Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/788

768. He is still, it is stated, busily employed in prosecuting his researches, and it is strongly suspected that a number of other unknown villages will be dragged to light.

June 14th, Prof. Henry d'Arrest, of the University of Copenhagen, aged fifty-three years. The Royal Astronomical Society of England last February awarded to Prof. d'Arrest a gold medal for his "Catalogue of the Nebulæ." At the time of his death he had just completed and published his spectroscopic survey of the northern heavens.

published a note in the July on the authority of the Sanitarian, giving the annual death-rates of several American cities, as deduced from the mortality of the month of March last. That of the city of Nashville was represented as the highest of the places mentioned, its death-rate being set down at 37.69 per thousand per annum. This was a grave mistake, which it is both a duty and a pleasure to correct. It appears from official documents sent us by the authorities of that city, and based on carefully-collected data, that the mortality in March gives a death-rate of only 26. 27 per thousand, a figure considerably below that of several of the other cities named.

the meeting of the American Association a report was submitted by Prof. Newton on weights and measures. It is there stated that the leading powers of the world have called for a convention during the present year, to provide for the creation and maintenance, in the city of Paris, of an organization to be known as the International Bureau of Verification. This bureau will be charged with the distribution, to the governments of the powers represented, of accurate standards of measurement. The report also contains resolutions providing for a memorial to Congress requesting an appropriation to provide for the expense of commissioners from the United States. These resolutions were unanimously adopted by the Association.

surgeon in the French naval service, notes a singular custom which he found existing among the Balances, a tribe dwelling on the banks of the Casamanca, in intertropical Africa. They make the duration of marriage responsibilities dependent on the conservation of the pagua, or festive garment given to the wife by the husband on the occasion of their wedding. The woman who wishes to be divorced from her lord has merely to wear out her pagua as fast as possible, and then present it in a tattered condition to her family, whereupon she obtains release from the power of her husband.

Smithsonian Institution and the Indian Bureau are forming a large collection of crania, ornaments, utensils, weapons, pottery, and the like, illustrative of the ethnology and archæology of North America, which will form a department of the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia. At the late meeting of the American Association a resolution was adopted inviting the International Congress of Prehistoric Archaeologists to hold their meeting of next year in the United States. The delegates to the Congress would find, in the collection mentioned above, an abundance of material which could not fail to throw light upon many of the obscure problems of the early history of mankind.

examining the surface-mud of a shallow rain-water pool, Prof. Leidy observed the movements of a multitude of microscopic algae, which he referred to the species Navicula radiosa. These diatoms were very active, gliding hither and thither, and knocking the quartz-sand grains about. Comparative measurements showed that the Naviculæ could move grains of sand as much as twenty-five times their own superficial area, and probably fifty times their own bulk and weight, or perhaps more.

is of the opinion that in pre-Miocene times the Alps were probably higher than they are now, notwithstanding the fact that their present elevation is due to subsequent upheaval. That the Alps suffered very extensive denudation during the Miocene period he finds amply demonstrated by the enormous thickness of fresh-water and marine deposits of Miocene age, now spread over Switzerland, these deposits having been formed by the degradation of the pre-Miocene Alps. An elevation of upward of 5,000 feet took place after the deposition of these strata, but the Alps continued to suffer denudation during the Pliocene and post-Pliocene ages, although it is difficult to estimate the extent of this loss.

belonging to one genus with the Peronospora infestans of the potato, is at present ravaging the opium-poppy in India. This fungus (Peronospora arborescens) is invariably found in the blighted leaves of the poppy. After the parasite has done its work, the leaves of the plant become infested with several other fungi, chiefly saprophytes.

leaves of Eucalyptus globulus contain an ethereal oil, of which even half-dried leaves contain 6 per cent., and, according to Gimbert, this oil is a very powerful antiseptic. It will preserve blood and pus as long as carbolic acid, and far longer than oil of turpentine. It prevents also the appearance of fungi and vibrios.