Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/885

Rh of food supply, he reaches the gloomy conclusion that in a few centuries there will inevitably be too little food to supply all the mouths. Russia alone, at its present rate of births, will in one hundred years be obliged to feed eight hundred million persons. What, he asks, can stem this overwhelming tide of population? He gives up the problem, and says we must leave it to God, a solution which is more creditable to bis piety than to his position as a scientist. The real solution is to educate men and women to the point where they will not recklessly produce offspring, nor yet ruthlessly prevent them, as is the case now in some departments of France. Unfortunately, prejudice stands in the way of a fair and free discussion of this solution."

our bison and the giraffe, the African wildebeest, or white-tailed gnu, is at the point of extinction. It is computed, the London Spectator says, that there are only about five hundred and fifty of these animals surviving in a wild condition, though they were at no great distance of time numbered by tens of thousands. Four herds are mentioned as still surviving in the Orange Free State, three of about one hundred each, which are fenced in, and one belonging to a wealthy Boer farmer, Mr. Plet Terblans, consisting of some two hundred and fifty animals, running perfectly wild, but protected on his wide domain by the vigilance of his sons and black servants. Having found the dead bodies of twenty-seven of these animals, all shot at one drinking place on the same day, from only one of which the skin and meat had been taken, he determined to stop the slaughter and did it. His farm is thirty square miles in area, and the wildebeests seem to be aware that they are exposed to danger elsewhere. They will go twenty miles in a night to feed upon some particularly good grass on other land, but gallop back to sanctuary at sunrise.



Report of the New York or American Section of the Society of Chemical Industry for 1896-'97, Dr. H. Schneitzer, New York, local secretary, speaks of the continued growth and prosperity which the section, as well as the society at large, enjoyed during the year. Seventy-nine members were added to the New York section, and the number of members residing in America is now four hundred and seventy one. Seven general meetings were held during the session representing the year, at which, besides the opening address of Chairman C. F. Chandler, twenty-four papers were read, most of which have been published in the Journal of the Society in London. The society is regarded by its promoters as a necessary addition to the existing Chemical Society, its aims being the promotion of the industrial and manufacturing branches of chemistry.

British Association at its recent meeting made appropriations for grants for scientific purposes amounting to £1,350. The sum was larger than had been voted for several years, because the committee desired to make some grants for the pursuit of local investigations, to be expended by the various committees which had been appointed for the purpose of study and research in Canada. These committees relate to the establishment of a meteorological observatory on Montreal Mountain, Canadian photographs of geological interest, the biology of the lakes of Ontario, the industrial and social conditions of the northwestern Indian tribes, the organization of an ethnological survey of Canada, and the establishment of a biological station in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

has recently shown that cathode rays in air form regions of mist condensation. A jet of steam, a short distance from the aluminum window of a Crookes tube, becomes of a bright whiteness and of a cloudy nature. The cathode rays seem to act far more powerfully than the X rays in this way. A. Paulsen has formed a cathode-ray theory of the northern lights.

scientific value of Prof. O. C. Marsh's collections just presented to Yale University can not be overestimated. Perhaps the most important of these is the collection of vertebrate fossils, which contains the famous series illustrating the genealogy of the horse. The only conditions attached to the gift are those necessary to insure the permanent care and preservation of the collections themselves.

Franklin Institute of Philadelphia is making part of its building fireproof, for the safer storage of its valuable library. In connection with the change a much larger space will be provided for the reading room and for the display of models and apparatus and for general museum purposes.

has long been discarded by the doctors, but if the experiments of the Russian physiologist Essipor have any significance there may be some virtue in it, after all. This gentleman has found that an abundant drawing of the blood has important effects on the chemical composition and properties of what is left. After drawing large quantities of blood, amounting to as much as