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��aud other towns, in ortler to stud; the experiments tlist rare being made. In reference to thii subject, Dr. Cuneron, M.P., writes to the Standard that the under-seeretary (or foreign affairs lias promised to Inutruct the British mialsler at M:ulrid to seed home translations of any reporU bearing on the syBtem of inoculation with cholera virus attenuMed by arti' ficial cultlTBiioii, as a protection against Aelaiic cholera, discovered by Dr. Ferran of Valencia. Tills having come to the notice of Dr. Ferran, that geriile- man has tent Dr. Cameron a telegram giving the results up lo date of a great lest eiperlmeiit whleli is al present being cotiUucted by bim, under the eyrs of aclentlSc eonimissioners at Alcira, a town near Valencia, where an epidemic of cholera U raging. According to Dr^ Ferran's lelegram, (he popnlatlon of Alcira Is 16.000. and since Uie first of the present month 5,432 of la inhabitants have been Inoculated with hU prolectire virus. That would leave the number oF those not inoculated about 10,500, or, accepting 16,000 as an exact ti^re. preci>ely 10.56^. Of (he 10,500 persons who are not Inoculated, cholera has attacked 64, aiid proved fatal to 30. Of Ihe 5,4-12 who have been inoculated, it has, according lo Dr. Ferran. attacked only T, and proved fatal in no single case. In other words, since the coramenoement of th« experiment on May 1, one person out of every 103 has been atlached among ihs nninuculatcd popu- lation, and one perMn In every 352 has died of cholera; while among llie inoculated population only one per- son in 176 has been attacked, and not a single person in the entire 5.4-4:1 has died of the disease. Dr. Fer- ran concludes his telegram by expressing the desire that a British commission should be sent to Alcira to verify these results,

— The first edition of Johne'a little hook upon the cholera bacillus ("Ueberdie Eoch'schen reincniluren und die cholera iiaclllen," Leipulg. Vogel) was pub- lished in January, and a second Is already out. It is a pamphlet of some twenty-eight pages, giving the most complete directions for cultivating and obsen'- ing the au-called comma bacillus according to Koch's method, from the preparation of the 'nient extract gelatine' lo the microscopic examlnalion. A wood- cut showing the different rapidities of liquefaction of the gelaline culture-medicine by the comma ba- cillus of cholera, and the curved bacillus of Fiiiklcr and Prior, U given, and adds to the value of the worli. It is an important contribution to the lltera- tare of biicterlolugy. furnishing, as 11 does, our llrst cuncise and cuiuplele statement of the methnds of Investigation of the special organism of which It

— Capt. Sawyer of the barfe Vldclte reports ihat on May IT, 1885, a water-spout appeared lo form, and rise to the north-east In a long, spiral column ; jwsl- tlon at the time, latitude »20 10* north, longliude 78° 5' west, It ro>e until the sky above, extending over an area of n mile, was an inky black mass of heavy clouds, gradually moving in a south-west direction uutit within half a mile of the vessel, when it seemed lo burst, the rain couiinii down in torrents for In-o hours. Tills was accompanied by sudden strong

���gusts of wind, shifting su'Tdenly fror to directly theop|K)Slle one, and with n fiirc« nt M to eight. To the south and south-west beforv during the formation of the water-spout, the skv, an altitude of about sixty degrees, was btacic and v threatening, with thunder atid lightning. This coti- tluued during the time alluded to, and finally en>lc4 with several sharp claps of thunder atid a fifteen- minutes' fall of hailstones. The peculiarity of these disturbances was Ihat the wind would change vary suddenly with considerable force, throwing all abtick without any warning. The temperature of the water was 81", and of ilie air Bti° to Ts".

— The time-bnil of the U. S- naval observatory is to l)e transferred from the dome of the observatory to a flagstaff on the new Stale, war, and navy de- partment at Washington. In it4 new position It will be more easily .-een from the city. It will be dropped, as at present, by the observatory clock, on T5th me- ridian time.

— Among recent deaths we note the following: Dr. A. Enneper, professor of mathematics In the Univer- sity of Grittingen. at Hannover, March 94, fn his fifty- lidh year; Eug&ne Holland, professor of meehanica, at Paris, March 31 ; J. C. Doll, boUnist, at Karlsruhe, March 1(1, in his seven ty-eii^hth year ; Gustave A. voii Kiodeu, geograplier, at Berlin, March 11, in his seventy-Dr^t year; Dr. Wilhelm Duncker, geologist, at Marburg, March 13, in his seventy-seventb year; Dr. J Riieper, botanist, at Kostock, March 17, in lila eighty- fifth year.

— Capt. George E. Belknap, U-S.N-, has been or- dered by the secretary of Ihe navy to assume charge of the naval observatory on June I, relieving Commander A- I). Brown, who has been acting super! uteml en t since April 1, when Admiral Franktlu was ordered to the command of the European squadron.

— The Harvard nnlverslty bniletin for May con- tains nitie pagei more of Mr. Wlnsor's collation of the Eohl collection of early maps, which In this ca>« deals with the east coast of N'irth America, pages of Mr, Bliss's index to the maps in the EajEliah geographical publlcatiutis, comprising a part of

— The thini session of the International geuli^- cal congress will be held this year at Berlin, com- mencing on the 28th of September. The meetings will occupy one week, and will be followed by gvo- loglcal excursions from the 5th to the IDth of October. The congress will lie acconipanied by an exhibition of geological charts and other coileclions illustrating the different branches of mineralogy and geological science. It will be remembered that this meeilnjt was to have taken place last year, but was preveiile<t by the outbreak of cholera.

— A memorial tablet to Professor Louis Agasslz lias just been erected in the Sage Chapel of Cornell university, and will be unrelicd at the opproachlng commencement.

— A National textile microscopical a*soelatian was formed last Sat-irday by members of the curreapond- lug societies of Boston and New Vork,

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