But it is well to remember that in the first nine months of 1876 there was a large deficiency of rain; the quantity as measured at Greenwich Observatory was not more than 13¾ inches, being 4½ inches less than the average extending over a period of sixty-one years. The time of greatest deficiency was from April to August: hence it may be said that there were large arrears to make up; and the means have been supplied by an unusual, and as yet inexplicable, flow of warm water and warm air towards our coasts from the Atlantic.
The floods, though wide-spread and distressing, were not so deep as the floods of 1875. But in this particular there appears to be a want of accurate measures; and a proposition has been made that a combined system of flood-marks for the whole country should be established. With these once in place, each bearing its proper date, there would be no difficulty in comparing the height of successive inundations. Perhaps this and other questions may be left to the Meteorological Office, which in all probability will be much increased in efficiency during the present session of parliament. The Committee appointed to inquire into the working of that useful office have reported in favour of an extension of its usefulness, including the scientific as well as the economical aspects of the question.
According to Dr Gilbert, the amount of ammonia that comes down with rain and 'minor aqueous deposits' varies from six and a half to ten pounds per acre in Western Europe. If the amount is in proportion to the rainfall the coming season should be fruitful. In connection with all this it is worth remark that, so far as the returns are made up, the health of the nation was good in 1876. In the first quarter the death-rate was, omitting decimals, twenty-three per thousand, twenty in the second quarter, and nineteen in the third.
The Natural History Society of Montreal have published further particulars of the plague of locusts which in 1874 afflicted Manitoba and the North-west Territories. In that year the hungry swarms destroyed five million bushels of grain; in other words, they devoured the green plants that would have produced that quantity. This fact alone justifies the hostility with which the creatures are treated wherever they alight, and the endeavours made for their total extinction. According to Mr Dawson, a scientific observer, they consist of but a single species, Caloptenus spretus, having numerous parasitic enemies, besides birds, which devour them greedily. Their breeding-grounds are the vast unpeopled tracts between the one hundred and fourth and one hundred and eleventh meridians, and the forty-ninth to fifty-third parallels. Mr Dawson states that being on the high plains near White Mud River, he saw swarms of locusts on the wing 'at all altitudes, following no determinate direction, but sailing in circles, and crossing each other in flight. The greater number were hovering over the swamps or spots of luxuriant grass, or resting on the prairie. A slight breath of wind would induce them all to take wing, causing a noise like that of the distant sound of surf, or a gentle breeze among pine-trees. They appeared ill at ease, as if anxiously awaiting a favourable wind.' Their migration is not flight, for they have no intrinsic power of directing their course, but like a sailing-vessel, must depend on the wind for propulsion. Their fixed determination to travel in a certain direction, and the wonderful instinct which leads them to wait for a favourable wind, are pointed out by Mr Dawson as worthy of special remark. The favourable wind is of course that which blows towards the settlements and lands under cultivation. There is evidence that the young broods at times migrate from the settlements to the breeding-grounds of their parents: on which Mr Dawson says: 'It would be a fact surpassing in interest the journeys of birds of passage, if it should be found that the locust requires two generations to complete the normal cycle of its migration.' Evidently extirpation to be effectual must be on a great scale. One of the plans proposed is to prevent the burning of the prairies in the autumn, and to set them on fire in the spring, when the young locusts are hatched. Another plan is to suddenly burn a broad belt of country when it is known that swarms are approaching; but this applies only to the unsettled districts. Another is by planting of trees to create a rainfall and infuse damp into the climate: moisture being fatal to locust life. Coniferous trees especially appear to exert a protective effect. One of the districts of Manitoba has never been ravaged by locusts. It is separated by a belt of fir forest, which they have never been known to cross.
From a paper read before the Helvetic Society of Science at Basel we learn that the fever districts of Switzerland are the valley of the Rhone in its middle course between Martigny and Brieg, and some parts of the canton Tessin. Owing to the large extent of marshes in these districts, malaria and intermittent fevers and neuralgia prevail in the summer and autumn. The effect of town-life in promoting consumption is made evident by the fact that in Zurich the deaths from pulmonary phthisis are one hundred and four to the thousand, while in Zug they are not more than seventeen. Tillers of the ground have thus an important advantage over those who work in shops and factories. Consumption disappears with altitude, and dwellers on the mountains or in the upper valleys are free from it; but on the other hand they are very liable to inflammation of the respiratory organs. Deaf and dumb persons, in proportion to the population, are more numerous than in any other country of Europe. And lastly, we gather that 'alcoholism' is on the increase in Switzerland as well as elsewhere.
A communication to the Société de Médecine at Caen makes known that the natives in some parts of Egypt cure hydrophobia by administering a certain insect called Darnah. The insect is a species of Mylabris. To facilitate the swallowing, it is given to the patient inclosed in a ripe date.
A doctor in Paris has invented an apparatus which he calls a spirophore, to be employed for the relief of persons suffering from asphyxia or suffocation. It may be described as a chamber constructed of zinc: in this chamber the patient is placed, but his head remains outside. Air is then drawn from the chamber by a pump; the patient's lungs expand: air is then pumped into the cylinder, and the lungs contract; and this operation is continued at intervals until the patient recovers.
The account of an experiment with ozone may be interesting to non-professional readers: 'A piece of fresh beef was cut into two equal parts, one of which was placed in a stoppered bottle containing ordinary air, and the other in a similar bottle containing ozonised air. In five days the meat in the first bottle was in full putrefaction, while that in the second bottle containing ozonised air, was as fresh as when put in, nor was any change manifested on the tenth day, when the bottle was opened to see if the meat had any offensive odour. Although the stopper was then quickly replaced, putrefaction had commenced on the following day. Milk was kept in ozonised oxygen for eight days without undergoing any change.'
Professor O. Rood of New York states that in certain conditions of the eye, such as are produced by prolonged excitation, nervous derangement, or by effects of fever, the nerves which convey impressions of colour fail to act, and give rise to 'temporary green colour-blindness.' This is a fact which should be borne in mind by persons whose occupation requires them to distinguish colours.
The question of the effect of sun-spots on climate has been often discussed, but so many considerations are involved therein that many years must pass before it will be settled. In a paper published in the Monthly Notices of the Astronomical Society, Professor Langley of Allegheny Observatory, Pennsylvania, after shewing the different points from which the question must be approached, states, as the result of his own investigations, that 'sun-spots do exercise a direct and real influence on terrestrial climates, by decreasing the mean temperature of this planet at their maximum. This decrease is, however, so minute, that it is doubtful whether it has been directly observed or discriminated from other changes. The whole effect is represented by a change in the mean temperature of our globe in eleven years not exceeding three-tenths, and not less than one-twentieth, of one degree of the Centigrade thermometer.'