Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/594

 of spider's threads under a counter in his grocery-store, 511 West Broad Street. It had been hoisted three inches from the floor, and the spider, which was no bigger than the end of a lead-pencil, was by dint of hard work very slowly hauling it up further, the captive being alive and struggling. After about an hour the cord was broken and the mouse was carried away and killed.

the inventor of the Maxim gun, is studying the construction of directable flying-machines, and believes that he has obtained a motor of sufficient force. M. Fontes Pereira de Mello believes that he is on the right road to the invention of a practical submarine boat.

primitive monuments of the Balearic Islands are described by M. Cartailhac as of a Cyclopean or Pelasgic character, similar to those which are found throughout the Mediterranean region. Remains of real fortified towns, like a Greek acropolis, exist in Majorca and Minorca, usually at some distance from the most exposed coasts, sometimes on a plain and sometimes on an elevated spot. In the inside of each town there was a special monument of large hewn stones, so arranged as to form a semi-circle. There were also galleries constructed by placing stones on pillars, under which one could hardly stand upright; and towers called talayots, the huge walls of which concealed small crypts or cellars. Human bones were found interred in artificial grottoes or crypts, to each of which entrance was gained by a small antechamber leading by a narrower portal.

Illinois Experiment Station reports the results of comparative experiments at four stations—three of them in light-colored soils and the other in a darker soil—in raising wheat: on unmanured ground, on ground heavily treated with barn-yard manure, five wagon-loads to the quarter-acre, and on ground treated with one hundred pounds of superphosphate to the quarter-acre. The results showed decisively the superiority of the barn-yard maturing, while the beneficial effects of superphosphate's on the amount of yield were relatively small.

of the remarkable results of the spectroscopic observation of the great nebula of Orion by Mr. Keeler at Lick Observatory is the representation in them of the direction of the earth's orbital motion, so that the observer "would with some confidence undertake to determine the month of the year by measuring the distance of the principal line from the lead line used in the spectrum."

estimate the relative merits of different kinds of points for lightning-conductors, Dr. Hess recently collected and examined nineteen heads of conductors that had been struck by lightning. His conclusions are that the fusion of points of lightning-conductors by lightning causes no danger of fire through scattering of fused drops, for this does not occur; that fine and smooth points receive the lightning-stroke in concentrated form, while sharply angled and ribbed and blunt points divide it into threads; that platinum needles and tips have no advantage over copper points; and that there are lightning-strokes which are capable of making incandescent brass wire 7·2 millimetres (say 0·29 inch) thick. Unbranched copper conductors should therefore never be thinner than 7 millimetres.

to the observations of M. A. Muntz, the rain-water and the herbage of elevated regions are much poorer in sodium chloride than those of the lowlands, and the milk and the blood of animals feeding on the mountains contain a decidedly less proportion of the salt than are found in similar animals from the plains.



Government Geologist of New South Wales, died August 26th, in his forty-eighth year. He was an original member of the Linnæan Society of New South Wales, and its president in 1883 and 1884.

who died at Bolton, England, October 6th, in his eightieth year, was one of Dalton's last surviving pupils, and assisted him in his researches on the composition of the atmosphere, and was one of his nurses in his illness.

Rev. Percy W. Myles, an English botanist and editor of Nature Notes, the journal of the Selborne Society, died October 7th, in his forty-third year. He was author of the Pronouncing Dictionary of Botanical Names appended to Nicholson's Dictionary of Gardening, which is recognized as a standard. As his circumstances were narrow, a Myles memorial fund is proposed to be raised for the benefit of his widow, for which Prof. George Henslow will receive contributions.

death of Mr. Thomas Wharton Jones, F. R. S., one of Prof. Huxley's teachers forty years ago, is announced. He was nearly eighty years of age.

fourth son of the late Dr. W. B. Carpenter, died at Eton College, England, October 21st, in his fortieth year, from the administration of chloroform during temporary insanity. He had been connected, in a scientific capacity, with expeditions of the Lightning and Porcupine, and with the Valorous of Sir G. Nares's Arctic Expedition. He made a specialty of the study of echinoderms, in which he became distinguished as an authority, and on which he published several papers and reports.