masterpiece still wanting among those faithful minor studies in which our literature abounds." Of the famous "Pike County Bal

lads" Mr. Howells writes:

"The impression they made and have left is out of proportion to their bulk, and I am afraid I should say, in some moods, to their worth. In other moods I should say that their worth transcended even their large impression. They belong to the very few results in any of the arts which have been of absolutely Western cause. One can not imagine an Englishman imagining them; one can not imagine a New-Englander imagining them. Their heroes are as native as Hosea Biglow, or Birdofreedom Sawin, and they represent the West as these represent the East. It was contemporaneously supposed that the Pike County Ballads' were inspired or provoked by the Pike County balladry of Bret Harte, and they were first accepted as imitations or parodies.. I believe they were actually written earlier, but if they were written later they were of a priority which any comparative study will reveal. They are of a wilder humor and of a larger effect. I do not mean to undervalue Harte's work, when I say that it embodies persons, and Hay's suggests conditions-of course with an exaggeration agreeable to the make of the types showing in them. Their author is said to have said in later life that he wished people would forget them. This might have been in some moment when the sense of that which was involuntary, which was almost inevitable, in them did not so fully possess him. At any rate, they remain, and in verse they will as infallibly carry his fame as the 'Biglow Papers ' carry Lowell's."

In his poems, declares Mr. Howells, Hay "avouched his ability to have done what he wished in literature, if only he had wished it enough."

MR. W. T. STEAD,

"At whose nod ministries used to tremble in the old Pall Mall Gazette days," but whose influence "had to give way before the power of the purse."

The old journalism, says Mr. Jones, with high standards of literary and scholarly excelence, catered essentially to the well-to-do classes. It gave undue prominence to politics, leaving large territories of human interest untouched. The new journalism pays more attention to "live" news and athletics, and less to partizan politics. Mr. Harmsworth's Daily Mail, founded in 1896, was both a sign and a portent. Says Mr. Jones:

"It was plain that a new spirit had entered into English journal

ism. The old journalism was honest, but apt to be ponderous, Now it was challenged by a new journalism-all vivacity, nervous, impressionable, untroubled by principles, indifferent to tradition, and, withal, selling at half the price of the usual morning newspaper. While the old journalism maintained

a dignified reserve in its attitude toward its readers, the new journalism was on speaking terms with them from the first. The old journalism was conscientious, loyal to its principles; it took itself seriously, as an educative factor. On the contrary, the new journalism cares for

nothing but its own self

interest. Its sole aim is to serve as a mirror of popular feeling. .

For good or ill, The Mail and the school it has founded have be

come permanent features of British journalism. Flippant and insincere as it is, it were idle to deny that The Mail has conspicuous

merits. It is alive in every fiber; there are

SIR ALFRED C. HARMSWORTH, Founder of the new school of British journa-lism, of which the sole aim is to serve as a mirror of popular feeling."

no limits to its enterprise; it is superbly organized. In one respect, however The Daily Mail has conspicuously failed. It has no weight whatever with public opinion. Its influence, indeed, is

in inverse ratio to its circulation.

"Yet the success of The Daily Mail in circulation has affected every daily newspaper in the land. Its disdain for the editorial! article and for politics has spread far and wide. With the exception of The Times, there is hardly a British newspaper which devotes as much space to editoral opinions as it did ten years ago. The editorial article has, indeed, entirely lost its importance."

Great Britain has nothing analogous to the American Sunday paper-"in fact," remarks Mr. Jones, "the seventh-day paper seems to be antipathetic to the British character." One incident of the revolution in British journalism, the writer adds, has been the disappearance of individual forces. We read :

'British journalism, like that of France, was once rich in individuality-that is, certain men on both sides of politics stood out like great landmarks. British newspapers now rely less and less on individuals. They have neither the space nor the inclination to allow men to achieve individual distinction. A dozen' names might be mentioned at the present time of men who, in their day, had a commanding place in the British press, but who have now no fit arena for their abilities. Mr. E. T. Cook, an accomplished scholar and a profound politician; Mr. T. P. O'Connor, one of the most vivid writers of the day; Mr. H. W. Massingham, who formerly edited The Daily Chronicle; and Mr. W. T. Stead, at whose nod ministries used to tremble in the old Pall Mall Gazette days-all these men were great forces, who at one time enriched and enlivened British journalism. To-day strength, as typified in these famous journalists, is mornfully denied its arena.' Not one of them is in control of a daily newspaper. The new newspapers have no room for one commanding individuality. What they require are smart, resourceful men. They may be without erudition, without any solid talents, but if they have brightness and versatility much will be forgiven them. The newspaper, like nature, has become careless of the single life. Moreover, the increasing costliness of newspaper production has made capital dominant. The Steads, the Massinghams, the O'Connors, and the Cooks have had to give way before the power of the purse. This power is wielded by men who, without anything like the individual brilliancy of these great journalists, have yet an instinct for business amounting almost to genius. In short, the smart business man has driven out the conscientious exponent of great principles, the apostle of

forlorn causes, the artist in prose. The English daily newspaper is in danger of degenerating into a mere trade, worked in the same way and by much the same methods as a department store."

A DRAMATIC "SALON" SUGGESTED.

"COMMERCIALISM" as an evil, or as the evil, in the mod

ern theater is the subject of discussion and complaint in European countries as well as in America. Nothing has so far resulted from the various projects for national or privately endowed theaters which have been launched in New York and Philadelphia. In European cities smaller and more modest schemes have been tried or proposed as a means of stimulating the artistic side of the stage and inducing theatrical managers and actors to accept and stage plays on their merits, without undue attention to box-office possibilities or the chances of long and profitable "runs."

In London a playgoers' club has been offering prizes for good plays, and a standing committee has been created to receive and examine manuscripts. Out of scores submitted but two have been declared available and worthy of presentation. There has also existed for some years a “Play-reading Society," which undertakes to examine and consider manuscripts of plays by unknown and untried writers who can not easily secure attention from busy managers. The society selects the plays worthy of production, and arranges copyright performances of them at its own expense. To such performances none are invited except producers, managers, actors, and so on; critics are barred. The first performance of this society will take place in November, as two plays have been favorably passed upon and adjudged worthy of production.

In Paris, a young critic and author, Paul Birault, has launched a somewhat similar scheme which will aim to do for the dramatists what the salons do for the painters. It is described in Le Figaro as follows:

"An administrative committee will have charge of the performances at the salon. The managers, critics, public, and professional actors will be invited to the exhibitions,' and the reception of the plays by the audiences will enable them to judge whether these works, or any of them, have commercial value. The successful plays, like the approved pictures, will find a ready sale, which circumstance will encourage playwrights, exactly as the salons encourage painters, to do good work."

Le Figaro praises this " audacious and interesting project," and hopes it will succeed. It is interesting to note that Mr. Barrie, as president of the London Playgoers' Club, said in a recent speech that complaint of theatrical conditions is idle so long as the first want-good plays-remains unsupplied. Mr. Barrie fears the effects of the close atmosphere of drawing-room intrigue, club scandals, and belated suppers" on our drama, which needs the open air, freedom, and country-featured truth and honesty. This consummation, according to him, means the necessity of beating up new recruits for the drama among the men outside the present theatrical preserve, and unaffected by the paralyzing theatrical tradition." The old methods, the managerial methods, it seems fail to attract new talent, and intervention of third parties is necessary.-Translation made for THE LITERARY Digest.

HEI

BIBLICAL INFLUENCES IN MODERN ART. EINRICH PUDOR, a well-known German authority on art, traces certain features of modern applied art in his own country back through the French Empire style to ancient Egyptian and Assyrian sources. He points out that the newest style in applied art is a sort of "Biedermeier," or, as we might say, "philistine" style, and that the so-called secessional style is already nearing its limitations. But this "Biedermeier" style, he continues, is nothing else than a Teutonic development of the style of the French Empire, a style which 'came into being and developed under conditions closely allied with the ancient Egyptian art which was forced into popularity by the campaign of the first Napoleon on the Nile." We read further:

"It is an undisputed fact that the Empire style, in just so far as it affects industrial art-furniture for instance-is thoroughly Egyptianizing. The book-case which the architects Percier and Fontaine designed for Napoleon I. seems not only to have been drawn upon the banks of the Nile, but it has indeed borrowed all its elementary forms from ancient Egyptian art. And the same may be said of the other pieces of furniture-the beds, sofas, and armchairs of the time of the great Corsican. As for the German Empire' style it adopted obediently and devoutly the French Empire with all its Egyptian furnishings, as may still be seen in the castles of Würzburg, Kassel, and Stuttgart. The latest specimen, however, of architectonic empire may be seen in the New Museum for Commerce and Handicraft recently erected at Agram. "Above all else let us not fail to call the reader's attention to similarity to the furnishings of the temple mentioned in the Bible. the fact that our Empire furniture possesses a most remarkable The parts played by the sphinx in the Empire and Egyptian styles are exemplified by the Cherubim in the Biblical, not to mention the similarities existing here and there between the older and the more recent styles carried out in detail in the subordinate ornamentation; such as the various forms of the papyrus stalk, the lotus flower, palm-leaves, rosettes, cubes, pyramids, and the like. In the first book of Kings (vii. 36) we read: For on the plates of the ledges thereof, and on the borders thereof, he graved cherubim, lions, and palm-trees. . . . Again, in Exod. xxv. 17: ́ And thou shalt make a mercy seat of pure gold: two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof. And thou shalt make two cherubim of gold, of beaten work shalt thou make them, in the two ends of the mercy seat. And make one cherub on the one end, and the other cherub on the other end even of the mercy seat shall ye make the cherubim on the two ends thereof. And the cherubim shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and their faces shall look one to another.' It would seem almost that in the above passages it were the intent to describe the familiar Egyptian arm-chairs of the Empire period.

Similarly, too, there appears an almost exact description of an Empire table in Exod. xxxvii. 10. 'And he made the table of shittim wood: two cubits was the length thereof, and a cubit the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof; and he overlaid it with pure gold, and made thereunto a crown of gold round about.'

"Is not this the Napoleon Premier table?

"Again, the incense altar of shittim wood, covered with fine gold with the horns at the corners, and the altar for burnt offerings of the same wood with four horns at the corners, all of which were overlaid with brass, find counterparts in the Empire style."

Further parallels may be found in the little book by Pudor, which shows how almost all the ornaments of modern architecture and art in the trades may be referred to an Egyptian-Assyrian origin. The appendix furnishes studies on the Egyptianizing tendency of the Empire style as well as on the Assyrian-Babylonian art and Phoenician culture.-Translation made for THe LiterARY DIGEST.

JUVENILE literature suffers a second loss in the death of Hezekiah Butterworth, which occurred within a few weeks of that of Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge, editor of the St. Nicholas. Mr. Butterworth, who died at Warren, R. I., on September 5, held the editorship of the Youth's Companion for twenty-five years prior to 1894. He was widely known as the author of the "Zig-Zag Journals," a series of books for boys. He was, moreover, says the Springfield Republican, a poet of marked gift for balladry and for stirring expression of high enthu siasm."

GE

SCIENCE AND INVENTION.

WILL THE HUMAN RACE DIE OF THIRST? EOLOGISTS are able to point out various directions in which the world is moving, having for their common goal the destruction of the human race. But whether in the end we shall die of thirst, or starvation, or heat, or cold, or overcrowding, or in some other way, few are bold enough to predict. The end, in any case, seems far away. Which of these destructive agencies will overtake us first? Or will the pendulum reverse its swing, bringing life instead of death in its train? That the present geological epoch is being marked by a disappearance of surface-water has been noted before in these columns. Evidently if the entire freshwater supply of the globe should fail we should be in a bad way, altho rain would continue to fall so long as evaporation from the ocean remained a possibility. Writing in Chambers's Journal, J. E. Whitby marshals some of the data that point to the gradual withdrawal of the streams and other bodies of water from the earth's surface. He says:

'It is well established nowadays that both in Africa and in Central Asia, and indeed in all the great levels of the world, the waterbeds are drying up. A great number of lakes well known during the historical age have entirely disappeared; while in Africa, Lake Chiroua, to the southwest of Nyassa, has been shrinking during the last twenty years, and has now no place. Lake Ngami, which was discovered by Livingstone, exists no longer. Lake Tchad is now nothing but a half-dried-up water-bed. Turning to Australia -and in discussing this matter it will be noticed that only the important lakes, etc., are considered, tho there are countless smaller depots of water, rivers, streams, and rills following the examplewe find that Lake Eyre has greatly decreased in size.

Explorations in Central Asia have proved that for centuries a zone stretching from the east to the southeast of this part of the Czar's dominions has been drying up; deserts are gradually spreading, and reports show that it is only in the neighborhood of mountains, round whose brows vapor condenses and falls for the service of the agriculturist, that irrigation can be carried on or that life itself can be preserved.

'Travelers have brought back news from East Turkestan of the ruins of fine cities, great monasteries, and remains of old irrigation works which prove that two thousand years ago what is now a howling wilderness of sand was then a fruitful land, where man lived on the product of the soil. In Western Turkestan the saltlake of Char-Kel or Zembil-Koul is gradually drying.

'In European Russia large stretches of country that were once covered with water are now dry; and Novgorod, that modern scene of a busy commercial fair, where thousands of merchants congregate annually, was in the Middle Ages so surrounded by marsh that the Mongols, when sweeping the country, were unable to seize it."

The author quotes Prince Kropotkin, the Russian scientist, as authority for referring all these effects to changes that have been going on since the glacial period. Northern Europe and Asia to the fiftieth degree of latitude were then covered with thick ice, stretching to the valleys of the Don and Dnieper. When the ice retired, all parts of these regions below an altitude of three thousand feet became submarine, the Gulf of Finland stretching to Lake Ladoga, and being separated from the Arctic Ocean only by a narrow neck of land. The Caspian Sea reached to the Sea of Aral. The water, therefore, left by the glaciers has been, and is being, simply used up in different ways, nature playing her usual reckless part. The writer goes on to say:

this phenomenon to his own country; but, the reports which come from other lands nearer home bear out the same disquieting fact. Everywhere in our own country, as in others, water-springs are giving out and water-beds drying up, slowly perhaps, but surely. The increase of population and the modern system of drainage have, of course, a great deal to answer for; but much of the drought is undoubtedly caused by the rapid destruction of timber on all sides, for trees not only attract rain clouds, but preserve the moisture of the soil. While it is impossible for puny man to control the geological period through which we are passing, and whose characteristic would be-according to some-the gradual disappearance of water, it may be inquired whether it would not be advisable to postpone that disagreeable moment of a world without water as far as possible by the better preservation of our woods and forests and the persistent replanting of trees."

exposition at St. Petersburg fruit on which the arms of Russia were thus displayed. Two years later, fruit similarly ornamented was served at the dinner given to the Czar and Czarina at the Élysée palace, and since that time such ornamentation has been more or less of a fad in Paris. Mr. Albert Maumené, who describes the process in Cosmos (Paris, August 12), tells us that most persons who see these fruits for the first time think that the design has been pasted or fastened on them in some way. He adds that the action is similar to ordinary printing with citrate paper, only in this case the chemical is formed naturally by the sun's action in the skin of the fruit. The fruit photographer, of course, selects fruit that naturally turns red as it ripens, and then shelters certain parts of the skin from the light, with the result that a design is printed on the fruit in its own natural colors. Mr. Maumené writes:

"Without being difficult or complicated, photography on fruits can not be accomplished without care; it would be useless to try it with summer fruits that are served as soon as ripe; and with winter fruits those varieties should be selected that color with the greatest intensity, such as certain kinds of apples. Besides, the skin of the fruit should be free from all color at the beginning of the operation-in a word, it should be sensitive to the action of light. This sensibility is obtained by enclosing the fruit in bags up to the moment of exposure.

"The negatives may be simply designs cut out of light but opaque paper or photographic films; the results are of course not the same in the two cases. For the preparation of paper designs a thin paper of inactinic color should be used-black, brown, red, or orange; they may be prepared in two ways, the design appearing in open work on an opaque background, or the re

verse.

"The preparation of photographic films is not so simple.. Only very thin and flexible films can be used. . . The negatives

...

should present strong contrasts; in photographic parlance they should be hard.' . . . Many fruiterers find that kodak films answer the purpose perfectly; others think that thinner ones are necessary. A friend finds that for fruit-photography the very thin free films used by photoengravers are best.”

A patent was taken out in France in 1903 by Alexandre Ledoux for a process of fruit-photography; but the author is of opinion that this patent can not be upheld, Mr. Ledoux's process differing in no respect from those that have been in use for years. Under it, however, a special paper is sold, having attached to it a thin film that may easily be detached after the negative is developed, by simple immersion in warm water. To resume our translation:

The exposure of the paper designs is made ten to fifteen days before picking for late summer fruits, and toward the middle of September for those fall and winter fruits that are picked during October. The bag should not be taken off beforehand, but at the very moment of exposure. To prevent burns on the delicate skin from the too powerful rays of the sun, the bag is torn open, the paper is glued upon the side of the fruit directly exposed to the sun's rays, and the bag is kept partially open for several days, being finally removed in cloudy weather. The skin of the fruit be comes tough as it colors red. . .

The adherence of paper designs to the fruits may be effected by gluing them with white of egg. . . . Starch paste, such as is used for photographic prints, is quite as good. Photographic films are soaked for an instant in water and, thus softened, take the form of the fruit; the gelatin causes them to stick to the skin and to adhere to it perfectly when dry, but it is preferable to use also white of egg. . . . The thin films used by photoengravers are dipped for an instant in a weak gum-arabic solution, transferred to blotting paper and then applied to the fruit.

Leaves that will cast a shadow on the fruits are carefully removed, . . . and the latter are placed in full sunlight. If longcontinued rain causes paper designs to become detached they must be at once refixed; but if photographic films are displaced during exposure the picture is quite spoiled. It should be noted that the image prints more slowly with a negative than with a paper design, since the light must traverse the film. While ten days are sufficient with Grand Alexandre apples and fifteen with Calville and Apis to obtain perfect images with paper designs, reproduction with films takes nearly twice as long-twenty to thirty days.

"

It can be told when the exposure has been long enough by noting the part of the fruit just outside of the negative; when this takes on a bright red color. .. the fruit must be plucked and placed in the shade. If the negative be removed at the proper moment, the white or clear parts of the negative are printed in bright red, the half tones in a medium tint, the blacks or darks in pale green. . . . The paper designs are removed by moistening them with a damp sponge; the process is the same with photographic films, but it may be facilitated by making an incision with a knife, separating the film without touching the fruit "-Transla· tion made for THE LITERARY DIGEST.

...

A Dangerous Raft.-A protest is entered editorially in The Engineering News against the practise of towing huge rafts of logs for long distances on the ocean, for the reason that the logs may and often do constitute a serious menace to navigation. It advocates some international organization to protect the general interests of all countries in safe transportation on the high seas. The special reason for this protest is the announcement that a British Columbia company proposes to tow a large log raft, containing 10,000,000 feet of logs and spars, across the Pacific to Shanghai, China. Says the paper above named:

"It is admitted that any such raft runs a large risk of going to

pieces should it meet a severe storm in its passage across the Pacific; but the profit through the saving in freight charges is so great that the company is willing to take this risk. This may be all right from the company's standpoint, but it ignores entirely the risk to shipping which would result from the dispersal of a great mass of drifting logs in the Pacific Ocean. There is good reason to believe that a considerable portion of the unexplained losses at sea-those mysterious cases where a vessel starts out on a voyage and never reaches port, and no record is ever found of what befel her-are due to collisions with derelicts or floating wreckage. Doubtless we shall soon reach a time when, for the safety of ocean-going travel and traffic, international action will be taken for the systematic destruction of derelicts and for the enactment of laws and rules to prevent the abandonment of vessels without taking measures for their sinking. Until such international measures are taken, however, it should be -and we believe is-within the power of any nation to prevent its own citizens from sending out on the high seas vessels or other floating structures which are not sound and seaworthy, and which are therefore likely to become a menace to navigation."

THE

A NEW LAW OF EVOLUTION.

'HE suggestion that what economists call the " laws of increasing and diminishing return" are applicable, under a slightly altered form, to evolutionary processes, and that they then supplement Spencer's so-called "law of evolution" by making it quantitative, is made by Prof. Franklin H. Giddings of Columbia University in Science (New York, August 18). Professor Giddings notes that Spencer's law is only a great generalization, and not strictly a law at all. It states that in a finite aggregate, loss and redistribution of internal motion are accompanied by concentration of mass, differentiation of forms and activities, and a drawing together of like units. It does not tell anything about the rate or amount of these actions. To bring this out Professor Giddings applies the economic laws above named. As he understands them, they state that an increasing outlay of labor and capital in agricultural, manufacturing, or commercial operations conducted upon a given area will, up to a given limit, yield returns increasing faster than the outlay, and will, beyond that limit, yield returns increasing less rapidly than the outlay. He goes on as follows:

-

In the course of my sociological studies I have been led to believe that increasing and diminishing returns, within the realm of economic phenomena, are only special cases of relations that hold good throughout all phenomena, physical, chemical, biological, psychological, and social.

་

"In the evolutionary process,' outlay,' instead of being made in terms of labor and capital, as in industry, is made in expenditures of energy, that is to say, in dissipations of motion. The return for this outlay is the total amount of compound evolution. Under certain conditions an increasing expenditure of the energies-original and subsequently acquired—of an aggregate, results in evolutionary changes that extend or multiply more rapidly than the expenditure of energy increases. Under other conditions evolutionary changes extend or multiply less rapidly than the expenditure of energy increases."

The general law which connects these facts with the rate of evolution is, according to Professor Giddings, that evolution goes on more rapidly when materials that are better able to store, convey, and transform energy are being substituted for others, and conversely. He gives the following illustrations:

"Increasing the returns of a factory of given floor space by increasing the speed of machinery is possible only if for mechanisms. of poorer quality there are substituted boilers, shafting, gearing, etc., of great cohesive strength, and great tensile strength in proportion to weight and volume.

In psychological evolution the superimposition of reason upon instinct is correlated with an increasing complexity of nerve and brain structure, the marks of which are a finer and finer cell mechanism, of enormously high energy-conveying and -converting capacity in proportion to weight and volume.

"In the competition of human races one with another, and of population aggregates one with another, those of high energy-storing and -converting capacity per individual have occupied the superior environments, and have most vigorously multiplied.

"In the evolution of social organization superior corporate forms displace inferior forms only if with a differentiation of departments, a multiplication of officials, and a specialization of functions there is a corresponding improvement in individual efficiency."

"Dr. Tommasina.

has, for instance, discovered a special kind of radioactivity called pyroradioactivity' by himself, and which is the radioactive, power taken by a heated negatively charged wire. Such a wire will induce radioactivity on any substance submitted to its action for a certain interval of time, so that it affords a means of activating these without resorting to radium itself.

"Now, on continuing his researches in this direction, Dr. Tommasina found out another means of imparting radioactivity to a substance of any description. In fact, x-rays will indirectly produce such an activation due to the electric alteration they bring about in the state of the surrounding medium. This

alteration called ionization,' produces a radioactivity in any substance exposed in the medium..

"It is thus sufficient to have at one's disposal any suitable outfit for producing x-rays,

to impart to any substance a fairly strong radioactivity, which may last for some days. Even living organisms are liable to be radioactivated without suffering any trouble, as the Roentgen rays need not strike the subject. The Roentgen bulb may, for instance, be located in a cabinet left ajar, the rays being directed toward the interior of the latter, so that the ionization of the air is propagated by diffusion. "This opens up a held to a possible medical application of radioactivity, which the necessity of using radium or other radioactive bodies (exerting effects highly prejudicial to the skin) had so far prevented. In fact, patients can be activated according to Dr. Tommasina's process without any trouble to them, and even while in bed, it being sufficient to place the latter on insulating supports, and to connect the patient to the inner armature of a Leyden jar, the outer armature of which is grounded, as is the positive terminal of the induction coil.

Courtesy of "The American Inventor."

FIG. 3.-BIRD IN CAGE READY FOR INTRO DUCTION INTO DISPERSION APPARATUS.

"Between the negative terminal of the coil and the inner armature of the Leyden jar, rapid electrical discharges one centimeter in length are allowed to pass. By this means a fairly strong radioactivity can readily be produced.

"Any solid body, both inert and organized (such as fruit, grass, and live animals), as well as any kind of conductive or insulating liquids, have thus far been made radioactive. Any drug, both for internal and external use, and any material used for bandages, compresses, etc., as well as any solid or liquid food intended for a special diet, may thus be radioactivated without introducing any trace of a known radioactive body.

As regards the therapeutical properties of the radioactivity, nothing can so far be stated; as, however, any radioactivity is found to be attended by ionization, there seems to be an influence facilitating electrolysis or even giving rise to it. In that case a rather welcome action with a view to a rapid and more complete assimilation of certain medicaments, such as, for instance, iron in the cure of anemia, should be anticipated. Moreover, radioactivity being apparently the cause of the therapeutical properties of certain mineral waters, these may be augmented by increasing radioactivity on the lines above mentioned.

"In connection with the above experiments, Tommasina noted that apart from the temporary radioactivity animals and plants

are susceptible of assuming, some of them possess a slight, permanent radioactivity of their own. This is the case of any freshly gathered plants and their parts, such as grass, fruit, flowers, and leaves, while the same plants after having been dried show at most some slight traces of temporary radioactivity.".

In order to ascertain whether animals also have a permanent radioactivity of their own, Tommasina, we are informed by the writer, built a muff-shaped cage of wire grate consisting of two concentric cylinders between which an annular space was left free. (See Fig. 1.)

When this was placed in the apparatus devised by Elster and Geibel for the measurement of radioactivity (Fig. 2), it was found that the creatures experimented upon possessed, like plants, a slight permanent radioactive power. This appears to be stronger..