Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 38.djvu/585

Rh the average during the prevalence of the epidemic were diarrhœa and dysentery, liver disease, measles, scarlet fever, typhoid fever, and erysipelas. The death-rate of persons above twenty years old rose considerably above the average during the four or five weeks immediately preceding the beginning of the registration of deaths due to the epidemic. In studying the dissemination of germs of the disease by winds, it is well not to confine attention to surface winds. It ia now found that atmospheric circulation takes place largely through cyclones and anticyclones, by means of which the levels of the currents are changed.

Zigzag Lightning.—It was asserted by Mr Shelford Bidwell, in a lecture at the London Institution, that the zigzag lightningflash of artists has no existence in nature, but is simply an artistic fiction or symbol; and the speaker produced photographs to prove his point, asserting that not an instance of the zigzag flash could be found among the two hundred specimens in the collection of the Meteorological Society. Mr. Eric S. Bruce has since published a paper for the purpose of showing how the zigzag flash, which is really often seen by observers and is frequently depicted by artists, may have a counterpart in nature consistent with the evidence of the society's photographs. In his view, the appearance is not the flash itself, but is the optically projected image of the flash formed on clouds, not of a smooth surface, but of the rocky cumulus type. The image of the flash takes the angles of the uneven surface and becomes zigzagged. The author has exemplified this process by casting the photograph of a lightning-flash, by means of the optical lantern, on model cumulus clouds, when the "streaming" flash became zigzagged.

Identification by Measure.—M. Jacques Bertillon has described a method now practiced in France of identifying criminals by comparing their measures. Photography is used in it only as an aid to identification established by other means. The basis of the system is to obtain measurements of those bony parts of the body which undergo little or no change after maturity, and can be measured with extreme accuracy to within a very minute figure. Those parts are the head, foot, middle finger, and parts of them, and the extended forearm from the elbow. By the classification of these anthropometrical coefficients, a list including any number of persons of whom photographs are obtained can be divided into many groups containing a small number of individuals each. Stress is laid on the importance of the hand and the ear as marks of recognition. The hand, because it is the organ in most constant use in every calling, and in many trades and professions it becomes modified in accordance with the particular character of the work which it has to do. The ear is the precise opposite to this. It changes very slightly, if at all, except perhaps in the case of prize-fighters, who develop a peculiarity which is easily recognized. It is, therefore, an important organ to measure, inasmuch as the results are not likely to be nullified by a change in the conformation.

Irish Myths.—In his book on the Myths and Folk-lore of Ireland Mr. Jeremiah Curtin regards as insufficient the theories of Mr. Müller and Mr. Spencer, who derive all mythology from a misconception of the meanings of words and a confusion of ideas, and refers its origin to a misconception of the causes of phenomena. "The personages of any given body of myths," he says, "are such manifestations of force in the world around them, or the result of such manifestations, as the ancient myth-makers observed." Mr. James Mooney remarks that the definiteness of detail characteristic of Irish stories contrasts strongly with what is found in other parts of Europe. In Hungary, for instance, the usual introduction is, "There was in the world"; while the Russian story-teller, hardly more satisfactory, informs us that "in a certain state in a certain kingdom there was a man." In the Irish myths, on the contrary, according to Mr. Curtin, we are told who the characters are, what their condition of life is, and how they lived and acted; the heroes and their fields of action are brought before us with as much definiteness as if they were persons of to-day or yesterday. The Gaelic mythology, so far as it is preserved in Ireland, is said to be better preserved than the mythology of any other European country.