Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 8.djvu/137

Rh of native copper, in weight 6,000 pounds, and taken from an ancient mine on Isle Royal, Lake Superior, is now on exhibition in St. Louis. The mass had evidently been detached from its bed by the ancient miners.

calculations made by Dr. J. T. Luck, of St. Louis, it appears that the death-rate, among officers of the United States Navy is astonishingly high, being last year 25.45 per thousand. Assuming the average age of naval officers to be thirty, the death-rate is three times as high as that of civilians.

growing appreciation of American scientific work in France is evidenced by the action of the Minister of Public Works authorizing an exchange of the Annales des Mines with sundry American journals and publications of scientific bodies.

encourage local collectors and amateurs of science in the work of determining the ichthyology of Indiana, Prof. D. S. Jordan, of the State Geological Survey, has published a preliminary list of the fishes which he has himself found, and adds a list of those likely to occur in Indiana waters.

the initial meeting of the Khedival Society of Geography, held June 2d, the Khedive was represented by his second son, Hussein Pasha, and there were present most of the prominent representatives of the foreign colony in Cairo. The president. Dr. Schweinfurth, addressed the meeting in French. "Science," said he, "which had been carried from Egypt into Greece and Italy, and thence into Central Europe, was now returning to its birthplace. By the munificence of the Khedive, a society had now been established whose object it would be to advance the oldest, the most universal, and the most popular of the sciences. Unlike its sister associations in Europe and America, which have their field of research in distant lands, the Khedival Society had all its work to do at home, so to speak."

a lecture at Edinburgh on carnivorous plants, Dr. Balfour stated that voting plants of Dionæa muscipula under bell-glasses do not thrive so well as those left free, and that while a piece of beef wrapped in another leaf becomes putrid, a piece inclosed by the Dionæa remains perfectly inodorous, but soon loses its red color, and is gradually disintegrated more and more till it is reduced to a pulp.

when coated with palladium-black, becomes saturated with hydrogen much more rapidly than the clean metal. If, when thus saturated, it be wrapped in gun-cotton, an explosion ensues after a few seconds, and the platinum plate burns for a short time with a feeble flame.

made by Pfaff show ice to be by no means a bad conductor of heat. Taking the conductivity of gold as 1,000, platinum is 981, silver 973, iron 374, ice 314, and tin 303. Dr. Pfaff suggests that his results will modify our views of the physical condition of the interior of a mass of ice.

the observations of Ebermeyer it appears that, in a given species of tree, the size of the leaves differs in proportion to the elevation. With equal strength of soil, the leaves decrease with height. Again, the entire amount of ash in the leaves decreases with the height; and the proportion of phosphoric acid in the ash is much less in high positions than on low ground.

and other artistic forms in plaster are made very closely to resemble silver in appearance by being covered with a thin coat of powdered mica. This powder is mixed with collodion and then applied to the objects in plaster with a brush, after the manner of paint. The mica can be easily tinted in various colors. It can be washed in water, and, unlike silver, is not liable to become tarnished by sulphuretted gases.

Great Britain and Ireland, the excise duties on liquors for the year ending March, 1875, amounted to £31,917,849, being an increase of £600,000 over the previous financial year.

popular are Mr. Darwin's books," says the English Mechanic, "and so widely read, that a countryman with a basket of round-leaved sundews (Drosera rotundifolia) has stationed himself near the Royal Exchange in London, and there daily drives a very good trade."

excellent Abbé Moigno, editor of Les Mondes, and general manager of the Catholic enterprise for diffusing a knowledge of science among the laboring-classes in France, has issued a work entitled "Explosions of Freethinking in August and September, 1874," containing the discourses of Tyndall, Du Bois-Reymond, R. Owen, Huxley, Hooker, and Sir John Lubbock. The abbé appends annotations of his own. This is as it should be: poison and antidote!

is asserted by E. HeckelHaeckel [sic], as the result of experiments made upon certain rodents and marsupials, that these animals, when fed on the leaves of poisonous solanaceous plants, are not subject to any injurious, effects.

appointed for the purpose of investigating the working of the government telegraph system in England reports that the present rate, one shilling per message, is too low, and recommends that it be