be expected, " intemperance in drink " heads fir-trees or bamboos on the ground before it the list of single causes, with 18,290 cases. is let belong to the proprietors, and the tenOf "moral causes," "domestic trouble," ant is not free to appropriate them. If "adverse circumstances," and "mental there were no such trees on the ground when anxiety and worry, and overwork," are col- it was let, and such trees were subsequently lectively held responsible for 25,897 cases. planted by the tenant, they would be at his Of other moral causes, 66 religious excite- disposal. Separate property in trees is also ment" is credited with 3,769 cases, "love traceable in India, particularly in Chota affairs" with 2,224, and “fright and nerv- Nagpore, where Mr. J. F. Hewitt has freous shock" with 1,953. Of physical causes, quently found that fruit trees growing on "sexual diseases" are credited with 3,447 land are owned by persons other than the cases, "overexertion" with 761, แ sun- owners or cultivators of the soil. The stroke" with 1,686, "accident or injury "mhowa - trees, which are exceedingly valuwith 4,199, "6 diseases of women " with able, are frequently divided among the in11,315, "old age " with 5,773, "privation habitants of the villages near which they and starvation" with 2,607, “fevers" with grow. This individual property in trees is 880, "puberty" with 582, and "other bodi- not in Turkey confined to Asia Minor, but ly diseases or disorders" with 14,719. prevails as a general law in the empire. Previous attacks had occurred in 22,703 Miss Pauline Inby found it in Bosnia, and cases. Hereditary influence was ascertained bought an interest of the kind in a certain in 28,063, and congenital defect in 5,881. As estate. It seems also to have anciently between the sexes, 66,918 were of the male existed in the British Islands, and is recogand 69,560 of the female sex. nized in the Brehon records of Ireland. But there, and in most European countries, the vestiges of the separate rights have ceased to exist. Rights on Other Men's Lands.—A paper by Mr. Hyde Clarke, on "The Rights of Property in Trees" on the land of another, relates to a curious custom of primeval times which still survives in some lands. The author first met it as a land judge in Asia Minor in 1862, when he was called upon to grant compensation for olive-trees belonging to one or more persons on the lands of others, and for honey - trees or hoards of wild honey in state or communal forests. Papers read by the Rev. Dr. Codington gave information of the existence of a like system in Melanesia. It likewise prevails, according to Mr. Crocker, of the British North Borneo Company, in Borneo, in respect to the katapang, or honey-tree, and also in the case of caves containing edible bird's-nests. Sir Spencer St. John also observes that in Borneo the land nominally belongs to the state or tribe, but the ownership is not a private property in land in our sense of the word. He had observed that certain of the tapang, on which the bees construct their nests, often belonged to special families, and were not touched by their neighbors. Sir Thomas Wade has found a similar right in China, where, when hill farms or gardens are leased, the tenant will pay the proprietor a yearly rent. All Soaping Geysers.-It has been often observed that throwing soap into the geysers of the Yellowstone Park will produce or hasten an outburst. The phenomenon has been investigated by Prof. Arnold Hague, of the United States Geological Survey, who finds that two conditions are essential to the production of an eruption in this way: first, the surface caldron or reservoir should hold but a small amount of water, exposing only a limited area to the atmosphere; and, second, that the water should stand at or above the boiling-point of water for the altitude of the geyser basin above sea-level. The latter is the principal factor. Many of the geysers and hot springs present the singular phenomena of pools of water heated above the theoretical boiling-point, and, unless disturbed, frequently remain so for many days without exhibiting any signs of ebullition. Thermal waters in this condition may be made to boil by other artificial means that will disturb their equilibrium, as by casting sinter into them, and, in one instance at least, by a strong temporary gust of wind. If soap or lye is thrown into most of the small pools, a viscous fluid is formed; and viscosity is, in the opinion of the author, the principal cause | quality to the arrow, the bone must be pre in hastening geyser-action. It tends to cause the steam to be retained within the basin, and, when the temperature stands at or above the boiling-point, explosive liberation must follow. All alkaline solutions exhibit, by reason of this viscosity, a tendency to bump and boil irregularly. Viscosity in the hot springs must also tend to the formation of bubbles and foam when the steam rises to the surface, and this in turn aids to bring about the explosive action, followed by a relief of pressure, and thus to hasten the final and more powerful display. The practice of casting in soap is regarded as detrimental to the preservation of the geysers, and as a proper object of restriction. The Nature of Poisoned Arrows.-The word poison, as applied to the poisoned arrows used in the Solomon Islands, Santa Cruz, the Banks Islands, and the New Hebrides, should be understood, according to the Rev. Dr. R. H. Codington, in a peculiar sense. The practice of administering poison in food was common among the natives, but it was doubtful whether what was used had much power of doing harm. The deadly effect was expected to follow from the incantations with which the poison was prepared. In the same way the deadly quality of the poisoned arrows was never thought by the natives to be due to poison in our sense of the word, though what was used might be, and was meant to be, injurious and active in inflaming the wound. It was the supernatural power that belonged to the human bone of which the arrow-head was made on which they chiefly relied, and with that the magical power of the incantations with which it was fastened to the shaft. The bone of any dead man will give efficacy in the native belief to the arrow, because any ghost may have power to work on the wounded man; but the bone of one who was powerful when alive is more valued. In Lepers' Island, a young man, out of affection for his dead brother, took up his bones and made them into arrows. He carried these about him, and did not speak of himself as "I," but as we two"his brother and himself-and he was much feared; all the supernatural power of the dead brother was with the living. Although it is the human bone that gives the deadly pared with certain incantations which add supernatural power. The poison is an addition to the power of the bone. The native did not much consider, if at all, the natural power to hurt, of either bone or poison. A dead man's bone made the wound, the power of the ghost was brought by incantation to the arrow, and therefore the wounded man would die. Euphorbia-juice is hot and inflaming; it is smeared on the bone with an incantation which calls in the power of a dead man's ghost; when the wound is given, the ghost will make it inflame. The cure of the wounded man is conducted on the same principle. If the arrow-head, or a part of it, can be recovered, it is kept in a damp place or on cool leaves; the inflammation of the wound is little, or subsides. Shells are kept rattling over the house where the man lives, to keep off the hostile ghost. In the same way the enemy who has inflicted the wound, and his friends, will drink hot and burning juices, and chew irritating leaves; pungent and bitter herbs will be burned to make an irritating smoke, and will be tied upon the bow that sent the arrow; the arrow-head, if recovered, will be put into the fire. The bow will be kept near the fire, and its string kept taut and occasionally pulled, to bring on tension of the nerves and the spasms of tetanus. Prof. Victor Horsley has suggested that the value of the human bone tipping the arrow was first made evident by the employment of a bone from a corpse recently dead, in the decomposing tissues of which the septicemic virus would consequently be flourishing. The Mesozoie Atlantic Coast Region.-In his address before the Geological Section of the American Association, Prof. Charles E. White, defining the Mesozoic formations of North America, said that the rocks of the Triassic age are found from Prince Edward Island to the Carolinas. They rest on formations, from the Archæan to the Carboniferous, inclusive. Very few invertebrate fossils have been found in the Trias of the Atlantic coast region, and these are of little value for indicating the age of the strata that contained them. Intermediate between the Triassic beds and the undisputed Cretaceous deposits of this region is a series of the fruits cease to give the oil by themselves, they are pressed with small millstones, strata of littoral and estuary origin, to which the name Potomac formation has been applied. These deposits are only a few hun-yielding an oil which is also clear and has a dred feet thick, and, though frequently covered from sight, seem to be continuous from New Jersey to Mississippi. Invertebrate fossils are rare, but large collections of fossil plants have been found in the Potomac region. The best authorities recognize several of these fossils as Jurassic. Briefly, then, the Mesozoic of the Atlantic coast region consists of a probable representation of the Upper Trias of Europe, a possible one of the Upper Jura, a probable slight one of the Middle Cretaceous, and a practically certain representation of a large part of the Upper Cretaceous, with a hiatus between the latter and the Eocene. The speaker advocated a system of classification more suited to this country than the European one. The time has come when North American geologists can and ought to hold a commanding position in this matter. Olives and their Oil.-The olive has been cultivated in the regions of the Mediterranean coasts from time immemorial. Olive-oil there takes the place of butter. Spain has about 3,000,000 acres in olives, Italy 2,250,000, and France about 330,000 acres. Forty-five varieties of the fruit are described. The tree occasionally grows to be sixty feet high, and twelve feet in circumference of trunk. The varieties differ in the nature of the wood, the foliage, and the quality and shape of the fruit. The fruit is mild, or sharp, or bitter; and the oils differ likewise; so that a pure olive-oil may be unfit for purposes of food, and only fit for greasing machinery and making soap. The green, unripe olives, having had the bitter taste extracted with salt, are preserved in vinegar with spices. The ripe olives are gathered in the fall, when they are as large as common plums. They are of dark-green color, and the pit, now become a hard stone, contains a savory kernel. The flesh is spongy, and its little cells are filled with the mild oil, which runs out at the least pressure. The finest oil is the virgin oil which is made by collecting the freshly gathered olives in little heaps, and letting them press the oil out by their own weight. It is clear, and has a delicate, nutty taste, with little or no odor. When pleasant taste. The olives, still rich in oil, are next put in sacks, boiling water is poured over them, and they are pressed once more. The oil gained by this process is yellowishgreen, and has a sharp taste and an unpleasant smell. At Marseilles the olive-oils are classed into manufacturing oils for burning, greasing machinery, and soap-making; refined oil; oil from the pulp or husks, and table or edible oil. The last is superfine, fine, half fine, and ordinary. The table oil is refined by allowing it to run through layers of thin sheets of wadding into tin perforated boxes. The wadding absorbs all the thick particles, and leaves the oil clear and tasteless. The olive crop is variable and uncertain, and is seldom profitable more than once in six or eight years. Avogadro.—According to a sketch published by Prof. Hugo Schiff, of Florence, in the "Chemiker Zeitung," Amadeo Count Avogadro, son of the magistrate Filippo Vercellone, was born in Turin, August 9, 1776. He studied jurisprudence at the Turin University, became Doctor of Laws on March 16, 1796, and then held a position under the Government till 1806, when he began his scientific career. In physics he was self-taught, and obtained a subordinate position in the Collegio delle Provincie in Turin, which was then and still is a richly endowed department of the Turin University. On November 7, 1809, he became Professor of Physics at the Gymnasium in Vercelli. In 1820 he was elected Professor of Mathematical Physics at the Turin University. Later this chair of instruction was abolished, and Avogadro resumed the prac tice of law. He was, however, reinstated in his chair through the influence of Charles Albert, and remained at the university till 1850, when he retired on account of old age and ill health. He died at Turin, July 9, 1856, at the age of eighty years. Avogadro was but little known in Italy and unknown in foreign countries. He shared with Charles Gerhard, who died in the same year, August 19, 1856, the same fate. It was only after death that their great and important contributions to science found recognition. Atmospheric Nitrogen as Food for Plants. The results of experiments at the agricultural stations at Middletown and Mansfield, Conn., are in favor of the value of atmospheric nitrogen as a food for plants. The conclusions are deduced from them by Prof. Atwater that many, if not most, of the leguminous plants are able to and do acquire large quantities of nitrogen from the air during their period of growth; and that there is some connection, not yet defined, between root-tubercles and the acquisition of this aliment. The cereals with which experiments have been completed have not manifested the same power, and they do not have such tubercles as are formed on the roots of the legumes. The addition of soil infusions did not seem necessary for the production of root-tubercles. The size and vigor of the plants, and their gain of nitrogen from the air, seemed to be proportional to the abundance of root-tubercles in the experiment. Losses of nitrogen sometimes occurred, but always in cases where there were no root-tubercles. The ability of legumes to gather nitrogen from the air helps to explain the usefulness of certain members of the family as renovating crops, and enforces the importance of using them to restore fertility to exhausted soils. Conversely, the loss of nitrogen suffered by some other crops, such as oats, suggests a possible reason why they should appear to be "exhausting" crops. begins. This is done by hand, and generally very carelessly. The berries are washed, dried, and put through various processes of cleaning for the market; what is called "washed" coffee is put through a different process, in which much of the treatment is given under water. Object-Studies in Botany.-Prof. Bessey some time ago urged teachers of botany to give a more intelligent direction to the collections which their pupils will make during the season of study. The usual course is to gather a surplus of the showy flowers which are the most easily studied, and neglect the others, of which less is known. The teacher should take special pains to point out the features of interest in the funguses, etc., which the student may bring in. Let him direct attention to the pores, on the walls of which the spores are developed to the closely interwoven threads of the body of the fungus. When a spotted strawberryleaf is brought in, let him tell something, if it be but little, about the cause of the spots; and let the pupil be taught to look for similar spots on other plants, and to study them. Do so with lichens, with pond-scums, with green slimes, with mosses, with liverworts-in fact, with whatever is brought in by the sharp-eyed young collector. "He must be a poor teacher indeed who can not suggest something to his pupil about a toadstool or a puff-ball. It is not necessary to know the species or even the genus to which a plant has been assigned in order to be able to make valuable suggestions to one's pupils." Contributions to the Geology of Staten Island.-Dr. N. L. Britton has reported to the Natural Science Association of Staten Island concerning observations that lead him to consider that the serpentine and talcose rocks forming the main ridge of the island were derived from magnesian limestone and hornblende or tremolite strata. The rocks were doubtless originally deposited in a conformable sequence, but the serpentines were left on top in the folding of the strata. The hypothesis of a southwestward extension of the crystalline rocks across New Jersey has been confirmed in a well-boring at Perth Amboy. Considerable additions to the fossil to endure the low temperature of 45° F., with storm and wet for ten consecutive days. The proportion of satiné or satin-like cocoons was extraordinary-fifty to two hundred and ninety-four in all. A somewhat similar trial made in India some years ago was successful experimentally but not financially. In this case the worms, under calico screens, ate along the hedge at their will, new relays taking the place of the old ones as the parts of the hedge over which they had eaten recovered their leaves. The RIVER water was substituted for spring water in one of the quarters of Paris several times last summer. In every instance, according to the "Semaine Médicale," an increase of typhoid fever was observed. quantity of spring water brought to Paris being insufficient for the demand, the Council of Public Hygiene and Health has determined to expedite the labors for the new supply from springs recently bought by the city, and to insist that the use of the present spring waters be limited to food purposes. PROF. D. S. MARTIN'S Geological Map of New York City and its Environs is the only map giving in detail the geology of the entire region (fifty-five by sixty-eight miles) surrounding the metropolis; it is compiled with great care from separate sources, some of which are not easily accessible, and some are unpublished; it exhibits the relations of many geological systems and series east of the Alleghanies; and shows striking features connected with the Glacial age, the terminal HENRY HOLT & Co. will publish soon, Inmoraine, and the ancient (now submerged) troduction to Systematic Botany. By Charles channel of the Hudson River. A pamphlet E. Bessey, professor in the University of of explanations accompanies every copy. A Nebraska, and author of Bessey's Botanies few copies of the second edition of the map in the American Science Series. still reman for disposal at ten dollars each. No more are likely to be published. Address Prof. Martin, at Rutgers Female College, West Fifty-fifth Street, New York. MR. C. R. ORCUTT remarks, in the West American Scientist, on the prominence of the great variety in rock-lichens in producing a pleasing effect in the scenery of Lower Cali- | fornia. Red, yellow, gray, and white are the prevailing colors, and the whole side of a cliff is often covered by lichens of the same tint. Quartz, however, is not a favorite rock with the lichens, and consequently is seldom concealed. The lichens frequently imitate, in coloring, the natural hue of the rocks on which they are found. A BOOK by Mr. George F. Kunz, the distinguished mineralogical expert of the house of Tiffany & Co., on the Gems and Precious Stones of North America, is announced for publication_by_the Scientific Publishing Company, New York. It will be a popular description of the occurrence, value, history, and archæology of precious stones in America, and of the collections in which they exist, with a chapter on pearls. The several species and varieties are described systematically. The work will be sold at ten dol lars a copy. MR. JOHN GRIFFITT, of Smyrna, has reported favorably on the results of a season's experiments in rearing silk-worms on mulberry-trees, under muslin screens, in the open air, using the regenerated Bournabat graine. They show that the regeneration was thorough and complete, enabling the worms M. DE MALARCE recently informed the French Academy of Sciences that the use of the metric system had in 1887 become compulsory in countries having an aggregate population of 302,000,000, being an increase of 53,000,000 persons obliged to use it in ten years; use was optional in countries having nearly 97,000,000 inhabitants; and was legally admitted and partially applied in countries having an aggregate population of 395,000,000. The systems of Japan, China, and Mexico are decimal but not metric. Hence the metric system is legally recognized by 794,000,000 people and decimal systems by about 474,000,000 others. By the Hungarian trade law of 1884, every commune in which there are fifty or more apprentices must provide for their ed ucation, and afford special courses of instruction. The apprentice schools in BudaPesth contain a preparatory class, provide a course of three years, and are chiefly designed to educate apprentices for the higher trade schools. Each district of the town must have at least one apprentice school. No class is to have more than fifty or at most sixty pupils. Deserving pupils are pro moted at the end of each year. In the other towns and counties of the kingdom there are 229 apprentice schools, with 1,237 teachers and 38,081 pupils. THE Swedish Oyster-culture Society is trying to acclimatize American oysters from Connecticut on the coast of the province of Bahus. The young oysters seem to thrive well. |