Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/444

430 evil" by means of toads. Some of the German peasants are said to have a way of crucifying toads, which must be caught for the purpose on Easter-Sunday morning before sunrise; then burying them in an ant-hill, and leaving them there till Whitsunday, when their clean and white bones, worn in a little bag around the neck, will always make the possessor win in games of chance. The Thibetans, according to Abbé Hue, tell of a toad that dwells amid the mists of a lofty mountain-range, and, unless he is propitiated, flings ice and avalanches down upon those who pass in the valleys below.

Cuban Storms.—The "Meteorological Annual" of the Royal College of the Society of Jesus at Havana, for 1875, which has only recently been published, contains several instances of coincidences between Cuban storms and meteorological phenomena in the United States, and particularly of seeming relations with magnetic manifestations. During three days in April—3d, 4th, and 5th—a "norther" prevailed, and was succeeded on the three following days by a remarkable magnetic perturbation, which was accompanied with a high barometer and a strong wind, with daily manifestations of aurora in the United States, but without accompanying electric phenomena. A magnetic perturbation on the 13th of April was coincident with a norther, much thunder and lightning, a very heavy rainfall and a disposition and state of the aqueous vapor which gave rise to solar and lunar halos, and other optical effects; but during the time no auroras were reported from the United States. Father Viñes, the compiler of the "Annual," points out various other relations between the magnetical and meteorological phenomena which suggest that this line of inquiry is likely to lead to valuable additions to our knowledge of weather changes. The diurnal and seasonal fluctuations of the barometric column in their varying amounts are significant in their relations to the analogous phenomena in the United States and over the high-pressure | area of the Atlantic. For four days previous to the observation of the highest temperature of the year—July 30th, at 4, 98·8°—auroras had been observed in the United States, and the magnetic and electrical conditions showed marked disturbances at Havana. Of eighty recorded thunder-storms, sixty-five occurred during the five months from May to September, and only three during the four months from January to March, and December. This almost total absence of thunder-storms from the rains of the winter months, as compared with the summer months, when lightning or some other electric phenomenon occurs almost daily, is important in its bearing on the theory of the thunder-storm.

A New Species of Box-Wood.—A new species of box-wood has been discovered growing in the neighborhood of the Cape of Good Hope and in Caffraria, and a quantity of it has been sent to the English market. The first sample specimens that were sent were marred by defects in the grain, which made them of inferior quality for engraving purposes. A second and larger lot appears to promise better, for it is said of it that the logs are of good sizes, sound, and clean grown. The wood possesses a closeness equal to the best Abassian boxwood, and it is thought will suit admirably for engravers' purposes. It appears to be one of the best hard woods that has yet been put forward as a substitute for genuine box-wood. The new species very closely resembles Buxus sempervirens, and has been named Buxus macowani.

The Spectroscope and the Elements.—Professor Balfour Stewart, from an examination of the evidence afforded by the spectroscope as to the nature of the elements, concludes that it is, on the whole, in favor of their being in reality compound structures, the components of which possess attractions for each other vastly greater than those exhibited in ordinary chemical combinations. The fact that in the hottest stars we have the fewest atomic structures is also in favor of this hypothesis. Summing up the evidence derived from both terrestrial and celestial sources we have, first, experimental evidence of various kinds, tending to show that the so-called elements are not essentially different from other bodies; second, in the terrestrial spectrum of pure metals at a high temperature, certain lines are obtained for some one