

Dancing as Physical Training.—Dr. Crichton Browne has had a good word to say for dancing. In a recent lecture before the Birmingham (England) Teachers' Association, he insisted on the importance of a timely training and discipline of all motor centers, so that advantage may be taken of the superior plasticity that characterizes them during their period of growth. lie spoke of the value of the educational training in this way of the hand-centers of to-be artisan.", of the different kinds of muscle work, and in regard to dancing said that, if taught at the proper time—that is, very early in life—it "may discipline large groups of centers into harmonious action, enlarge the dominion of the will, abolish unseemly muscular tricks and antic:", develop the sense of equilibrium, and impart grace and self-confidence. Every day," he continued, "we may detect in the conversation or carriage of persons we meet painful evidences of the neglect of dancing and deportment in the rearing of the young."

Mechanical Repetition and Intellectual Knowledge.—It has sometimes been observed that, when children of savages are put to school, they exhibit great readiness, and sometimes precocity, in learning the elementary branches till they reach a certain age, when they all at once fall off. Professor W. Mattieu Williams regards this as a sign of their intellectual inferiority, and a consequence of it. The earlier instruction of these children "mainly consists in 'learning lessons,' mechanical practice in writing, and mechanical use of the rote-learned addition and multiplication tables. So far, mere verbal memory, finger moving, and repetition-gabble of numbers, does all the work. The higher intelligence of the child contributes little or no aid in the performance of such tasks; it rather stands in the way by inducing thought, i. e., distracting the child's attention from the mechanical drudgery demanded. When work demanding thought is required, whether it be higher school-work or the business of practical life, the difference between the Caucasian and the lower races comes out; not because there is an arrest of development in the lower, but because the higher demand displays the working of the higher faculties. A glib aptitude for learning foreign languages is, generally speaking, an indication of intellectual inferiority, a simple result of the lower intellectual faculties being concentrated upon such mechanical effort without the distracting influence of the higher reasoning powers."

M. de Mortillet on Tertiary Man.—M. G. de Mortillet read a paper before the Anthropological Section of the French Association on Tertiary "man," in which he said the question was not one of knowing whether man existed in the Tertiary epoch as he