Science.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1836, 12 April 1884, Page 6 (Supplement)

Science.

•M. Victor Saint Paul has placed §5,000 at the disposal of the Paris Academy of Medicine as a prize to any person, whatever may be his Tocation or nationality, who shall succeed in discovering an infallible moans of curing diphtheria. Professor E. Fazio has been making notes in Ischia as to the impressions made upon the victims before and after the disaster. He has ascertained that in general those who were excavated alive were stupefied, their organic functions paraly/cd, their sight weakened or altogether suspended for some time ; most felt extreme thirst while under the masonry, and all asserted that they had never lost the hope of being saved. The counting of the rings added bj exogenous trees every year to their circumferences, can only, without risk of great error, bo applied to trees eat down m their prime, and hence is useless for the older trees which are hollow and decayed. Trees, moreover, often develop themselves so unequally from their center that, as in the case of a specimen m the museum at Kow, thero may be about two hundred and fifty rinf{3 on one side to fifty on the other. Explorations recently begun and still in active prosecution indicate that the little frequented district of llolderuess, in Yorkshire, England, may yet become celebrated for its exhumed large dwellings and their relics. The district was undoubtedly once characterized by uiimeroiu lakes, but the sole water space now remaining 13 Hornsea, Mere, a broad sheet more tli in. a mile in length. Relics of Like dwellings have hitherto been sought without marked success in England, and the present discoveries are regarded with great interest by archocologists. The Granton Quarry, on the east coast of Scotland, admits the tide, so that at high water the iulet has a surface area of about ten acres, and a depth of sixty feet in some parts. The mouth of this inlet is to be so closed that fishes and other marine animals may be unable to pass through it, while the circulation of the sea water will remain unobstructed. The iucloiiire will form a natural aquarium, which is to be stocked with marine life of all kinds. A laboratory for students is to be placed on a barge anchored in the quarry, additional quarters being provided in a cottage on shore. This curious scientific aquarium is being established under the auspices of the Scottish Meteorological Society. J. Loiter, of Vienna, has constructed a singular modification of the microsoope, to which the name of gastroscope has been given. Its use is for exploring the interior of the human stomach. It consists of a metal tube 65 'c. in. long, and 1-i m. m. thick, bent at an angle of 150 degrees at about one-fourth of its length from the lower end. At the lovcv extremity is contained an incandescent electric Limp for illumination of the interior of the stomach, and an objecth c, at the back of which is a prism to reflect the pencil along the length of the tube ■ at the bend it is again reflected by another prism to the eye-piece. Pro-vision is made for a circulation of cold water to prevent the lower end of the tube becoming inconveniently hot.