Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 8.djvu/261

Rh The more intense the light, the more rapid the disengagement of oxygen, and under the influence of solar light a single leaf of Nuphar has yielded as much as five cubic centimetres of oxygen per minute—corresponding to the fixation of one gramme of carbon in ten hours. But, if we preserve all the other conditions, abstracting only light, the bubbles of carbonic acid at the stomata disappear, the cell fills with water, and ceases to respire. Thus it is in the gaseous state that carbonic acid is decomposed by the chlorophyll; and, according to the author, chlorophyll possesses the property of directly breaking up gaseous carbonic acid into its elements, carbon and oxygen.

From all this it follows that the passage of carbonic acid through the stomata is a purely physical phenomenon, not vital—a phenomenon of thermo-diffusion.

Religion of the Canarians.—The superstitious practices in use among the primitive Canarians was the subject of a paper read by Señor Chil y Naranjo. On Gran Canaria, he says, the natives believed in an infinite being, Alcorac or Alchoran. Him they worshiped on the summits of mountains, as also in little temples called almogaren. Their priests were women, and were bound by a vow of chastity. The sacred places were also asylums for criminals. The Canarians believed in the existence of an evil spirit, Gabio. On Teneriffe the Guanchos worshiped Achaman, and used to assemble in consecrated places for common prayer. On Palma, the name given to the Supreme Being was Abara. In all the islands homage was rendered to the emblems of fecundity and to the four elements. Their sacrifices were such as would be esteemed most precious by a pastoral people. They attributed will to the sea; it was the sea that gave them rain. In time of drought they scourged the sea, and implored the aid of Heaven with great ceremony.

Microcephaly.—Dr. Laennec exhibited a microcephalous idiot, aged fourteen years, of the male sex. This child is entirely unconscious of his own actions, and his intellectual operations are very few in number and very rudimentary. His language consists of two syllables, oui and la, and he takes an evident pleasure in pronouncing them. He takes no heed in what direction he walks; he would step off a precipice or into a fire. Dr. Laennec called attention to the idiot's hands; the thumbs are atrophied and cannot be opposed to the other fingers. The palms of the hands have the transverse creases, but not the diagonal—the result of the atrophy of the thumbs. Hence the hand resembles that of the chimpanzee. The dentition too is defective. Though fourteen years of age, the child has only twelve teeth.

The Booted Eagle.—M. Louis Bureau stated the results of observations on varieties of the booted eagle (Aquila pennata), the smallest European bird of the eagle tribe. M. Bureau, having examined a number of broods of the booted eagle, says that all the varieties of this species may be reduced to two chief types, white and black. In pairs, both of the sexes sometimes belong to one type, but they more usually are of different types. In fact M. Bureau has found in the same forest, and at but little distance from one another, two pairs, in one of which the male was black, and the female white, and, in the other, the male white and the female black. As a rule, the young birds are either all black or all white. But in one nest, containing two chicks, the one was white, the other black. From this it follows that these variations of color are not correlated with the age of the bird.

St. Louis Academy of Science.—At a recent meeting of the St. Louis Academy of Science, Prof. Riley read a paper on the canker-worm, in which he says that two sorts have hitherto been confounded under this name, that are not only specifically, but he thinks generically, distinct. They present important structural differences in the egg, the larva, the chrysalis, and the moth states; and also differ in the time of their appearance: one species rising from the ground mostly in early spring, the other mostly in the fall. Both attack fruit and shade trees, but, while the spring sort is common and very injurious in the apple-orchards of the Western States, the other is rare there, and most common in the elms of New England. To combat the former,