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VEGETATING ANIMALS.-An important line of demarcation between the vegetable and animal world has been removed by recent investigation. Plants assimilate carbonic acid, give off oxygen, and form starch. By experiments on a species of Planaria, a flat worm, described as Convoluta Schultzii, Mr. P. Geddes has demonstrated that that animal disengages oxygen in large quantity, decomposes carbonic acid, and produces starch. This worm abounds in the shallow water on the margin of the sea, and on exposure to sunlight pours forth a stream of bubbles containing, as proved by analysis, from forty-five to fifty-five per cent of oxygen. And, on subjecting a number of Planaria to chemical treatment, a quantity of ordinary vegetable starch was obtained. Pointing out the significance of these facts in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, Mr. Geddes says: As the Drosera and Dionaa [two species of well-known vegetable Flytraps], which have attracted so much attention of late years, have received the striking name of Carnivorous Plants, these Planarians may not unfairly be called Vegetating Animals, for the one case is the precise reciprocal of the other. Not only does the Dionaa imitate the carnivorous animal, and the Convoluta the ordinary green plant, but each tends to lose its own normal character."

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GLOOMY THOUGHTS AND GLOOMY WEATHER. -Dull, depressing, dingy days produce dispiriting reflections and gloomy thoughts, and small wonder when we remember that the mind is not only a motive, but a receptive organ, and that all the impressions it receives from without reach it through the media of senses which are directly dependent on the conditions of light and atmosphere for ther action, and therefore immediately influenced by the surrounding conditions. It is a common-sense inference that if the impressions from without reach the mind through imperfectly-acting organs of sense, and those impressions are in themselves set in a minor æsthetic key of color, sound and general qualities, the mind must be what is called "moody." It is not the habit of even sensible people to make sufficient allowance for this rationale of dullness and subjective weakness. Some persons are more dependent on external circumstances and condi

tions for their energy-or the stimulus thatc onverts potential into kinetic force-than others;

but all feel the influence of the world without, and to this influence the sick and the weak are especially responsive. Hence the varying temperaments of minds changing with the weather, the outlook, and the wind.-Lancet.

THE TELEPHONE AND DISEASES of the Ear. -The introduction of new inventions amongst the practical requirements of civilized life brings

with it its disadvantages, writes Dr. F. M.
Pierce to the British Medical Journal. The
telephone, when further improved, is no doubt
destined to become a most useful agent in daily
intercourse; and I do not wish to create un-
necessary alarm by pointing out a possible
source of inconvenience in its use. The fol-
lowing case which has come under my notice
will exhibit a way in which the ear may be
more or less injured during the use of the tele-
phone. A woman, about thirty-five years of
age, manageress of a small ware manufactory
in Manchester, which was connected with its
office (two miles off) by a telephone, was lis-
tening to a message, when a violent clap of
thunder took place, and which appeared to be
conveyed through the wire. The effect on the
listening ear was that of complete numbness
and deafness, accompanied by a sensation of
giddiness, slight nausea, and tinnitus aurium.
These symptoms, with the exception of the
deafness, passed away in a few minutes. I did
not see the patient for three or four days after
this occurrence, and cannot, of course, speak to
the amount of deafness at first produced; but,
on the fourth day, I examined the left ear (the
listening ear), and found the hearing distance
twenty forty-eighths of an inch. As my pa-
tient had always had perfect hearing with both
ears, and had never experienced any difficulty
in hearing before, I think it very unlikely that
this degree of deafness was due to any previous
affection of the ear. She stated that she had
never had any thing the matter with her hear-
ing until using the telephone during the storm.
I have examined her lately, and found both
ears and hearing distance quite normal; nearly
a fortnight elapsed, however, before perfect
hearing returned. This case was no doubt due
to a concussion of the auditory nerve. In its
present form, the telephone is almost useless
to those who have even a comparatively slight
degree of deafness.

EFFECTS OF STARVATION ON ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE TISSUES.--Dr. Cunningham, of the government sanitary staff in Calcutta, has made a careful investigation on certain effects of starvation on vegetable and animal tissues." One effect in the human subject is the destruction of the intestinal mucous membrane.

Hence the digestion and assimilation of nutri

tive materials supplied in the food must necessarily be impaired or destroyed, according to

the degree of morbid change. Under such circumstances, the food elements, not being submitted to their normal transformations, become mere foreign bodies liable to undergo decomposition, and well adapted to cause irritation. The conclusion to be drawn is one that should be kept in mind by the functionaries appointed to administer relief in time of famine. The

starvation must not be allowed [to go on too long; for, as Dr. Cunningham observes, "the fatal diarrhoea and dysentery first manifested itself in people after their admission into the relief camps. The investigations show the absolute necessity of great caution in regard to dietetic experiments and dietetic systems of punishment. They show that it is not safe to push such procedures in the belief that so long as no evident active evil results present themselves, we can at any time pull up and restore things to their normal state."

THE ORIGIN AND PERIOD OF STORMS.-Prof. Zenger published in the Sitzungsberichte of the Bohemian Academy for 1878 a paper in which he argues for a connection between storms and the period of a semi-rotation of the sun. He has combined these inquiries with investigations into solar photography, and he thinks that he can recognize the approach of disturbed weather by sun pictures, of which he recognizes three types. 1. In very bright calm weather he finds the simple image of the disk with a faint development of light around it, reaching a maximum and a minimum respectively along two diameters at right angles to each other, as in the corona, and extending to twice the diameter of the sun. 2. If the sky is cloudy, but weather calm, one or two rings of 3° or 5° diameter are seen round the sun. These are clearly due to snow in the upper regions of the atmosphere. 3. In time of storms, even two or three days before, he finds absorption rings, circular, parabolic, or special in form. If these observations be confirmed, their value will be very great.

SOLAR PARALLAX DEDUCED FROM OBSERVATIONS OF MARS.-Mr. Gill gives as the result of his observations of Mars, during the opposition of 1877 (it will be remembered that Mr. Gill visited Ascension Island to make these observations) a solar parallax of 8."78 ± 0.015, corresponding with a solar distance of about 93,093,000 miles. This distance is considerably greater than that which Professor Newcomb regards as the most probable mean (about 92,400,000 miles) of all the best observations. It agrees well with the distance resulting from the combination of Struve's constant of aberration with Cornu's determination of the velocity of light; but the constant of aberration can hardly be regarded as determined with a degree of accuracy sufficient to enable us to determine the real distance as accurately as by other methods even if Cornu's determination of the velocity of light be considered trustworthy, within the necessary limits. On the whole, the result of Mr. Gill's observations will probably be regarded by most astronomers as disappointing, simply because it was hoped that it would serve to remove doubts as to the

sun's true distance, instead of increasing them. But whether this is due to error in other estimates, or to the inferiority of the method used by Mr. Gill, is a point on which we should not care to express an opinion.

VARIETIES.

INCIDENT IN THE LIFE OF TURGENIEF.-A new edition of the works of Ivan S. Turgenief has just appeared in Moscow in ten volumes. A preface dated from Paris in August of the present year is prefixed to the third volume. This preface contains some interesting particulars regarding the genesis of Turgenief's principal works. In connection with “Nakanûne," which has been subjected to a good deal of severe handling on the part of Russian critics, the author relates an episode of some interest in his literary life. During the year 1855, Turgenief resided in the district of Mtsensk, government of Orlov. Among his neighbors was a certain Vasili Karateief, a young man of twenty-five years, of a romantic disposition, and very fond of literature and music. Kara

teief's father was subject to attacks of semiinsanity, which recurred at intervals of three years. His sister also, who was a remarkable person, became ultimately insane. The society of this young man was almost the only solace to the author during a period in other respects far from happy. As the war in the Crimea still continued, a detachment of troops was raised in the district, and Karateief was appointed one of the officers. He immediately called on Turgenief, and with an excited air declared that he did not expect to return from Crimea, but that he would die there. Notwithstanding all attempts to soothe him, he persisted in these gloomy forebodings, and suddenly turning to Turgenief said:

"I have a favor to ask of you. You know that I spent some years in Moscow; but you do not know that an incident happened to me there which awakened a desire to relate it, both for my own sake and for others! I made the attempt, but found that I had no literary talent. The upshot was that I wrote this MS., which I hand to you."

So saying, he took from his pocket a MS. of some fifteen pages, and handed it to Turgenief, with the request that he would make such use of it as would secure that it had not been written in vain. Seeing that a refusal was only likely to excite his friend still further, the novelist promised to comply with his request. appeared from this composition that Karateief, while living in Moscow, had become enamored of a young maiden, who reciprocated his affection. Afterward, getting acquainted with a Bulgarian named Katranof, she preferred the

It

latter, and accompanied him to Bulgaria. The story was told with sincerity, but without literary skill. Turgenief, however, was struck with the character of the heroine, Helena, then a fresh type in Russian life, and she gradually shaped herself distinctly in his imagination. Karateief shortly left for the Crimea, whence he never returned. Not until the winter of 1858-59 did the novelist enter on the task committed to him. For this purpose he renewed the impressions of his former acquaintance by a residence in the same locality. The plan of "Nakanúne” gradually took shape in his mind, new types were added, and the work was completed. The novelist, in issuing this collected edition of his works, thinks it due to the memory of his unfortunate young friend to make the above circumstances known to his readers.

COST OF LIVING LESS THAN SEVENTY YEARS AGO. A writer in the Leisure Hour says that there is now a current notion among consumers that every thing is dearer than it used to be, and this is made the excuse for spending at a higher rate and for pleading that an income of £700 or £800 is required to maintain the same scale of living for which £500 formerly sufficed. No idea can be more unfounded. Bread is untaxed, and could be sold at a living profit to a man who earns 6s. a day at half the price formerly paid by his predecessor, who, for more skilled work, was paid 2s. 6d. Better tea is sold at 2s. than at the beginning of the century cost 75. Coffee was 2s. 6d, that is excelled in quality by that at present price of Is. 6d.

Sanded sugar was 10d.; pure sugar is now 4d. Salt, that is now free, paid a duty of 20s. per bushel. The daily newspaper, about a fourth of the present size, and an eighth—if that can be measured-of the current quality, cost 7d., while each advertisement was taxed 2s. 6d. A better hat is now worn at 12s. than was formerly supplied at 25s. Literature, periodical and standard, once so expensive, is now so cheap that it costs less to buy a new copy of a book or pamphlet than to buy the old. The aged can remember when the Waverley Novel cost 31s. 6d., and was hired out to read at Is. per volume for twelve hours. It is now retailed, with all the notes, at 3d. Let "the girl of the period" ask her grandmother what, sixty years ago, straw hats " came to." At a Queen's assembly the best-dressed lady appeared in a cotton print that a hop-picker now would scorn to wear on Sunday. Leather was taxed, and we have the benefit of the remission in boots and shoes, of far better make, at a lower figure. All articles of clothing-even of ornament—are made greatly more accessible to every purse. Soap was taxed, bricks, tiles, slates, timber, glass. Wine is little more than half its former price. In fact, with the excep

tion of beef, mutton, butter, and cheese, the whole cost of living is, cæteris paribus—that is, in reference to the same necessary commodities -very much less in the year 1879 than it was in 1801.-House and Home.

SILK FROM THE SEA.-The sea yields many precious things-coral, amber, and pearls-but it is not generally known that in certain parts of the Mediterranean a species of mussel is found of which the shells contain one of the most beautiful textile materials known. These shells are about 7 inches long and 3 inches broad, and each of them contains a hank or byssus of the fibre, weighing half a drachm, and at first it presents nothing particular to the eye, being soiled with mud and the remains of marine plants. But when washed and combed the fibres are seen to be extremely lustrous, glistening in the sunshine in shades varying from a golden yellow to olive brown. Spun and woven in the ordinary manner, stockings, gloves, neckties, and similar articles can be manufactured from them, and they are likewise specially suited for making the finest lace. At present the production of these fibres hardly exceeds 200 kilogrammes (3 cwt. 3 qrs.) a year. Specimens of these curious mussels and their finished products were exhibited at the recent Paris Exhibition, but they appear to have been overlooked.-Cassell's Magazine.

HENRY JAMES'S NOVELS.-But making all allowance for these admirable pictures, and for many graphic passages describing Rome and Italian scenery, we cannot but say that, on the whole, this is a dismal story. Indeed, Mr. Henry James delights in dismal stories. He thinks, apparently, that it is flying somehow in the face of his own genius to let any story fall out happily. But still, in most of them, though he insists on making you dismal in the end, he contrives to amuse you very much in the interval. But in this book he makes you dismal almost from beginning to end. He makes it so very evident that Roderick is to go to the bad, that Mary Garland will not desert him, and will never return Rowland's love, that Rowland Mailet will not desert Roderick, and that Mrs. Hudson will be a burden on all, that there is hardly a ray of sunshine through the story. Even Christina Light is a dismal beauty. You cannot enjoy her picturesque, grand ways, because you feel that an inward dreariness is at the bottom of them all, and so there is no set-off against the dreariness of the main story. Why is Mr. Henry James, with all his great talents, so deeply persuaded of the pessimism of human destiny? Is it that he thinks it the destiny of all New Englanders, not only "to suffer and be strong," but to suffer the more from making acquaintance with the main stream of civilization, and be all the

stronger for thus suffering the more? Certain ly he has never published any thing of which it has not been the chief idea that evil comes from the Old World, against which the New World fights desperately a losing battle, or at least a battle in which it loses happiness, at the expense of a sort of dismal aureole of moral glory. The Spectator.

THE HEARTLESS ONE.
UPON my darling's beaming eyes
I plied my rhyming trade;
Upon my darling's cherry lips
An epigram I made;

My darling has a blooming cheek,
I penned a song upon it;

And if she had but had a heart,
Her heart had had a sonnet.]
EMANUEL DEUTSCH.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF VENICE.-The first thing that strikes a stranger in Venice is, perhaps, the peculiar silence that lies over the city. It is not the silence of desolation; for the canals are alive with barges and gondolas, stealing along or flashing to and fro with their noisy oarsmen. It is rather a background of silence, against which every sound stands out with as startling distinctness as the plash of a stone in a lonely mountain-locked tarn. The dull, monotonous hum from the traffic of a thousand streets which hangs over most great cities like a deadening cloud, absorbing and blunting each individual sound, is altogether wanting in Venice with her watery highways.

The dipping of an oar, the cries of the boatmen in the far distance, the lapping of the water against the prow of a gondola, such sounds as these, confined as in a funnel between the double lines of lofty buildings, glide along the smooth surface of the canals through the silence of the air, and strike on the air with strange sharpness. Walk out alone along some high-lying open country road some hours after nightfall on a clear frosty night in February, and when you are far removed from town or village, stop, and note how distinctly, in the deep silence, the tinkling of a tiny drain by the roadside, the jolting of a heavy cart-wheel miles distant, or the sound of far-off human voices strikes on your ear, and you can understand the peculiar charm that lies in the silence of Venice. Gliding past long lines of mellow, sun-dyed palaces, each pillared façade half Gothic, half Saracenic, a study in itself, we came at length in sight of the venerable Rialto, at once recognisable to a stranger by its lofty arch and range of marble shops. Here we turned off the Grand Canal, and went winding and twisting through a perfect labyrinth of narrow, dark canals till we reached by a back way the

landing-place of the Hotel Belle Vue, whose front looks down to the Molo along the Piazzetta. The skill shown by the gondolier in navigating these narrow watercourses is astonishing. The gondola is moved through the water by a process intermediate between rowing and sculling. The oar is not placed in a line with the keel, as in sculling with one oar, but rests against a peculiarly carved notched upright, fixed at the side of the gondola, and the gondolier, standing on a small after-deck, rows from the breast outwards, with his face towards thebow, a position he is forced to take since he is at once rower, steersman, and lookout. The most curious part of the processis the stroke itself. Any one who has ever handled an oar knows that the effect of rowing a single oar from a boat's side is to send the head of the boat completely round after a few strokes, but the Venetian gondolier, by sinking his oar with an irregular plunge, and by giving the blade a certain twist in the water, contrives to sion in a straight line; and by nice adaptations shoot his gondola along with unerring preciof the dip and twist of the oar he can rapidly alter the gondola's course. In treading these narrow canals, in fact, the gondolier's oar, at times, seems to act half instinctively, as the wings of a startled bird, when it flits swiftly through the interlaced branches of a thicket without touching a leaf or twig. It is highly

probable, indeed, that long practice does actually make the action of the gondolier's arms

in rowing and steering almost instinctive. To steer clear of an obstruction of a particular nature and position, a certain invariable motion of the oar, and, consequently, a certain invariable action of the rower's arms, is required; and by the constant association of the particular obstruction with the particular action of the arms, it follows, no doubt, that sufficient to cause the appropriate action of eventually the mere sight of the obstruction is the arms without the intervention of the reason or the will.-Irish Monthly.

ON THE HEIGHTS. O'ERARCHING depth of pure transparency, Flooded with summer warmth and noon-day light; I, standing on this crag-uplifted height, Gaze down the wooded vales, the fruitful lea, The rock-bound shores, the softly-murmuring sea,

To find in every thing that greets my sight Some sadden'd memories of past delight; And hence I turn my longing eyes to thee. Say, circling realm of ether limitless!

Hold'st thou the treasures of our baffled love Exhaled from earth into thy vast caress;

Or do thy mingling myriad lights, that move Like living spirits through the unfathom'd space, Foregleam the radiant hosts of Heaven above? Gower, September, 1879.

HERBERT NEW.

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