Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/153

Rh of Professor Isaac H. Hall. The manuscript consists of the Acts and Catholic Epistles, and the Pauline Epistles, with Hebrews, together with tables to find Easter, etc., tables of ecclesiastical lessons, and a poem giving the history of the genesis of the manuscript.

of Paris, remarks, concerning the alimentary importance of water, that it is essential to dissolve the salts taken in with the food and eliminate them from the system. He denies that man can live on a purely vegetable diet, and points out that the vegetarians themselves confess the fallacy of their theory by using eggs, milk, and butter, by which they make up for the want of solid meat.

of Johns Hopkins University, has completed a photographic map of the solar spectrum, from wave-length 3,680 to 5,790, and has nearly ready the portion above 3,680, to the extremity of the ultra-violet, wave-length about 3,100. A scale of wave-lengths has been added, and the whole is claimed to be more exact and give greater detail than any other map in existence. While the error in wave-length at no part exceeds the wave-lengths of more than 200 lines in the spectrum have been accurately determined to  part.

feature of the almanacs published for use in Belgium has been brought to light. With the exception of two scientific works, whose editions are limited, they are all—495,000 out of a total of 500,000 copies a year calculated for Paris. They give the times—of the rising of the sun and moon, in which the local difference is often fifteen minutes, for Paris, making at certain seasons the day half an hour longer or shorter than it actually is in Belgium! Eclipses are calculated in detail as for Paris, even if they will not be seen at all in Belgium; and, if such an event should occur as an eclipse visible in Belgium which will not be seen in Paris, the almanac will know nothing about it. The "Grand double Almanack de Liége" does not recognize any of the discoveries that have been made in the solar system during the last three quarters of a century!

addition to three cases previously reported for the current season, the "Lancet" records, in three weeks, three other deaths occasioned by accidents in playing foot-ball. In one case, the victim was kicked in the stomach by an opposing player; the second case was also traced to a kick in the stomach, followed in time by fits; and, in the third case, the player's head, in the rush, was doubled under his breast, and the spinal cord was ruptured. Evidently a reform is needed in the conduct of this game.

Association for the Protection of Plants was formed at Geneva in January, 1883. On the 1st of January, 1885, it numbered 226 members, resident in eight cantons of Switzerland, with correspondents in France, Belgium, England, and Italy. It has established a garden of acclimatization for Alpine plants, and has distributed the seeds of five hundred species for cultivation in other countries. It has also received, by gifts or exchange, seeds from other countries for its own botanical garden. Its latest "Bulletin" contains a paper on a local flora near Geneva, and a paper by Henry Correvon, director of the garden at Geneva, recommending the cultivation of the edelweiss.

has made a communication on the behavior of rivers derived from glaciers, like the Rhine and the Rhône, when they run across lakes. They have been found to preserve their distinct existence, and to continue their course in deep ravines excavated through the lake-bottoms. The ravine of the Rhine in the Lake of Constance has been traced for five kilometres in length and to 1·65 metres below the level of the water. Where it is most largely developed, it is six hundred metres wide and seventy metres deep. The ravine of the Rhone is of similar dimensions, and has been traced for six kilometres. The course of these ravines is tortuous. They appear to be of recent origin, or in course of formation, and are a result of the superior density of the cold, sediment-charged glacial water of the rivers.

anti-vivisectionists predicted, some years ago, that the investigators to whose objects they are "anti" would come at last to experiment on the human subject. Mr. W. Mattieu Williams has become aware of three instances in which this horrible prediction has been fulfilled, in each case with the full consent of the subject and without injury to him. Pasteur has mutilated human skin and moistened the blood with the poisonous secretions of mad rabbits. Dr. B. W. Richardson has invented a painless cutting-knife, and has tested it upon his own arm. And Mr. Harrison Branthwaite, in the interest of temperance, has administered brandy, for the purpose of testing its thermic effects, to three classes of persons—habitual drunkards, moderate drinkers, and abstainers.

and having manured the vine with sulphate of copper, mixed with lime, find that most of the copper is deposited in the leaf, while merely a doubtful trace can be found in the juice of the grape. Other experiments, with other salts and other plants, indicate that the chlorophyl of the leaves is the most active agent in picking up the foreign matter.