EXTENSION OF ASTRONOMY.--An interesting and important announcement is
made by an English scientist, Dr. Pritchard, of Oxford, which, if
confirmed, will give a great deal of satisfaction to all who study the
evening skies. He has succeeded in throwing out his measure-line to
one of the fixed stars. Hitherto measurement has virtually stopped
with our own solar system. The angles which form the basis of
calculations for the remoter stellar spaces are so infinitesimal that
human vision can take no certain and uniform cognizance of them. Until
now science could only draw its great circle and say: Within this the
millions of suns which shine upon the earth from all directions are
not; how far they really are beyond, no one can tell, only conjecture.
But now comes the camera, a veritable new eye for science, as
sensitive as the optic nerve and a thousand times more steadfast and
tireless, being able to hold its gaze upon the minutest object of
search hour after hour, without blinking. It is with this new eye that
Dr. Pritchard has succeeded, as he thinks, in reading the
infinitesimal figures on the milestone of the star 61 Cygni. He gives
the distance as fifty billions of miles, and reminds us that this star
is probably the nearest to us of all the bodies in space outside our
own planetary system.--_Home Journal_.
A NEW BASIS FOR CHEMISTRY has been published by Thos. Sterry Hunt, 165
pages, price, $2. Prof. Hunt dispenses entirely with the atomic
theory, but that does not make the mystery of definite combinations
any clearer. It is only "confusion worse confounded."
CHLOROFORM IN HYDROPHOBIA.--Dr. V. G. Miller, an old army surgeon of
Osage Mission, Kansas, says that he once treated a terrible case of
hydrophobia with chloroform, using altogether about three pounds. It
conquered the spasms. A slimy, stringy secretion ran out of the man's
mouth which probably carried off the poison, and for a long time he
could not swallow, but in three weeks he entirely recovered. The
salivary glands seem to have a close relation to hydrophobia. Many
years ago reports were published from Russia on the authority of M.
Marochetti, a hospital surgeon, of the cure of hydrophobia, by
piercing with a red hot needle certain swellings that rose under the
tongue, and giving a decoction of broom. Dr. M. said that fourteen
were cured in this manner. This discovery seems to have been
forgotten.
THE WATER QUESTION.--"It may naturally be asked, If Brooklyn has been
so successfully supplied with water from driven wells, why has not New
York adopted the same system? In answer to this it must be remembered
that the drive-well is a new invention, and, before its application to
Brooklyn, had only been used on a small scale. To this day no one can
give satisfactory reasons why the water flows continuously from the
earth through the pipe of a driven-well. Hence, to the public
generally, this mode of obtaining water was new and little understood.
At the time of its introduction to Brooklyn a water-famine was
threatened. All the ordinary sources of supply had been exhausted by
the ever-increasing population, and the authorities were puzzled what
to do. In this extremity Andrews & Bro., a firm which had much
experience in working drive-wells, offered _at their own expense_, to
put down wells and supply the town with water. Had Andrews & Co.
merely proposed to put down the wells and the town to pay the bill and
run the risk of failure, the proposition would not have been
entertained. Fortunately, Andrews & Co. offered to take the expense
and risk of failure on their own shoulders. The city's chief engineer
at the time, Robert Van Buren, seconded by Engineer Bergen, with the
approval of Mayor Low and Commissioner Ropes, accepted the contract.
"Engineers and scientists, at the time, scouted the idea and raised all
sorts of objections. The summer it was completed there was a
five-months drought, with less than 2-1/2 inches of rain. This,
however, did not affect the drive wells, and at the request of the
town authorities, they increased the speed of their pumping engines,
and supplied all demands, even beyond their contract. And there the
wells still remain, a standing example, a pharos to enlighten the
world.
"In the meantime, the neighboring city of New York, across the river,
was alarmed for fear their Croton water should give out. Plans had
been laid down and estimates made for enlarging their supply by
bringing the whole Croton river to New York and building a new
aqueduct. This involved an expenditure of fifty or sixty million
dollars, and such a chance was not to be lightly given up by those who
expected to be enriched by the job. To put down auxiliary driven wells
would have required not one-twentieth the expense, and they would have
furnished the town with water for all time, and moreover might have
been put down within the city limits."--_J. Donbavand_.
PROGRESS OF HOMOEOPATHY.--Homoeopathy was first introduced into
America in the year 1825 by Dr. Gram. It now numbers 11,000
practitioners, 14 medical colleges, 1,200 matriculants annually, 400
graduates annually, 57 hospitals with 4,500 beds, 3 insane asylums, 48
dispensaries, 150 societies, 23 journals, 33 pharmacies, 1 college of
specialties.
ROUND THE WORLD QUICKLY.--A copy of the _London Times_, sent to Lord
Huntly, Japan, went round the world, returning to London in 69 days.