Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 34.djvu/736

718 , and the parson arraigns. If he is only moderately successful, his earnings, though small, are safe, and he may hope that his future will be as happy as his past. His occupation, meanwhile, brings him consideration and intelligent surroundings, and his life is fairly and pleasantly varied. These things all contribute to length of life.

 

seventh annual meeting of the American Forestry Congress was held at Atlanta, Ga., December 5, 6, and 7, 1888. Papers and addresses on various subjects pertinent to forestry in America were given. The Congress has for its object the creation of a public sentiment in favor of a more rational treatment of our forest resources. It is proposed to raise a fund of ten thousand dollars for carrying on the work of the Congress, by creating life-memberships of one hundred dollars each. The management of the principal fund is to be in the hands of the subscribers to it, who will be known as patrons.

programme for the second triennial session of the International Congress of Hydrology and Climatology, which is to be held in Paris in October, 1889, includes questions upon scientific hydrology, medical hydrology, and climatology. The membership fee is twelve francs.

to Mr. Thomas T. P. Bruce Warren, the better descriptions of India-rubber, which are obtained from Brazil and Central America, are now so eagerly sought after for the markets of the United States and Germany that the British no longer have the monopoly of the industry. Yankees are so frequently at Pará that they have virtually the run of the market for the raw article there, so that British customers have often to take what would not pass muster for them.

relates that while the natives of Africa usually meet the white man with suspicion and hostility, the Baluba people at once showed his party a blind, child-like confidence. They greeted them as former deceased chiefs and relatives of their king Kalamba Mukenge, by whose names they always called them. This was in pursuance of their belief that all distinguished-warriors and chiefs will return to them metamorphosed after death.

left the manuscript of his "Old and New Astronomy" in a more advanced state than was feared. Its completion has been undertaken by Mr. A. C. Ranyard, who was for some time Secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society.

having been recommended by Dr. Tommasi Crudelli as a substance that will efficiently augment the mean resistance of the human organism to the malarious ferment, Dr. Ricchi, medical supervisor of Italian railways, has adopted as a tonic food-preparation, to aid the preventive virtue of the arsenic, the impalpable soluble powder, made from the "sterilized" and desiccated blood of calves, which is known in commerce as "trefusia." Dr. Tommasi Crudelli approves the preparation, as being adapted to the condition of systems which are not susceptible of protection by the arsenical treatment alone. The same physician recommends decoction of lemon as a prophylactic or remedy in cases in which arsenic and quinine have failed.

deaths are most frequent, according to "The Lancet," when the conditions of life change suddenly, or are especially liable to change—and this without necessary reference to whether the change effected be relatively for the better or for the worse; for the change may be so rapidly effected, in either direction, as to throw upon the circulatory and respiratory functions a strain which the organs are not able to bear. In this way, persons with unsound or weak hearts or weak arteries die suddenly under rapid changes, although, if there were no special strain consequent on the change, it would in itself prove advantageous to them. It may be accepted that sudden deaths are especially likely to occur at periods of seasonal change, and at times when rapid variations of temperature are taking place.

Reader of Geography at the University of Oxford, expresses the opinion that the best preliminary training for a geographical specialist is a sound grounding in general science, and, superadded to this, an elementary knowledge of history. He has found by experience that it is exceedingly hard to give the necessary scientific knowledge to a historian.

courses in geography at Oxford for 1888-'89 will include lectures on "The Physical Geography of the Continents"; "The Geography of the British Isles, with Especial Reference to History"; and "The Historical Geography of North America." To these will be added lectures by Prof. Freeman on the "Historical Geography of Europe," and by the Reader in Indian History on "The Geography of India." Besides his duties at the university proper, Prof. Mackinder last year gave one hundred and two extension lectures on geography and physiography at ten towns.

operation of transplanting a part of a nerve from a rabbit to a man has been successfully performed in Vienna, upon Prof. von Fleischl, of the university. The professor had lost his thumb and incurred neurotoma, 