While it recognizes the desirability of agreeing upon some language as a general medium of communication between nations, the London Spectator presents certain forcible reasons for not seeking to institute one universal language. “Mankind,” it says, “will never adopt a universal language, nor is it to be desired that it should. The instrument for expressing thought must vary with the character, history, and mental range of those who have thoughts to express, and if all men spoke alike, ninety-nine per cent of them would be speaking stiffly—not using, that is, a natural and self-developed vehicle of expression. Arabic could not have grown up among Englishmen, or English among Arabs. The seclusion of nations, too, from one another by the want of a common tongue is by no means all loss, and we may doubt with reason why the higher races would not be degraded if they understood without effort all that the lower races say to one another. They would be bred, as it were, in the servants’ hall, not to their advantage.”

In a recent address on The Chemistry of the Infinitely Little, M. Grimaux referred to the fact, with which all who have thought about it have been struck, that pathogenic microbes being diffused all through the atmosphere, everybody must breathe and absorb all sorts of them, including germs of typhoid fever, scarlet fever, diphtheria, etc., and yet we are not all attacked with those diseases. Why? Because each person has a peculiar temperament, and cells adapted, to a greater or less extent, to resist the microbe, to destroy it when it enters the organism, and thus constitutes, as the case may be, a good or a bad cultural medium. Every one, we might say, is immune against some or other of the pathogenic microbes. Like immunity belongs also to certain animal species, and if a microbe pathogenic to man or to some other species is injected into them they will resist it. The blood of refractory animals probably contains principles not yet known which oppose the development of the infectious microbe. From this fact the idea has been suggested of injecting the blood of refractory animals and communicating an artificial immunity to the individual to whom the injection is applied.

M.J. CrÉpin, of Paris, “an enthusiast concerning the goat,” as M. de Parville calls him in La Nature, has established a model goat dairy, and is endeavoring to diffuse a taste for goat’s milk and its products. As a means to this end, he has sought to procure an improved breed of goats, and has obtained a stock of very satisfactory quality by crossing the best native goats with the Nubian buck. The latter animal is rather awkward in form and movement, but M. CrÉpin hopes to breed that out. Otherwise the Nubian is well acclimated, vigorous, and indifferent to cold, hornless, and a most excellent milker. Goat’s milk generally is richer in caseine than cow’s milk, and owes some of its special qualities to this fact, and to the further circumstance that the flecks of goat-milk cheese are smaller, softer, and more easily broken up—consequently more digestible—than those of cow’s milk. Further, goat’s milk is more nearly than any other common milk like in composition to human mother’s milk; and it has the very great advantage that, the goat being less subject to attacks of tuberculosis and other dangerous disorders, it is comparatively free from the liability to convey infection. A single objection to the general use of goat’s milk is the odor which is supposed to be characteristic of it, but M. CrÉpin affirms that this is not apparent when the goats are properly bred and kept. M. CrÉpin is experimenting with butter from goat’s milk, and represents that he finds it very nice.

The fundamental principle involved in the new form of telemeter, or instrument for estimating the distance of visible objects without actual measurement, invented by Herr Zeiss, of Jena, is that of the stereoscopic effect which appears in natural vision, where the inclination of the eyes in concentrating on the object gives the sense of distance. The base line between the eyes is increased in the Zeiss instrument by means of a system of prisms so as to give a widened base of binocular vision, and of mirrors which give magnifying power. Double images are formed, the distance between which varies in proportion to the distance from the observer, and appliances are provided for measuring how far apart they are. The arrangement is fairly satisfactory for moderate distances—say of 3,000 metres, or about 10,000 feet.

M. Moissan believes that he has found a solution of the problem of the manufacture of ammonia from the atmosphere, and consequently of rendering atmospheric nitrogen available in agriculture, by the artificial production of calcium nitride. While calcium undergoes no change in contact with nitrogen at the ordinary temperature, it is affected by it under the operation of heat, and finally burns in it, absorbing it rapidly and giving rise to a bronze-colored nitride. Thrown into water, this substance decomposes with effervescence, producing ammonia and calcium hydrate.

Prof. A.E. Dolbear, of Tufts College, Massachusetts, patented an invention for telegraphing without wires in 1886, which he claims covers all that Marconi is doing. He has sent messages with it for as long distances as five miles. According to his account he invented the system and made successful experiments with it as far back as 1882. He made an application for a patent, which was rejected by the Patent Office with the statement that it was contrary to science and would not work. “But as it did work, the claim was maintained in the office, and four years later, in 1886, a patent for it was issued.” Professor Dolbear does not wish it to be understood that his patent is on the “art of wireless telegraphy,” but that it covers everything that has been so far done in the art.

On the occasion of the visit of the French Association to the British Association, Prof. J.J. Thomson gave an exposition of the lines of research by which it has been concluded that the atom is not the smallest existing quantity of matter. Electro-chemical phenomena teach us to associate a definite amount of electricity with each atom of matter; but these recent researches indicate that under certain circumstances a much larger quantity of negative electricity may be conveyed by the atom, or else that the negative electrical charge resides on a small detachable portion of the “atom,” which alone is concerned in the experiments. The positive charge seems to be distributed over the whole mass of the atom.

The merits of two methods of clarifying sewage—by dilution and by bacterial action—are discussed by Mr. Rudolph Hering in articles in the Engineering Magazine. Disposal by dilution in large streams of water is regarded as satisfactory in many places—where the water of the stream is not to be used for drinking or cooking—provided the flow of the stream is always copious enough to dilute and disperse the sewage so widely as to prevent putrefaction and substitute oxidation. For purification by bacterial action no single method is found adapted to all conditions. The method by filtration and aËration is declared practicable only in localities where a sufficient area of porous land is available, upon which the crude sewage can be spread in sufficient quantity, into which it can filter with the proper velocity, and from which it can emerge as a thoroughly purified water. Where these conditions are absent, other methods must be adopted, of which the experiments in artificial filtration by tanks, as practiced at Exeter and Sutton, England, are described. These experiments promise to improve the present method, but perhaps not as greatly as is anticipated by the promoters. The author regards a prior separation of the suspended or dissolved organic matter as essential to permanent success when the amount of land is limited.

By using the tuberculin test the faculty of the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station have learned that in cattle the tubercle bacillus usually first obtains its foothold in some of the minor glands, that it may exist there for months and years before any other organs are affected, and that it is only in advanced cases that the lungs become diseased. While the growth of the organism is limited to these minor glands the health of the animal usually shows no sign of impairment. During this period there is no evidence that any unwholesome effect is being produced upon the flesh, and so long as the infection is localized in this way in one or two organs the Government inspectors pass the meat as sound. Tuberculosis, therefore, is a very different complaint from such diseases as pleuropneumonia or Texas fever, in which the whole system is saturated from the first instant with the febrile symptoms.

NOTES.

Mr. James Weir tells of a spider which stretched its web in the division between two parts of a sawmill, where the lower fastenings of the structure were frequently broken by the repeated passing of lumber through. Discovering the situation, the insect gave up the use of guy threads, and, finding a nail, wove it into the lower edge of its web, so that it should operate as a sinker to keep the web stretched.

N.G. Johnson, of the Maryland Agricultural Experiment Station, telling the Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Science the story of his fight with the pea louse, represented that the pea raisers in his State had lost this year more than three million dollars by the ravages of this insect. A parasite had been discovered which practically annihilated the pest, but the discovery was not made in time to save the crops in some parts of the State from destruction.

The American Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Science, after hearing the account of the work of the Gypsy Moth Commission of Massachusetts, which has spent more than a million and a half of dollars in trying to exterminate the mischievous insect, approved the action of the Massachusetts Legislature in maintaining the commission, and requested that the work be kept up for a short time longer. This was because it was represented that the moth was now confined to a limited area, and could be easily exterminated by the expenditure of a small amount more of money.

The history of science has sustained a great loss by the burning of most of the relics which had been collected for the Volta Centenary Exhibition at Como, Italy. Only a few things were saved, comprising a sword presented by Napoleon Bonaparte to Volta, a cast of the skull of the great electrician, his watch, and a few personal relics. On the other hand, his books and manuscripts, his collection of batteries, the only authentic portrait of him, and his will, were destroyed. Nevertheless, the celebration was not stopped. The fire was attributed to the fusing of some electric wires.

An example of patient industry is the sorting of hogs’ bristles as it is carried on at Tientsin, China. Each one of the hairs of the six hundred thousand kilogrammes exported from that place in 1897 had to be picked out, measured, and placed in the bundle of hairs of corresponding length; and the different lengths by which the hairs are sorted are very numerous.

It is stated by M. LÉon Vaillant that the late M.A. d’Abbadie had and used an effective remedy against the bites of insects and the infections they bring by fumigating the entire body with sulphur. For this purpose he covered the unclothed body with a suitable envelope, under which the sulphur was burned. The remedy was communicated to M. d’Abbadie by a hippopotamus hunter who had, by using it, escaped all the diseases incident to the swamps to which he had to resort.

The Gregorian Calendar is to be adopted by the Russian Government on January 1, 1901, or at the beginning of the new century.

The following figures, from the Engineering and Mining Journal, are of interest as showing the enormous quantity of iron and steel which was manufactured in 1898, and the leading position which the United States has already assumed in the industry:

Iron and Steel Production, in Metric Tons.C

Countries.	PIG IRON.		STEEL.
	1897.	1898.	1897.	1898.
United States	9,807,123	11,962,817	7,289,300	9,045,815
United Kingdom	8,980,088	8,769,249	4,559,736	4,639,042
Germany	6,889,087	7,402,717	5,091,294	5,784,807
Total	25,626,296	28,134,383	16,940,330	19,418,664
Austria- Hungary	1,205,000	1,250,000	553,000	605,500
Belgium	1,024,666	982,748	616,604	658,130
Canada	41,500	46,880	—	—
France	2,472,143	2,584,427	1,281,595	1,441,638
Italy	12,500	12,850	57,250	58,750
Russia	1,857,000	2,228,850	831,000	1,095,000
Spain	282,171	261,799	121,800	112,605
Sweden	533,800	570,550	268,300	289,750
All other	450,000	545,000	310,000	355,000
Grand total	33,506,076	36,507,487	20,979,179	24,030,032

C A metric ton is about 2,200 pounds.