Prof. Frederick Starr, of the University of Chicago, has made two excursions to Mexico for the purpose of establishing the physical types of the aborigines by means of measurements, photographs, and casts. He studied twelve tribes, half of which were almost unknown to science, and made measurements of more than eleven hundred and fifty men and three hundred women. On his last trip he rode one thousand miles among the mountains on horseback. In a recent paper in the Open Court he takes notice of frequent and curious survivals of pagan belief to be remarked among these peoples, although they are all supposed to be devout Christians. In one instance, which is specially described, an idol bearing some resemblance to those found among the ruins of the ancient cities occupied a station in the church by the side of the crucifix, sharing the honors with the statue of the Virgin on the other side. Grief and consternation prevailed among the Indians when the idol was taken away by the ecclesiastical authorities.
The question of the increase of insanity in England during the last few years is regarded as assuming a serious aspect, and the report of the Commissioners of Lunacy for 1898, showing the largest annual increase yet recorded, the Lancet says, reveals the gravity of the situation. Other collateral facts given in the report "add to the seriousness of the outlook." The increase in the number of inmates in institutions for lunatics is attended with a falling off in the recovery rate, which is lower for 1898 than that of the previous year, and even than the average of the last ten years. A steady diminution in the recovery rate has appeared also during each period of five years since 1873. The attempt to account for the increase of lunatics in public and private asylums by supposing that it is made up by removals thither from workhouses or from the care of relatives fails, for it is shown that this class of insane is increasing too, though slowly. The subject is regarded as of so much importance that it was considered and discussed in the Psychological Section of the British Association at its Bristol meeting in 1899.
A process by which calcium carbide can be continuously produced more cheaply than by the process at present in use is reported, in Industries and Iron, to have been discovered by Professor Freeman, of Chicago. In the new process a huge arc lamp inclosed in brickwork in the interior of a furnace is employed. The upper electrode of the lamp is hollow, and through it is fed a powder composed of common lime and coke. This powder, being carried through the upper carbon directly into the electric flame, is melted by the intense heat, and molten calcium carbide runs away from the furnace. It is estimated that the carbide is produced at a cost of half a cent per pound.
NOTES.
A new method of securing more perfect combustion, described by Mr. Paul J. Schlicht before the Franklin Institute, is based on the fact, described by the inventor, that if a current of air is properly introduced into a chimney flue through which hot products of combustion are escaping, it will flow in a direction contrary to theirs, and, becoming heated in contact with them, will reach the center of the fire in a condition highly favorable to the most complete union of oxygen with the combustible elements of the fuel. Suggestions are made in Mr. Schlicht's paper for the construction and regulation of furnaces, so as to secure the condition described.
Mr. Edward Orton, Jr., has been appointed State Geologist of Ohio, to succeed his father, the late Dr. Edward Orton. He has been connected, as an assistant, with the survey, in which he studied the distribution of the coal measures, and has also prepared reports on the clay and clay industries of the State.
"From a moral if not from a scientific and industrial point of view, incontestably superior to that of the European peoples," is the characterization a book reviewer in the Revue Scientifique gives to Chinese civilization.
Sir William Turner is the president-elect for the Bradford meeting of the British Association, 1900. He is head of the great medical school at Edinburgh, and President of the General Medical Council, and was pronounced by Lord Lister, in nominating him, the foremost human anatomist in the British Islands, and also a great anthropologist.
A gold medal is offered by the Society of Agricultural Industry and Commerce of Milan to the inventor of the best apparatus or the person who will make known the best method for protecting working electricians against the accidents of their profession. The competition is open to all nations.
The statue of Lavoisier, called by the French "the founder of chemistry," is to be erected, during the Universal Exposition in Paris, on the square of the Madeleine, at the intersection of the Rue Tronchet. The work is in charge of the sculptor Barrias. The sum of ninety-eight thousand francs, or nineteen thousand six hundred dollars, has been subscribed to pay for it.