GEORGE STEPHENSON, in October, 1829, made his memorable journey in the Rocket over the Rainhill trial course ; the next year the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was opened, and soon every civilized nation adopted the new method of locomotion.
BEFORE our ancestors colonized the colder latitudes of this planet, the equatorial regions had for ages been inhabited by men or man-like four-handers. The influence of this long abode in the tropics still asserts itself in many peculiarities of our physical constitution.
I DOUBT not that you all joined in cheering Lord Wolseley and his companions in arms the other day, when they came to Windsor to receive their well-earned honors at the hands of the sovereign. If I had been among you I should have given a special cheer, on my own account, to the general—not so much to the successful soldier as to the man of science, who had thoroughly studied the conditions of the problem with which he had to deal ; vdio knew what causes would produce certain desired effects; and whose experiments were followed by the predicted results more surely than sometimes happens with those which are made on a lecture-table.
TWO hundred and seventy years ago the good ship Tiger, commanded by Captain Adraien Block, was burned to the water’s edge as she lay at anchor, just off the southern end of Manhattan Island. Her crew, thus forced into winter quarters, were the first white men who built and occupied a house on the land where New York now stands; “then,” to quote the graphic language of Mrs. Lamb, in her history of the city, “in primeval solitude, waiting till commerce should come and claim its own.
THE principle of selection has long been appreciated by stock-breeders, and they have largely profited by the application of its teachings. As applied to the growth of cereals it has not found a very wide acceptance, not having had time to force itself on the attention of the average farmer.
WHEN such an apparently simple disorder as sea-sickness exists in the midst of mankind for at least two thousand years, claiming yearly more victims, and all in spite of the best efforts of medical mankind to overcome it, it becomes of interest to inquire whether this is because its true nature has never been understood, or because it is essentially incurable.
THE subject of this evening’s discourse, “Meters for Power and Electricity,” is unfortunately, from a lecturer’s point of view, one of extreme difficulty ; for it is impossible to fully describe any single instrument of the class without diving into technical and mathematical niceties which this audience might well consider more scientific than entertaining.
LET US now make practical application of the laws of albumen coagulation that were demonstrated in the test-tube experiment. The non-professional student may do this at the breakfast fireside. The apparatus required is a saucepan large enough for boiling a pint of water—the materials two eggs.
IT was, I think, during the summer of 1876 that Mr. Darwin’s most interesting work on “ Insectivorous Plants ” fell into my hands, and was read wfith the delight which the “ fairy-tales of science ” that came from his hand must ever inspire. As a matter of course, I procured, at once, some plants of the Drosera rotundifiolia, and began a series of amateur experiments, which were to me so interesting that I began to wish all plants might have been created with the same marvelous properties.
THE New York Bridge Company, having for its object the building of the suspension-bridge between New York and Brooklyn across the East River, was chartered by the State Legislature April 16, 1867. The work was begun by this company, and continued until its control was transferred to the two cities, June 5, 1874, from which time until the completion of the structure it was carried on by a board of trustees.
AMONG all the questions affecting women, and society through women, there is none more vital than that of their industrial position. It is conceded that women should work, but there is a great difference of opinion as to what their work is, and how they should do it.
ALL of those parts of South Africa which are under the dominion of the Bantu race are ethnographically so homogeneous that the essential facts that may be stated of one tribe apply almost exactly to all, and the differences in dress, stature, color of the skin, utensils and weapons, ornaments, customs, and ideas, which are produced by external and different temporary, not local, changes only, are limited in every case by the same lines.
DR. WILLIAM FARR, who died on the 14th of April last, aged seventy-six, Tvas the founder of the English system of vital statistics, and was chiefly instrumental in bringing it to its present state of perfection ; and, in the measure that the study of the statistical tables has furnished facts for the guidance of sanitary officers, he may be said to have contributed directly and very greatly to the improvement that took place in the public health conditions of Great Britain during his career.
A LETTER in the “ Christian Advocate ” for March 22d denies the charges made in my article in the “ Monthly ” for March, as to the unhygienic condition of Ocean Grove during the crowded periods of past seasons. An editorial in the same number of the “ Advocate ” and another two weeks later call attention to this letter, and challenge “ The Popular Science Monthly ” “ either to prove or retract ” these charges.
OUR friend Dr. Dix has deserted us. We have received divers sarcastic congratulations upon our new ecclesiastical alliance, implying that we had made no great acquisition, but we could not anticipate that we should be left in the lurch so soon.
CONFLICT IN NATURE AND LIFE: A STUDY OF ANTAGONISM IN THE CONSTITUTION OF THINGS. For the Elucidation of the Problem of Good and Evil, and the Reconciliation of Optimism and Pessimism. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 488. Price, $2. THIS anonymous work is in the most comprehensive sense an ethical essay upon human life in connection With the order of nature.
Higher Professional Aims.—“ The Higher Professional Life ” was the subject of Dr. J. M. Da Costa’s recent valedictory address to the graduating class of Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia. The higher aim of the physician should be to add to knowledge and increase the resources of his profession.
A STEP toward fixing a system of uniform standards of time was made by the convention of railroad managers which was held at St. Louis, April 11th. Hour-lines were agreed upon at fifteen degrees of longitude apart, to which the clocks in the districts respectively appertaining to them shall be made to conform.