tinguished himself by many valuable chemical researches and publications respecting them, particularly by his investigations into the composition and nature of meteoric stones. A portrait and sketch of Dr. Smith were given in "The Popular Science Monthly" for December, 1874.
Mr. Morgan J. Roberts tells in "Nature" of a collie-dog owned by him which was accustomed to go with him fishing, and took great interest in the business. She learned that there existed a close connection between the bobbing and final disappearance of the float and the pulling up of a fish, and would become very much excited whenever she saw the float in agitation. On one occasion when her master was away from the rods, observing a float disappearing, she uttered one or two sharp yelps, and, her master failing to come, herself seized the rod, and, "backing" with it, attempted to pull the line from the water. The hook held "a goodly eel."
Professor Oswald Heer, the distinguished Swiss paleontologist and botanist, died at Lausanne, September 27th. He was director of the Botanical Garden at Zurich, and editor of the Swiss "Journal of Agriculture and Horticulture"; and was the author of the "Urwelt der Schweitz" ("Primitive World of Switzerland"), which has been translated into many foreign languages; of a work on Swiss Coleoptera; and, in connection with Hegetschweiler, of the "Flora of Switzerland."
Millemaine is the name of a new cereal which has been introduced into South Carolina, from Colombia, South America. It is allied to sorghum and Guinea corn, and has the merit of an almost unlimited capacity to endure drought. Cakes made from the meal have been described as better than corn-cakes, and the grain has been pronounced by the chemist of the Savannah Guano Company superior in food qualities to wheat.
M. Alfred Niaudet, who died in October last, is pronounced by "La Nature" to have been the person who, more than any other one, contributed to the development in France of the industries dependent on electricity. He did valuable service to the country in his special line during the Franco-Prussian War, and, besides numerous papers on dynamo-electric machines, telephony, and telegraphy, was the author of two works that are authorities on electric piles and dynamo-electric motors.
The death is reported of M. F. S. Cloëz, an industrious French chemist, who assisted M. Chevreul some thirty-six years ago, and was afterward Professor of Physics in the School of the Fine Arts. He was author of several memoirs of considerable value.
According to Dr. Sach, of Buenos Ayres, there is no danger of an exhaustion of the quinine-supply. The experimental plantations in Java and the Island of Reunion have been very successful; and, besides these nurseries, the trees have been cultivated in Bolivia by the million for ten years. At three places in the last-named country, taken as they come, the number of trees growing is given, severally, at 70,000, 200,000, and 3,500,000.
Dr. Charles William Siemens, the distinguished engineer and electrician, died in London, November 20th, of rupture of the heart. He was born in Lenthe, Hanover, in 1823, and has given the world the regenerative gas-furnace, with an improved process for making steel; has been greatly instrumental in the extension of telegraphic cables, and has produced a series of valuable improvements in the saving and utilization of heat and in applications of electricity.
M. Jules Carret has found, by comparing the statistics of conscripts furnished from a certain region of France during ten years of the first empire with those for 1872-'79, that in every commune an increase is apparent in the average height of the inhabitants. If this is established, the fact will tend to contradict Broca's view that stature is almost wholly a matter of ethnic heredity, and to show that improvement in the conditions of life has something to do with it.
With the death of M. Louis Breguet, which took place suddenly on the 27th of October, is "effaced for the moment," says M. Blanchard, President of the French Academy of Sciences, "a name celebrated in the mechanic arts from the eighteenth century." He was the grandson and business successor of Abraham Breguet, who founded the watch-making house of that name in 1780, and was the father of the late Antoine Breguet, of the "Revue Scientifique." He was himself distinguished for services in the applications of electricity and in the advancement of telegraphy, and was a member of several learned societies. He was sixty-nine years old.
A way has been found for utilizing the bodies of animals that have died of anthrax. They are treated with sulphuric acid, and then converted into superphosphates. The germs are destroyed during the process.
Dr. John L. Le Conte, one of the most eminent American entomologists, died at his home in Philadelphia, November 15th. He presided at the Hartford meeting of the American Association in 1874. A portrait and sketch of him were given in "The Popular Science Monthly" for September, 1874.
