Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 42.djvu/593

Rh the observations described by Prof. Pickering is an actual change of color which, eliminating all probable sources of error, the planet really seems to undergo. He believes that some time in the future these changes will be understood and their laws determined. He thinks the greatest danger lies from optical illusion.



A of the London Spectator, Violet Davies, tells the following story of "a canine member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals": "Last week a sick dog took up its abode in the field behind our house, and, after seeing the poor thing lying there for some time, I took it food and milk and water. The next day it was still there, and when I was going out to feed it, I saw that a small pug was running about it, so I took a whip out with me to drive it away. The pug planted itself between me and the sick dog, and barked at me savagely, but at last I drove it away, and again gave food and milk and water to my protégé. The little pug watched me for a few moments, and as soon as he felt quite assured that my intentions toward the sick dog were friendly, it ran to me, wagging its tail, leaped up to my shoulder, and licked my face and hands, nor would it touch the water till the invalid had had all it wanted. I suppose that it was satisfied that its companion was in good hands, for it trotted happily away, and did not appear upon the scene again."

vermilion-spotted newt (Diemyctylus viridescens), as described by Simon H. Gage, has the curious property of changing from the aquatic to the terrestrial life and again to the aquatic, modifying or partially modifying its breathing organs to correspond with each change of medium. It appears that, after having lived on the land, the preparation for reproduction requires the terrestrial forms to enter the water, when the life becomes for a greater or less time once more partially aquatic, and that "the surroundings of larval" life and the necessity for respiration brought about by the prolonged stay under water required for fertilization and ovulation recall by a kind of organic memory the mode by which respiration was accomplished in larval life. The tree-toad and the yellow-spotted salamander are likewise capable of partially returning to an aquatic mode of respiration; and the siren, after having had its gills so far absorbed as to be mere stubs, returns to the water and reacquires them.

extraordinary grotto was recently revealed at Tavernay, Fiance, by an explosion during the progress of the ordinary work in a quarry. This subterranean gallery, with walls polished as if by water, is about 1,500 feet long, and ends in a chamber about 40 feet in diameter and six feet high.

expedition sent in 1891 from Bowdoin College to Labrador has confirmed the truth of the reports that have been vaguely current for many years of the existence of a great cataract in Labrador. The stream forming the falls and rapids rises in the plateau known as "the Height of the Land." The spray of the falls was visible to the explorers when twenty miles away. The river, rushing through a gorge hardly more than 150 feet wide, makes a sheer plunge of 200 feet. Below the falls are rapids, which prolong the whole descent to quite 500 feet. The explorers sailed down the river for 300 miles below the falls.

the last anniversary meeting of the Royal Society the Copley medal was awarded to Prof. Rudolph Virchow for his services in natural history, morbid anatomy, histology, pathology, and ethnological and archæological science; the Rumford medal to Nils C. Dunér, of the University of Lund, Sweden, for his work in spectroscopic astronomy; Royal medals to Prof. Charles Pritchard, of Oxford, for photographic investigations in astronomy, and J. N. Langley for physiological researches; the Davy medal to Prof. François Marie Raoult for his researches on the freezing-point of solutions and on the vapor pressures of solutions; and the Darwin medal to Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker.

the Laos of the Siamese dominions, according to an article in the Kew Bulletin, tea leaves are not used for making an infusion as in other countries, but are prepared wholly for the purpose of chewing. They are steamed and then tied up in bundles and buried in the ground for about fifteen days. Leaves thus prepared, which are called mieng, are said to keep two years or more. The habit of chewing mieng is nearly universal among the Laos, and is said to be almost indispensable to men engaged in hard work.

on the suitability of aluminum for horseshoes made in a Russian regiment of Finnish dragoons have resulted favorably. The horses were shod with three iron shoes and one aluminum shoe. When it was time to renew the shoeing, the shoes of aluminum were found to have worn as well as those of iron. None of them were broken, none showed any traces of rust. Among the advantages anticipated from the use of aluminum in horseshoes are greater facility in forging and a reduction of the load to be carried by the horse's feet.

American Microscopical Society has funds supplied it, from which it offers two prizes of fifty dollars each for the best papers giving results of original 