has described experiments which M. Defoy tried with his apparatus upon some vicious and dangerous horses at the stables of the Omnibus Company. An Hungarian horse, which was considered unsafe to shoe, was brought up to the forge, making evident manifestations of his perversity. In a few minutes after the current was applied to him he allowed himself to be caressed on the shoulders and back, then let his legs be touched and his hind-feet raised; and, finally, suffered the workmen to change his shoes without being restrained or showing any further opposition to the proceedings. A trial of the apparatus was also made in the presence of the director of the Cab Company of Paris upon some horses which it had till then been impossible to shoe. They all yielded to its influence. One of them was accustomed to roll on the ground, strike out, and resist in every possible way. On the first application of the currents, says the director in his report, "To my astonishment they lifted his feet without any great difficulty; at the second, he was as easy to shoe as if he had never opposed the least resistance. The animal was conquered." M. Defoy exhibited before the editor of "La Nature" a dangerous horse, which he arrested instantly after it had sprung into a gallop, by turning the handle of the magneto-electric apparatus. The result is not obtained by any violent or painful action. The current is not strong enough to stupefy the animal; it rather produces in him astonishment, and a disagreeable but not painful sensation of an electrical pricking. The editor of "La Nature" has received the current from the apparatus without experiencing inconvenience. There is nothing in the process to recall the barbarous methods formerly used to subdue animals by force or violence, which hurt them in body and temper. M. Defoy has also invented an electrical stick or switch, which is not less ingenious than his bit. It is a riding-whip containing two conducting wires, which are insulated by leather. The wires terminate in two points set perpendicularly to the whip, and are put in connection, as in the case of the bit, by means of a magneto-electric apparatus. If the horse is in the habit of rearing, it is enough to jog him with the legs as he is preparing to rise, and at the same time apply the points of the electric stick to the top of his shoulders. He will immediately subside and let his head down. So, when a horse tries to turn around, the application of the current to that side of his face toward which he is about to turn will cause him to stop immediately. With the help of this little instrument M. Defoy is able in a little while to make a horse obey all his wishes. Automatism in Portrait-painting. — Dr. Gaetan Delaunay, in a recent article on this subject, writes that he has often observed that a designer making an extemporaneous sketch of a head involuntarily reproduces his own portrait; and that, having made a scientific study of the fact, he has reached conclusions which are curious, though they are not fully demonstrated. He has been informed by teachers of drawing, painters, and designers, of whom he has made inquiries, that a person tracing with a pencil figures of spontaneous conception will always produce the same head unless he is copying from or imitating a model. M. Luys, professor in the Medical Faculty at Paris, states substantially the same principle in his work on the brain, and explains it by a theory of automatism, or habit. It is illustrated in the works of the French caricaturists. A degree of resemblance may be traced between the design and the designer, whether we consider the work as a whole or in its parts. English painters, endeavoring to represent Frenchmen, give them English characteristics, and French painters invest their figures of foreigners with a French air. So painters of every country impart some of their own national features to their pictures of foreign life, to such a degree that we can generally recognize the nationality of the artist from them. We can not explain the fact better than by supposing that all painters are subject to an irresistible tendency to reproduce their own ethnographic type. Sex exercises a similar influence; little girls amusing themselves at drawing will generally be found making female figures, little boys male figures. Dr. Delaunay has also observed that an artist seeking to represent a woman would always draw the same woman, and has learned from designers that the woman who thus persistently came from their pencil was, of the type which they preferred to all others, the one who figured in their dreams. Rubens is quoted as say own head. In proof of this, a letter is quoted from a professor of drawing in a lyceum in Paris, who says: "When our pupils are competing for a prize, they have the same model in view, but each one in copy We may, by simply examining his design, determine whether his face is round, oval, or square, whether it has projecting forms, or a smooth contour with few inequalities." The same is the case with sculptors, and even with costumers, who were found by Dr. Delaunay to be most apt to have figures of their own style in view in fitting their customers. ing, "I paint women as I love them." Fur-, neighbor, and more or less resembling his ther, artists appear to embody their constitutional features in their figures, and will design large or small subjects according as they are themselves large or small. The figures of portly and vigorous artists will be distinguished by fullness of muscular develop-ing from it reproduces himself more or less. ment. According to this theory, the resemblance extends even to the different parts of the body. Raphael, who preferred to paint Virgins, had a virginal head; Michael Angelo, who had a virile head, put more virility into his creations. If we should go into the room where a deliberative body had sat, and gather up the figures which the members had amused themselves with composing during the tedium of discussion, we would be surprised by observing that each one had sketched something very like his own likeness. Dr. Delaunay has experimented with artists, and with persons who did not know how to draw, and has always found that they made their own profiles in their off-hand sketches. The sketch of an unpracticed person would of course be rude and ungraceful, and an unfair portrait, but there would be traits of resemblance about it sufficient to reveal the author. A friend who had what is called a square head drew a figure which was imperfect enough, but the line defining the back part of the head made a right angle. A person with curled hair is not apt to draw straight hair, but curled; one with straight hair will give his figures hair like his own; a bearded man will give them a full beard, a beardless man none; and peculiarities in the form of the beard are often found reproduced in the drawings. Finally, in the works of imagination of painters and sculptors we may recognize the productions of artists who have all the time multiplied their likenesses in their figures. The same conclusion is applicable to imitative designs. If we have a drawingclass of fifty pupils, having a respectable degree of skill, all drawing at the same head, theoretically we should have fifty heads more or less well executed, but all resembling the model, and consequently one another. This will not, however, be the case. The drawings will differ from each other so obviously that, instead of fifty copies of the same head, there will be fifty different heads. Each pupil executes a different head from the one drawn by his Echoes in Buildings.- Cords stretched in a kind of network near the ceiling have been recommended for destroying echoes in churches and public halls, and have been tried satisfactorily in St. Peter's Church, Geneva, and in the Assembly Hall of the city offices of Bordeaux, France. When metallic wires are used in the same manner, the resonance is greatly diminished, and is sometimes converted into a musical sound. A remarkable resonance has been noticed in connection with the great staircase of stone in the Walhalla at Regensburg, Germany. The visitor, after going up the first stairs, steps upon a landing from which two other staircases rise in opposite directions. At this point every step calls out a metallic ringing, as if the whole stairs were made of brass. A stamp of the foot on the middle of the landing is answered by a clear, resounding, musical tone. The ringing continues as the visitor goes up the stairs, growing weaker as he approaches the second landing, and finally ceases. The phenomenon is believed to be due to the rapid reflections of the sound-waves between the opposite staircases. Stammering of the Vocal Cords.-Under this title Dr. Prosser James, of London, describes in the "Lancet" a throat malady, which he says may at times entirely suspend the work of clergymen, lawyers, singers, and others who make professional use of the voice. The disease appears to be due to defective coordination of certain muscles of the larynx, in consequence of which the vocal apparatus fails at intervals to fully obey the will; the failure giving rise to sudden interruptions of the voice, while the articulating power may remain unaffected. As in other impediments of speech the barmonious action of the muscles engaged in articulation may be disturbed, in this case the disordered coördination affects the voice only. The movements required for articulating syllables are perfectly performed, but the production of vocal sound is at intervals suspended. The affection may cause the patient to stop speaking, as he is conscious of what he sometimes calls a "catch in the breath"; or he may continue a sentence from which some words will be lost to the listener. Isolated sounds are usually correctly articulated, even by confirmed stammerers; and the same is true in these vocal impediments; but it is in the rapid emission of certain combinations of sounds that the sudden arrest is liable to occur. Dr. James states that after long and patient observation of the action of the vocal cords, aided by appliances specially devised for the purpose, he was able to obtain ocular demonstration of the presence of the affection; and, once distinguished from other impediments of speech, he found it amenable to treatment. Stature of the Japanese.-Mrs. Chaplin Ayrton, M. D., has recently published the results of nearly three hundred observations of the height and span of the Japanese. She found the average height to be five feet three inches, and the span four feet eleven inches. In the case of twenty-four women, taken at random, the tallest was a trifle over five feet two inches, and the average was four feet eight inches, with an average span of four feet six inches. The shortness of the span as compared with the height is a general characteristic that is especially marked in the case of the women. Sixty per cent. of the persons measured had the span less than the height, and thirty-three per cent. greater than the height, while in only 68 per cent. were the height and span equal. Climate can hardly be made to account satisfactorily for the smallness of the Japanese, for they live in a temperate region, though it is subject to sudden and marked changes. The general use of charcoal-braziers for heating may have some thing to do with it, by causing them to inhale the carbonic oxides. The characteristic of their food is the rarity of meat and the abundance of salt. Many of the additional causes of the smallness of the Japanese may be so remote as to cease to affect the nation except by hereditary influence. Aids to Hearing: the Osteophone.-The audiphone and dentaphone, which have been extensively advertised as instruments for aiding the hearing of the deaf, have been objected to on account of mechanical diffi culties in using them. The audiphone to a certain extent obscures the features of the Dr. Charles H. person using it—the dentaphone is held more or less in the line of vision; and both instruments require the constant service of the hands when in use. Thomas, of Philadelphia, has devised an instrument that is intended to obviate these difficulties, which he has named the osteophone. It consists of a large receiving diaphragm attached in an arched form to a rod of wood or metal, which rod is bent in the form of a pipe-stem. One end of the rod is to be held firmly between the teeth as a pipe is held, leaving the hands of the listener free for other occupations, while he is able to hear all the sounds that may be conveyed by the diaphragm. The diaphragm is below and away from the face, and comparatively inconspicuous. The inventor suggests that ornamental fans, coated with shellac and tipped with ivory or hard rubber, may be made to answer fairly well for occasional use, but will be unsatisfactory if depended on permanently. Fuller's cardboard, treated with shellac varnish, and dried, makes one of the best of resounding mediums. A piece of yellow pine turned into a trumpet - shape, and placed in the mouth of the deaf person, will convey a good volume of sound, and even a string connecting the upper teeth of the persons conversing perceptibly aids the sound. A small rod of hard wood, connecting the teeth of the two persons, gives a volume of sound many times exceeding that transmitted either by the audiphone or the dentaphone. Sensible vibrations, produced by and corresponding to those of the voice, are propagated in the hard palate and base of the skull of persons speaking in the ordinary tones; and the rod which has just been mentioned will convey, amount of sulphuric acid in combination. the voice distinctly when placed against the Samples of Russia leather and sheep of skull of the hearer, and will even, according good quality yielded from less than a quarto Dr. Thomas, convey audible speech from ter to less than a half of one per cent. of the skull of one to that of the other. The acid, and less than quarter of one per cent. efforts to make the audiphone and denta- of ammonia. A sample of well-worn but phone useful as regular instruments of hear- not decayed sheep taken from a Bible more ing to the deaf have not had satisfactory re- than sixty years old, which had never been sults. Dr. Thomas acknowledges that the exposed to gas, gave 1:42 per cent. of sulexpectations which have been excited on the phuric acid. Other samples, of very rotten subject are likely to be disappointed. Those Russia, and of scrapings from a number of who are able to hear with the aid of the books, gave from eight to ten per cent. of audiphone hear their own voices perfectly sulphuric acid, combined with ammonia. A without it; while those who are unable to quantity of rotten leather was carefully exhear their own voices without it can hear tracted with water, and crystals of sulphate nothing with it. Dr. Charles S. Turnbull, of ammonia were obtained from it. It is of Philadelphia, states in the "Medical difficult, in the face of these facts, Professor and Surgical Reporter" that his experience Nichols urges, to escape the conviction that with these instruments has been as nothing, bindings of Russia, calf, or sheep absorb because the suitable cases were so few and sulphuric acid when exposed to the prod far between. The cases in which they have ucts of the combustion of illuminating gas. proved of benefit are cases of acoustic deaf- No other condition to which books are comness, generally due to middle-ear disease, monly exposed can so well account for the for which devices of the nature of the ear- large proportion of acid which was found trumpet generally afford a more satisfac- in the old bindings. It has been objected tory remedy than either of the instruments to this view that sulphurous (not sulphurunder consideration. ic) acid is the general product of the combustion of sulphur compounds; but Professor Nichols's analyses of the results of the burning of gas have brought out sulphates with no evidence of the presence of a sulphite. It is admitted to be possible that the disintegration of the leather precedes the absorption of sulphuric acid, and prepares the way for it; and Professor Nichols intends to make experiments for the determination of this question. Deterioration of Bookbinding by Illuminating Gas.-Professor William Ripley Nichols publishes an interesting paper on the deterioration of the binding of books in libraries, which is commonly ascribed to the action of sulphuric acid supposed to be generated by burning coal-gas. The agency of sulphuric acid having been disputed by Dr. Wolcott Gibbs and others, Professor Nichols made investigations to determine the question. Having examined a large number of samples of leather in every stage of decay, he found that morocco was but little affected, common sheep binding was attacked, and Russia leather and calf were badly acted upon. An acid taste and an acid reaction were observed that were more marked in proportion as the leather was decayed, and sulphuric acid was found in the extract made from the leather with water, in a similarly increasing proportion. Ammonia was also present, in about such a proportion as in combination with the sulphur would constitute the acid sulphate of ammonia. Samples of fresh leather gave extracts only slightly acid, not enough so to affect the taste, and contained only a minute NOTES. WE ask the attention of our readers to the premiums offered to new subscribers for "The Popular Science Monthly." No such valuable list of modern scientific works has ever before been prepared for such a purpose; and no other publishing-house in this country or in the world is able to furnish from its own stock such a varied and admirable popular scientific library as that which D. Appleton & Company now present for the choice of those who will become subscribers to this periodical. It is important that its patronage and influence should be increased. We want the means of improving it. There are thousands of intelligent people who have not yet made its acquaintance; and to reach them we must rely upon the help of our friends, who know what the "Monthly" is worth. We ask each one of our present subscribers to detach the list of premiums from his number, and present it to some reading neighbor who can appreciate and ought to have "The Popular Science Monthly." There can be no better investment of money for individual improvement and sound family education than this. The magazine is worth twice what it costs to any thoughtful man, and when he can get his choice among a hundred sterling books as an extra inducement, which virtually reduces the cost of the "Monthly" to three dollars, he ought certainly to be informed of his advantage. seventeen years its head assistant, died on February 3, 1880. Besides a large amount of valuable work, the record of which is confined to the observatory, he contributed several papers to the Royal Astronomical Society of London, and was made a Fellow of that body in January, 1872. He was the first and only native of India who, up to the time of his death, had entered the lists as a discoverer of new celestial objects, having detected two new variable stars-R. Reticuli in 1877, and V. Cephei in 1878. During the later years of his life he delivered popular lectures on astronomy, explaining the principles of the science in simple and familiar terms, with a view to the removal of some of the absurd notions and ignorant superstitions concerning celestial phenomena that are propagated by the Ilindoo astrologers. THE first volume of "Studies from the Biological Laboratory of the Johns Hopkins University" is announced. It is made up of original papers on physiology, animal and vegetable morphology, and embryology, con DR. PHIPSON has proposed a new method of solving the question of a cheap house-tributed by members of the university, and hold light. He has succeeded, with a comparatively feeble electric current, in perceptibly increasing the phosphorescence of certain bodies which are made faintly light by the rays of the sun. Ile incloses in a Geissler tube, containing a gas in a more or less rarefied condition, a phosphorescent body, the sulphuret of barium, for instance. By causing a constant current of a certain intensity to pass through the tube, he obtains a uniform and an agreeable light, at an expense which he estimates to be less than that of gaslight. DR. CARPENTER says the entire absence of sunlight on the deep-sea bottom seems to have the same effect as the darkness of caves, in reducing to a rudimentary condition the eyes of such of their inhabitants as fish and crustacea which ordinarily enjoy visual power; and many of these are provided with enormously long and delicate feelers or hairs, with which they feel their way about, just as a blind man does with his stick. THE use of camomile-flowers for the adulteration of smoking-tobacco has recently been discovered in England, just in time to stop an enormous swindle. The flowers are first deprived of their bitter principle by exhaustion in water, and then colored, sweetened, and dried, when they are ready for mixing with cut tobacco. A preparation sold under the name of "The New Smoking Mixture "" was found on examination to be about one third tobacco and two thirds camomile-flowers. CHINTAMANAY RAGOONATHA CHARRY, F. R. A. S., for thirty-five years connected with the Madras Observatory, and for the last based on investigations conducted in the biological laboratory and marine zoological station of the institution. The present volume contains 519 pages, with forty plates and illustrations in the text. Price, $3.50. A volume a year, issued in quarterly parts of about 100 pages, at a dollar each, is contemplated; or it can be obtained at the end of the year, bound complete, for $5. As they are doing some of the best original work in the country at Johns Hopkins, in these departments, those who wish to keep posted in the latest results of biological inquiry will do well to procure these publications as they appear. DIED, March 11th, at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Professor William T. Roepper, aged seventy years. Professor Rocpper was born and in 1866 was appointed to the chair of in Germany, came to America forty years ago, Mineralogy and Geology in Lehigh University. He gave chief attention to the science of mineralogy, the mathematical relations of crystals and the chemical composition of minerals being subjects of special study. The practical aspects of the science were also of much interest to him, and his services as an expert were often in request. ing the locomotion of insects and arachnids, M. G. CARLET, of France, has been studythat the walking of insects may be repreand reports as the result of his observations the foremost and hindmost of whom keep sented by that of three men in Indian file, step with each other, while the middle one walks in the alternate step. The walking of arachnids is represented by four men in file, the even-numbered ones walking in one step, while the odd-numbered ones walk in the alternate step. |