ANOTHER BLOW FOR BARRAS.

HAVING run the gauntlet of the critics some time ago, it was

reserved for the "Memoirs of Barras" to get a last stinging blow from the steely hand of The Edinburgh Review (October). The writer confesses to having expected much from this work, but he finds it a contemptible failure, even as a running commentary on the era it deals with. As a narrative “it is meager, shallow, and poor;" "it swarms with misstatements and downright falsehood;" "it is a tissue of misrepresentations." It is admitted, however, that it would be unjust to assert that the book has no historical value. The critic says that the narrative of the events that led to the fall of Robespierre, to the defeat of the Commune of Paris, and to the victory of the Convention and of the men of Thermidor, is interesting and may be read with profit. We quote as follows:

"A few of the sketches are, no doubt, clever; that of Talleyrand, for instance, if a caricature, and grossly libelous, has a certain kind of merit. But we are not surprised that the editor of this work has told us that his first impulse was to destroy it as a noxious farrago of self-glorification and atrocious calumny-to crush it out of sight like a venomous reptile. These professed reminiscences and thoughts of Barras are, to a considerable extent, lies; they breathe all that was worst in the spirit of the old régime, and in the hatreds and passions of the Revolution: they are instinct with malice and uncharitableness in almost every page. One of their chief characteristics is revolting vanity; whether as an Alcibiades of bonnes fortunes, or as a champion of the Convention in its fiery trials, or as a ruler of the destinies of France, the author surpasses every one else, and exults in the foolishness of self-worship. Their unceasing malevolence, too, is simply disgusting; scarcely a good word is said of any of the leading men of the time; their acts are usually placed in the worst light, or described in the darkest or most unbecoming colors. As might have been expected, Napoleon is the mark of defamation that literally stops at nothing. . . The most detestable part of the book, however, is the treatment Barras metes out to women: we see in this the light wickedness of the bad seigneur and the lawless profligacy of the untamed Jacobin; it reminds us of the deeds of those furies of their sex who murdered their lovers when their lust was sated. What we find in these pages about Mme. Tallien and Mme. de Staël ought not to have been published; and if the chapter devoted to Joséphine Beau

barnais may contain a small residuum of fact, it is charged with extravagant and absurd falsehood, and is only worthy of the pen of Hébert. The chief value, indeed, of passages like these is to show us what manner of men those were whom the Revolution raised to a bad eminence. Barras was a governor of France for nearly five years; he was an audacious liar and a consummate blackguard."

RUSSIAN musical critics can not comprehend the great popularity which Wagner enjoys with Russian opera-goers. Only "Lohengrin" and "Tannhäuser" have so far been made known in Russia, and the enthusiasm of the public grows with every repetition of these operas. The present season was opened with Mozart, but the opera-house was but half-filled; when "Tannhäuser" was produced, the house was crowded, and the overture, As well as every solo, was frantically applauded. The musical critic of Novosti, St. Petersburg, confesses himself unable to account for the public's preference; he finds the "Tannhäuser" music dull, dry, unintelligible, and meaningless, and yet, he says, it delights the public even more than the

most musical and brilliant Italian aria.

"Where is the time," asks the

critic, "when we musical experts plumed ourselves on our trained judgment and asserted with dignity that the public's ignorance of Wagner is wholly pardonable, because it is necessary to be educated to understand the composer's ideas and sympathize with his ideals?"

A

WHO SHALL BE LAUREATE? GREAT deal of interest is being manifested by American littérateurs, especially our poets, in the question of the laureateship of England. In response to inquiries as to choice, sent out by the New York Times, there appear five letters in that paper of October 27, the writers being Mr. Edmund C. Stedman, Prof. Charles F. Richardson, Mr. Charles Henry Webb, Mr. Richard Watson Gilder, and Mr. Montgomery Schuyler, all of whom favor the appointment of Swinburne, Mr. Gilder expressing that preference "with some diffidence." Professor Richardson thinks that when all deductions are made, the author of "Atalanta in Calydon" remains the most significant singer of to-day. Mr. Webb says that, judging by the quality of his verse alone, Swinburne is preeminently the man. Mr. Schuyler remarks that to the readers of English poetry Swinburne is already the poet laureate of England. Mr. Stedman, whose letter heads the symposium, begins by saying that as international copyright has joined British authors in a common gild with our own, their language and literature being ours as well, and the American market becoming the best market for their best productions, he does not see why an American may not state his own opinion and preference in the matter of the laureateship. We quote some passages of Mr. Stedman's letter, as follows:

"It is my feeling that Mr. Swinburne really has no peer in any competition for the laureateship. For one, I hope the office will be speedily filled. Since 1843 it has added dignity to the station of English poetry; it has come so much 'greener from the brows' of Wordsworth and Tennyson that it would be a pity to have it wither on the cabinet walls..

"As a matter of fact, lyrical poetry is what is expected from a laureate in the exercise of his function. Swinburne is preeminently a lyrist, the finest lyric voice in England, the most eloquent living master of the ode and song. Your phrase, ‘judged by the quality of his verse alone,' reminds us that there are other considerations. With respect, then, to the morals of his muse, it should be realized that throughout the long series of his works, since the date of ‘Atalanta in Calydon,' and including that masterpiece, he has not written an ignoble line. The success of 'Atalanta' thirty years ago brought about a collection of his juvenile poems, The Ferment of New Wine,' which were called in question at the time. As to his republicanism, more than one poet of gentle blood in England has carried a passion for freedom to the utmost, and when Oxford is proudly laying claim to Shelley there can be no distrust of the singer of Italian liberty and of reform in England. Whenever the supremacy of Great Britain has been at stake, the patriotism of Swinburne (the son of an English admiral, and a scion of the Percys) has given no uncertain sound."

NOTES.

THE biography of the late John Stuart Blackie, which has just appeared in Edinburgh, contains many anecdotes of that quaint and lovable old Scotchman. Here is a pathetic little story of his class-room. "A student, reading with the book in his left hand, was called to order, and bidden to hold it in the other. He colored and continued to read as before. The professor was annoyed, and reprimanded him sharply. The class hissed at this, and the student held up the stump which was all that remained of his right arm. Then Blackie stepped down from his desk, and taking the young fellow in his arms, begged his pardon with tears in his eyes, and, turning to the rest, he said, 'I am glad that I have gentlemen to teach,' and went back to his desk in an outburst of applause."

MR. JUSTIN MCCARTHY made his first appearance in print in the pages of The Cork Magazine, which was started by his father. "It was a love story,' he tells us in the course of an illustrated interview in The Young Man for November, "and the scene was laid in the Blackwater. I forget the title of the story, and I forget what became of the lovers, but I remember that one of the characters in the book was 'Mr. Parnell.' I do not know why I chose that name, and I think of it now as a singular coincidence."

"LORNA DOONE," with which Mr. Blackmore's name is most often associated, in spite of the fact that he has written a dozen or more works of fiction since its publication in 1869, was not the author's first venture in literature. Nine years previous he had essayed poetry, of which he published several volumes, and a translation of the first two of Vergil's "Georgics," under the title "The Farm and Fruit of Old." His first novel, "Clara Vaughan," written in 1852, was not printed until 1864.-The Bookman. LORD TENNYSON is said to have declared that the late Mrs. Alexander's sacred poem, "The Burial of Moses," was one of the poems by a living writer of which he would have been proud to be the author.

DR.

SCIENCE.

DOGMATISM OF SCIENCE.

R. GEORGE M. GOULD, of Philadelphia, protests energetically against the assumption-which he says is "the fundamental thesis of a certain class of scientists"-that the phenomena of life are all explainable as ordinary phenomena of matter and energy. He says in Science (October 25):

"To ordinary-what I should call normal or healthy-minds, this is as perfect an example of deduction, theory, or dogmatism as could be stated. So long as the old materialistic bauble of spontaneous generation remains the veriest will-o'-the-wisp, the most undemonstrated and undemonstrable absurdity, so long have these 'scientists' not a shred or shadow of evidence that their dogma has any genuine scientific basis. For every biologic fact there must be posited the unexplained, and so far inexplainable fact of life itself, of sentience, or 'sensitive' or 'irritable' protoplasm, as the very beginning of the fact. To say in advance that this life, sensitiveness, irritability, etc., is explainable upon the principles or forces of physics is in most absolute contradiction of the scientific spirit, and one who dogmatically asserts it has yet to learn the a b c of scientific method. The scientist who thus commits scientific suicide may charitably be excused on the ground that he is a victim of the subtle laws of psychologic heredity, that he is an eighteenth-century atheist masquerading as scientist, one with a dissident dogma unwarrantably compelling science to a service from which she must instinctively rebel." The immediate cause of Dr. Gould's protest was the appearance of a letter from Prof. W. K. Brooks in which he urges that all scientific men unite against "the vitalists," that is, those who hold that there is a vital principle in organized bodies that marks them off from dead or unorganized matter. Of this demand, Dr. Gould says:

"This rallying cry for unanimity of utterance rather than for adherence to personal conviction is sadly suggestive. It would seem that a more 'virtuous' ideal would be that of following truth rather than partizanship. 'Failure to agree' is stigmatized, but it might be politic to first ask who are the disagreers. The answer to that question might result in the finding that Professor Brooks and his party are the disagreers or sectarians, because if my observation is correct the scorned vitalists, as Professor Gage avers, constitute the immense majority of scientific workers, and the few materialists who presume to speak in the name of their scientific brethren have no brief so to represent them. The cool assumption that biologic science is coterminous with physics is difficult to correctly characterize—politely. The refutation of that dogma has been made a hundred times and no adequate answer to these refutations has ever been made. Take one of these refutations, Beale's "Protoplasm;" no dispassionate and logical mind, knowing aught of the history of science or the laws of logic, can deny that the argumenst and facts there set forth leave the dogmas of scientific materialism smashed to utter and everlasting smithereens."

Air-Propellers for Steamships.-"To propel balloons and the various forms of air-ships, so-called, by some kind of screw-propeller, much after the manner followed in current steamship practise, has for a long time been one of the aims of aeronautic enthusiasts," says Cassier's Magazine, October. "To equip an ordinary ship, however, in its legitimate element, with air-pro. pellers, or, in other words, with propellers revolving in the air instead of in the water, and to effect propulsion solely by their aid, is one of the latest suggestions of the times. It has been proposed to make these air-propellers similar in shape to the ordinary water-screw, with sails or blades of thin sheet-metal, and it is said to have been found, experimentally, that for equal numbers of revolutions, equal intensity of thrust, engine power and speed, the area of the propeller should be about twelve times that of the water-screw. A big Atlantic liner, skimming over the sea with what would look like a string of mammoth children's pin-wheels on each side, spinning round in the air, is the startling vision for which, apparently, we are called upon to prepare ourselves."

PROF.

FOUR LITTLE SKY-TRAVELERS.

E. E. BARNARD, who is well known as the discoverer of Jupiter's fifth satellite, and as the performer of other noteworthy feats in astronomy, has just added another to his list by measuring, with the great Lick telescope, the diameters of the four largest asteroids, or minor planets, whose size could hitherto only be guessed at by their brightness. How far off such guesses were, and what the truth is, Professor Barnard tells in an article (Popular Astronomy, November), from which we quote a few extracts:

"Between the orbits of the planets Mars and Jupiter is situated a zone of very small planets. At least 400 of these little bodies are now known, and they doubtless exist by thousands. How small the smallest of these

4

may be can not be even
estimated. Possibly there
may be multitudes of them
not larger than grains of
sand; but such, of course,
we can never see. The
smallest that have been
discovered are possibly not
above ten miles in diame-
ter. The first four discov-
ered of these bodies, how-
ever, are of considerable
dimensions, and form re-
spectable but modest-sized
worlds. The first one of
these objects known was
discovered January 1, 1801,
by Piazzi, of Palermo in
Sicily. He named it Ceres after the tutelary goddess of Sicily.
It was found to be revolving around the sun in a period of four
and sixth tenths years at a mean distance of 256 millions of miles.
A second, third, and fourth were found in the years 1802, 1804,
and 1807, respectively, by Olbers and Harding, the former dis-
covering two. These were named Pallas, Juno, and Vesta. It
was suggested by Olbers that possibly there wese hot fragments
of a great planet once existing between Mars and Jupiter that had
for some unknown reason burst asunder. A further and imme-
diate search did not reveal any more of the 'fragments.'

RELATIVE SIZE OF ASTEROIDS AND MOON.
The including circle represents the moon.

"Nearly forty years afterward, however, Hencke, after a long search of many years, began anew the discovery of these small planets in 1845, since which time their discovery has been rapid. Especially has the discovery increased enormously in the past three years through the agency of photography. What their origin is due to we do not know. It is not probable, however, that they are the results of the burstings of any one planet, as suggested'originally by Olbers.

"These bodies have been variously called asteroids-minor planets. They are so small that in ordinary telescopes they appear only as stellar points, without any sensible or measurable disks. Various efforts have been made to determine the dimensions of the brighter ones. The work has been principally based upon a consideration of their light. The quantity of light they reflect is more or less directly measurable."

Professor Barnard goes on to explain that by measuring this quantity of light and comparing it with that emitted by a planet, Mercury, for instance, the size may be estimated. This could be done accurately if the reflective power or "albedo" of the asteroid were the same as that of the planet. But there is no way of finding this out. In fact, it is very unlikely, for the albedo of each of the planets is different from that of any of the others. So if we assume that the reflecting power is like that of Mars we get diameters of Ceres and Vesta 120 miles greater than if we assume it to be like that of Mercury.

"Some efforts have been made to measure directly the diameters of the four brightest of these bodies. At best, however, these have been but mere guesses, since the instruments used were entirely inadequate to deal with such minute quantities as the diameters of the asteroids. Especially are the earlier attempts in this line extremely discordant. Schroter measured the diam

THE WONDERFUL MAXIM GUN.

THE following description of the Maxim gun, taken from au

account by Dr. Henry M. Field of a visit to the inventor, contributed to The Evangelist, New York, October 10, is reproduced here for the powerful and vivid impression it gives of Maxim's remarkable engine of destruction :

"His [Mr. Maxim's] special pet, his 'daily,' is the marvelous gun, that does not fire single shots, but literally 'rains bullets,' as the elements in their fury rain hailstones. It is a light affair to look at, having the appearance of a small brass cannon, mounted on a tripod, and aimed and worked by one man, who sits behind it, on a saddle like that of a bicycle, from which he can point it up or down with as much ease as if it were a pistol, or swing it to the right or left, as an enemy approaches from one or another quarter.

"But how is the gun loaded?' Ah, here is the beauty of it: it loads itself! The originality of the invention lies in this: that it utilizes the recoil, so that (as the cartridges are strung on a belt, that carries from a hundred and fifty to four hundred rounds) every kick of the gun throws out the exploded cartridge on one side of the gun, and on the other throws the next cartridge into place, so that the discharge is incessant. You have only to press the button, and the gun does the rest. As long as you keep your finger on the button the firing goes on, the gun throwing eleven minie bullets a second, 666 a minute!

"But not quite so fast,' I hear some one say who has made a study of firearms; 'don't you know that this incessant firing would heat the gun so that it would explode, and do more destruction at the rear end than at the muzzle?' Oh yes, gentle critic, I know all this, and am glad you spoke of it, as it gives me occasion to point out one more contrivance of this marvelous machine. That steel barrel, through which an incessant flash streams like a continuous streak of lightning, melting or exploding everything near it, passes through water! It is all the while immersed in water-that is, encased in what is called the 'water jacket,' so that the gun, like a good soldier, 'keeps cool' while doing its most deadly work.

Thus it is that the man at the gun is master of the situation, and need not run away even if he is attacked by a regiment, unless it comes upon him by surprise, and takes him at close quarters, or some villainous sharpshooter picks him off before he

gets to business. Let the regiment keep at a respectful distance, and give the brave fellow a chance, and he will lay them low by hundreds; and indeed let the enemy be ever so numerous, if they will only stand up like men to be shot at, he will mow down half a dozen regiments while he is smoking his cigar!"

N

HOW LONG CAN SEEDS LIVE?

OT long ago it was generally believed that grains of wheat from Egyptian tombs had been made to germinate, and there seemed, therefore, to be no limit to the dormant life of a seed. When these stories were proved to be without foundation, there was a general tendency to disbelieve all of a similar kind. Now, however, it seems established that seeds may live, under proper conditions, a great many years, perhaps for centuries; and when we consider that under these circumstances the protoplasm within the seed actually maintains its vitality, this fact is very significant. On the question of how seeds accomplish this, much light has been thrown by recent experiments of C. de Candolle, the French botanist, which he describes in the Revue Scientifique (September 14). We translate below some parts of his article:

"Seeds that have retained their germinating power are said to possess 'latent life.' This expression lacks precision, for we may ask whether the life of the seeds is completely arrested or if it is only retarded, and the answers would not be the same in all cases, as I propose to show.

"We owe to Messrs. Van Tieghem and Bounier the following experiment, which proves that seeds can, in fact, live for a certain time this retarded life. Three lots of the same number of peas and beans were placed, the first in the open air, the second in a sealed glass tube containing ordinary air, the third in a sealed tube containing only pure carbonic-acid gas. At the end of two years the seeds of the first lot had sensibly increased in weight and nearly all had retained their germinating power. Those preserved in the confined air had increased less in weight and germinated in less number than the preceding. Moreover, the air contained in the tube with them had changed in composition; its proportion of oxygen had fallen to 11.4 per cent. and there was mixed with it 3.8 per cent. of carbonic acid. As to the seeds kept in the carbonic acid, none of them could germinate and their weight had not changed."

Experiments are then described by M. de Candolle that relate to the wonderful power of resistance to cold displayed by seeds. Experiments already made by others show that these seeds may germinate after having been exposed to a temperature of 1008 below zero, Centigrade. Now the researches of Pictet in his celebrated low-temperature laboratory in Berlin show that at such a point chemical action totally ceases, hence the active life of the seeds in question must have been really suspended, and nevertheless they were able to germinate when planted. In M. de Candolle's own experiments seeds were subjected once a day for 118 days to a temperature of 378 to 538 below zero, for 8 to 20 hours at a time, and notwithstanding this harsh treatment they sprouted when planted. If the life of the seeds, however, were really suspended, they must be able to live out of contact with air for a certain time. In order to see whether they could do this, M. de Candolle kept seeds under mercury from one to three months without killing them.

In this state of suspended life a seed is in a chemical condition, according to M. Candolle, somewhat resembling that of an explosive mixture; that is, it is ready for chemical action (growth), but that action will not begin until the surrounding conditions are right. In the explosive these are conditions of dryness, temperature, etc., just as they are with the seed. A seed, then, is a little bomb, only waiting to be touched off, release its store of energy and send out a discharge in the shape of a sprout. M. de Candolle remarks on this as follows:

"This state of chemical and vital inertia may last a long time, perhaps even indefinitely. It is, at least, as it seems to me, the only way of explaining the preservation of seeds during a great

number of years. Cases are known where they have germinated after a period so long that it is impossible to believe that they have continued in life, properly speaking, in the interval, no matter how slowly the processes of life may have gone on. Here are some remarkable examples:

“A. P. de Candolle mentions seeds that sprouted very well after more than sixty years.

"Girardin has seen beans sprout, that had lain in the storehouse of Tournefort more than one hundred years.

"In 1850 Robert Brown sowed, from curiosity, some seeds from the collection of Sir Hans Sloane, where they had remained for more than 150 years. He succeeded in making several germinate, in particular one of Nelumbium speciosum [a water-lily] of which the plant has been preserved in the galleries of the British Museum, where I saw it a few years since.

'The alleged germination of mummy-wheat is, as is now generally known, but a baseless fable. It appears, besides, that the wheat was always sterilized before being put into the sarcophagi, which precluded all possibility of its growth. But to make up for the falsity of this story, divers well-authenticated facts show that seeds can preserve their power of sprouting after an extremely prolonged sojourn beneath the earth, that is to say, in shelter from atmospheric influences. The most extraordinary case of this kind is that observed several years since by Professor de Heldreich, director of the Botanic Garden at Athens. While botanizing in the neighborhood of the mines of Laurium, this savant discovered in 1873 a Glaucium that he took at once to be a new species, and he described it under the name of Glaucium. This plant made its appearance on a piece of land from which had recently been removed a thick layer of rubbish coming from the ancient working of the neighboring mines. This layer must have been at least 1,500 years old. Unless we believe in spontaneous generation, it seems necessary to suppose that this Glaucium must be a species that existed long ago in the locality, whose seeds had been preserved in the earth and rubbish that covered them."

M. Candolle here goes on to describe the experiments of Professor Peter, of Göttingen, on the cultivation of mold taken from forests, which show that here, too, seeds, lie dormant for years beneath the soil. Peter's conclusion is thus quoted:

"Altho the experiments that have been described do not solve the question of how long the seeds retain their germinative power, their results show that in the case of many plants of field or prairie this period may greatly exceed half a century.

M. de Candolle says, in conclusion:

"These researches of Professor Peter certainly deserve attention. We must hope that they will be imitated in other countries and in divers kinds of land, for they may reveal very important facts for biology and prehistoric botany. Alphonse de Candolle has already dwelt on the interest it would excite to make borings in the Alpine snows for the purposes of recovering vestiges of the vegetation anterior to the glacial period. It is to be regretted that this idea has never been carried out, for the facts that I have just stated almost make us hope that researches of this kind might lead to the discovery of germs yet capable of growth altho dating from an early epoch.”—Translated for THE LITERARY Digest.

Seamless Pipe.-The most wonderful of several new machines recently invented for the manufacture of seamless pipes, according to Engineering Mechanics, is that of B. Priol, director of the Mannesmann Pipe Works, in Landore. The novelty lies in the fact that the metal during the working process is kept stationary by means of two rolls lying upon their axles and turning toward each other in opposite direction. "The grooves in these rolls are of special form and convert a short, thick, hollow bar, placed between them, into a pipe of desired diameter and thickness of wall. No skilled labor is required to operate this machine, as it works perfectly automatically. When the bar is released by the rolls it is pushed forward the required distance by means of an ingenious appliance. Not much power is necessary to operate the machine. Seamless pipes are in increasing demand, and the enormous quantity required' by the bicycle industry alone is said to be sufficient to keep the greater part of the works, where these pipes are manufactured, day and night in operation."

...

A USEFUL PRINCIPLE IN INVENTION.

WE

E recently quoted in these columns an energetic protest against the too prevalent idea that the inventor does his work by the aid of a sort of divine afflatus—a heaven-given special faculty denied to other mortals. The author maintained that aptness in invention can be fostered and trained in the mind like any other quality, and advocated a special educational course to this end. Now comes Mr. Edward P. Thompson, who in an article in the Journal of the Franklin Institute, entitled "Reversal in Invention," points out a simple fact that may be of the greatest use to future inventors, as it certainly would have been to inventors in the past. He reminds us that a large number of important devices may be sorted out into pairs, one of each pair being what he calls a "reversal" of the other. Thus the dynamo, which transforms mechanical into electric energy, on being re-. versed becomes the motor, which changes electric energy back again into the mechanical form. Now if this principle of reversal had only been recognized long ago, each of these pairs of inventions would have required but a single inventive act, instead of two entirely independent ones. Both the invention and its reversal would have been devised at once, instead of by different persons going through different trains of thought at widely different periods. We quote a few of Mr. Thompson's illustrations of these "reversed" inventions:

"At the time the microscope was invented the principle of reversal could have been applied by reasoning that, if a distant large object could be made to appear nearer, could not a near ob. ject be made to appear larger? Had this idea been created, the mechanical execution could have been carried out by experiments with lenses of different convexities, concavities, and numbers.

"A reversal of the telephone, which causes distant sounds to appear near, would be a microphone, but the present instrument is improperly named, as it does not enlarge but simply creates a sound. When first invented its wonderful power was spoken of as making the walking of a fly sound like thunder, but this is false, because the fly jarred loose carbon electric contacts, thereby causing great fluctuations of current and violent action of the receiving telephone.

"The present air-brake system is now recognizable as a reversal of the early type, but a long time passed before the change took place. The principle had not been used as a kind of tool, and, therefore, the idea of the new brake did not come by demand of the mind, but by a combination of circumstances, that is to say, accidentally. The two systems of brake referred to are perhaps already conjectured by the reader, the first operating to stop a train by the positive action of compressed air against the wheels through the medium of the usual brake shoes, and the second by the negative action of compressed air, which normally holds the shoes away from the wheels in opposition to a spring. The advantages of the second way are apparent as soon as compared as to their main object, safety; for by the former the train can not be stopped in case of leak or a disordered pump, while with the latter the train stands still as soon as the air leaks out or the pumps refuse to work.

The

"The mental process of investigating this subject makes the principle so simple that it is a wonder that inventions existed so long before their opposite phases were thought of. Electricity furnishes several examples besides the dynamo-motor example, where the principle was not applied by a predetermined act. old form of burglar alarm had an open circuit, and the process of opening the window closed the circuit and rang a bell. The reversal of this is a normally closed circuit. The opening of the window breaks the circuit, and the bell rings. The idea once gained, and the advantages are apparent, for an alarm is given if the burglar cuts the wire.

"The storage-battery, altho condemned for railway-traction, is still one of the valuable inventions of the day, and is an exact reversal of the galvanic battery. The reversal is disclosed by stating that the operation of the primary or galvanic battery consisted in placing metal plates into a solution of salt or acid, and carrying off the electric current by a wire. The reverse of this consists in starting with an electric current, after the battery is partly exhausted, and passing the current through the solution in order to restore the chemicals to their original composition, ready to give off current as before the charging."

I

WRAPPING-PAPER FROM A SANITARY

STANDPOINT.

N the hunt of the modern scientist for microbes, the wrappingpapers used in shops have not escaped. French chemists have discovered that these papers may be in certain cases a grave source of danger. One French city, at least, has regulated their use by municipal ordinance, as will be seen from the following article abstracted by the Revue Scientifique from the Revue d'Hygiene, and contributed to the latter journal by M. Blaise, director of the Board, of Health and Statistics of Montpellier, France:

"Hygienists have as yet given little attention to this subject. This is doubtless because of the fact that in most cities the paper used to wrap up food substances is new and proper for such use. "But in some cases, and in Montpellier in particular, there has been noted the employment of old or of soiled paper, such as newspaper, account books, manuscript or printed works.

"Without doubt these old papers are usually kept for wrapping around dry vegetables or substances that must undergo cooking before serving as food. But they have been used also for certain substances that are eaten raw or that have already been cooked, such as cheese, sausages, ham, fowls, etc., whence there is possible danger to the consumer.

"It is easy to show that old paper, paper bearing print or writing, having come in contact with one or more persons, may have been soiled or impregnated with morbid germs by such contact. It suffices to recall the classic example of Trousseau concerning the transmission of scarlatina through a letter written by a person just recovering from that disease. The possibility of infection by the intermediary of books is so well recognized that in certain cities precautions are taken to prevent contagion from books given out at circulating libraries.

"Besides, these papers, after being once used, may have been thrown aside and have gathered dust from the air. This dust may contain disease-germs. . . Numerous complaints having been received from citizens of Montpellier, the municipal laboratory was ordered in 1892 to make an inquiry of which the conclusions, formulated by the director, M. Astre, are as follows: "1. The use of old newspapers, prospectuses, pamphlets, and book-leaves to wrap up food substances, either dry or moist, should be strictly forbidden.

"2. Old business account-books may be used for wrapping dry food, on condition that they are decently clean; but from time to time seizures should be made to assure permanent control.

"3. Paper not artificially colored and not printed or written upon is the only kind that should be used to wrap moist food substances.'

"In accordance with this report, a municipal ordinance to regulate the use of wrapping-papers was passed of the following

purport:

Pitch of the Human Voice.-In discussing a paper in the physical section of the American Association, at its recent meeting, Prof. W. Le Conte Stevens stated that "the lowest recorded tone of the voice is that of a basso named Fischer, who lived during the sixteenth century, and who sounded Fo, about 43 vibrations per second." Mr. Stevens himself, without possessing a bass voice, has sounded as low as Ao, 531⁄2 vibrations per second, when his vocal cords were thickened by an attack of catarrh. This, however, is under abnormal conditions. "The highest note hitherto recorded in the books was attained in singing by Lucrezia Ajugari, called 'La Bastardella.' At Parma in 1770 she sang for Mozart several passages of extraordinarily high pitch, one of which included C6, 2,048 vibrations per second. She trilled in D5, 1,152 vibrations, and was able to sing as low as G2, 192 vibrations, having thus a range of nearly 4% octaves. Ajugari's upper limit has been attained by Ellen Beach Yaw, of Rochester. Mr. Stevens has often estimated, by comparisons with a tuning-fork, the pitch of a child's squeal, while at play, which has been repeatedly found to be in excess of 2, 500 vibrations per second, in one case as high as G6, about 3,072 vibrations. The total range between these extremes is in excess of six octaves."

Sense of Sight in Spiders.-"Professor and Mrs. Peckham, in continuing their studies of spiders, have published some extremely interesting observations upon the sense of sight," says The American Naturalist, October. "Concerning the range of vision the authors think their experiments 'prove conclusively that Attidæ see their prey (which consists of small insects) when it is motionless, up to a distance of five inches; that they see insects in motion at much greater distances; and that they see each other distinctly up to at least twelve inches. The observations on blinded spiders and the numerous instances in which spiders which were close together, and yet out of sight of each other, showed that they were unconscious of each other's presence render any other explanation of their action unsatisfactory. Sight guides them, not smell.' The authors also experimented with the color sense of spiders, and reached the opinion 'that all the experiments taken together strongly indicate that spiders have the power of distinguishing colors.””

Gold from Sea-Water.-Some space has recently been devoted by the daily papers to the discussion of the practicability of schemes for the recovery of gold in sea-water. The Electrical World, October 26, describes a method suggested by the Electrician, London. "It consists in using plates of iron as anodes and plates of amalgamated copper or zinc as cathodes, which in some cases may be arranged to hold a certain quantity of mercury; these plates form, in conjunction with the sea-water, an electric battery, or may be connected to a dynamo; the gold, it is claimed, will be deposited on the copper cathode or on the mercury, it being supposed to be in combination with iodin; the chief point is to have the greatest possible volume of sea-water pass between the plates."

SCIENCE BREVITIES.

"IF carpets must continue, a thing greatly to be deprecated," says The Lancet, "they should be rubbed with a damp cloth rather than brushed, and if, in deference to prejudice, they must be brushed, this should be done by a covered American sweeper with plenty of damp tea-leaves. Of all ways of removing dirt from a carpet the worst is by the use of the ordinary short brush, which involves the housemaid kneeling down in the midst of the dust which she so needlessly creates, and drawing it into her lungs with every breath. For ordinary household use something like linoleum, something which can be washed with a wet cloth every morning, would seem to be the best covering for floors; but if carpets must be, and if it is impossible to teach the present generation the evils of seeking present comfort at the expense of future risks, at least let us remember that carpets may be washed even where they lie; that, till the day of washing comes, a closed sweeper is far better than a brush, and that the worst form of brush is one with a short handle."

"THE large part played by alcohol as a cause contributing to insanity receives fresh confirmation in the fortieth report of the Commissioners in Lunacy," says The British Medical Journal. "For the five years ending 1893 alcoholism was the predisposing or exciting cause in 20.8 per cent. of male and 8.1 per cent. of female lunacy. Intemperance is credited with 25.6 per cent. of male and 19.9 per cent. of female general paralytics."

AN apostle of physical culture, according to The Medical Record, says that nervous headache may be cured by the simple act of walking backward for ten minutes. "It is well to get in a long, narrow room, where the windows are high, and walk very slowly, placing first the ball of the foot on the floor, and then the heel. Besides curing the headache, this ex

ercise promotes a graceful carriage."