the land of Cush, did the cat come to the front. We may therefore regard the cat as a Cushite animal, derived from the Felis maniculata, which was found wild in upper Nubia and the Soodan. The Egyptians carried their reverence for cats to what seems to us a ridiculous excess. If any of them voluntarily slew one of the sacred animals, he was punished with death; and Diodorus relates that a Roman soldier who had killed a cat could hardly escape the fury of the people. When a cat died in a house, the people shaved their eyebrows; and dead cats were embalmed and buried in the city of Bubastis, which was sacred to Pasht. According to M. Lenormant, the Egyptians still respect cats, and in Cairo serve up a copious banquet every day to the cats of each quarter, "in the court of the house of the cadi." The late introduction of domesticated cats among Semitic peoples seems to be proved by the absence of mention of them in the Bible. The Assyrians and Babylonians are said to have been equally ignorant of the animal. A lively discussion between Mr. A. S. Murray and Professor Mahaffy a few years ago, as to whether the Greeks had cats, seems to have resulted in an understanding that they had not. Their cat was a polecat or something else, and the Byzantine writers of later days seem to have been the first who gave its name to the modern cat. No Greek or Roman pictures or representations of the mau or "mew-cat" of the Egyptians are known, except one that M. Longpérier has found on a Tarentine coin struck shortly before the wars of Pyrrhus, and one on a lost postChristian tombstone. The Indo-Aryans of the Vedic age seem to have lived and died ignorant of cats. The Sanskrit names of the animal mean "the animal of the house," "the house-wolf," "the rat-eater," enemy of mice." M. Pictet thinks that none of the European names for the cat belong to the old Aryan tongue. The Roman name, catus, signifies sly, cunning, crafty, but is traced by him back to the Syriac gato and the Arabic gitt, and thence back to African words of which the Nubian kadiska is an example. This gives more evidence, such as it is, of the African origin of the animal. Some of the names, such as the Persian puschak and its variants, appear related to

"the

our puss, and are connected by M. Pictet with the Sanskrit putchha, tail—the creature with the waving tail. Our cat is supposed to be derived from the wild-cat-an animal which gave the name to the clan Chattan, and a title to the Duchess of Sutherland, which is said to mean "the Great Lady of the Cat." Finally, the "Saturday Review," from which we derive this gossip, expresses its admiration at the sagacity with which the cat passes a double life-" a sleek domestic favorite all day, a wild animal of unbridled impulse in the darkness of night."

Bedouin Weddings.-Dr. Siegfried Langer pleasantly describes in "Das Ausland" the marriage customs of the Bedouins of Es Salt, Palestine. First, as is the usage among all Semitic peoples, the bride is bought. The purchase-money is paid, half to her parents in compensation for bringing her up and supporting her, whence it is called milk-money; the other half in the form of dresses and ornaments for the bride, or of a provision for a settlement in case of divorce: and all must be paid in cash. As the time of the marriage approaches, the groom's associates collect around his house some evening and perform a wild symbolical dance with a great noise. The bride's friends, in the mean while are making her dress, which, when it is done, is paraded at the head of a procession singing praises of the beauty and accomplishments of the bride and the manly virtues of the groom. On the wedding-day the bride, if she lives in another town, is brought to her future home unveiled and on horseback, with an escort of a dozen armed men. She finds the friends of the bridegroom awaiting her, and they engage in a contest to gain the right by seizing to become her host for dinThese contests sometimes become real fights. If, however, the bride lives in the same town with the groom, her friends serve her at the bath, and the putting on of her wedding-clothes, after which she takes her seat of honor to wait for the groom. He, in the mean time, has ridden to the nearest well for a bath, followed to the gate of the town by a procession of women bearing a figure adorned with pieces of the bride's outfit. Having performed his ablutions, he rides back, and on the way strikes with his riding

ner.

whip the bridal doll, which is held up for the purpose. That is his part of the marriage ceremony. He then goes to his house, and the bride is brought up on horseback, thickly veiled, with much shouting. As she steps upon the threshold, she must cut in two with her whip an olive-branch which is put over the door; if she does not succeed, it is a bad sign. As she enters the room, a number of young fellows armed with switches rush upon the couple and try to give them a good thrashing. Then they all prepare for the feast. Abundant supplies of provisions are sent down to the madari, or Arab inn. The poor and travelers are admitted; and the bridegroom takes the seat of honor amid the congratulations of the crowd. After the feast the couple take a seat together and spend the whole evening and sometimes the next day silently receiving the presents and greetings of their acquaintances. On the third day they are permitted to begin their regular married life.

Microscopy as a Science. The proper scientific position of microscopy is well set forth by Mr. Albert H. Tuttle in his address as Vice-President of the Section of Histology and Microscopy of the Montreal meeting of the American Association. The claim of microscopy to scientific consideration does not rest on anything in the perfection of its instruments and accessories or the delicacy of its manipulations, for they are mere technics, and, however important in their scientific bearing, are not science; nor on the fact that it is engaged with objects too small to be seen without the aid of the instrument, for many of those objects have their proper place in well-defined fields of science; but on the fact that there is a department, investigations in which must be carried on wholly by the aid of the microscope. This department is that of the study of cell-life, in all its bearings, in plant and animal alike. It embraces all matters relating to the pro

Two Vital Phenomena explained.— Speaking of the paucity of births and the decrease of marriages shown in the French census returns for 1881, M. Levasseur remarked in the French Association that they ought not to occasion too much alarm, for they might be only temporary. Men married at thirty or thirty-five, and the men who were now of that age belonged to the class who served in the defense of the country in 1870 and 1871, which was decimated. If the decrease should be continuous for three or four years, it would be grave, and a new fact. Poverty had nothing to do with the decrease of births, for that was conspicuous in the richest departments, as in Normandy. M. Passy said that the same was the case in Switzerland. When a canton reached a dertain degree of wealth, the births were fewer. A kind of indolence, mingled with a care for the future, set in, and the desire began to prevail to secure an easy position with a small expenditure, and without running any risks.

NOTES.

DR. C. C. ABBOTT reports as among many interesting "finds" which he discov ered in the Trenton gravels, after the heavy rains of last September, a wisdom-tooth of a man, which lay in the undisturbed gravel within a dozen feet of the spot where a mastodon's tusk, described in Professor Cook's "Geology of New Jersey," was found some years ago, buried almost as deeply as the tusk, and in a similar situation and among similar surroundings. This, he believes, proves the contemporaneity of man and the mastodon. He also describes some argillite spear-heads found in the gravels, more finished than the paleolithic, ruder than the polished implements, which he is disposed to class as the handiwork of the direct, post-glacial descendants of palæolithic man.

DR. TH. FUCHS, of Vienna, has undertaken to show that the distribution of life at the different depths of the sea is influenced more by the differences in the quan

ture. He reasons that all the known facts of the distribution of sea-life are consistent with his view, and that some of the facts favor it more than the other one. Thus, if temperature is the controlling influence, the shore-animals of northern regions should seek the deep sea when they find themselves in warmer climates, but they are still found

near the shore. Genera which live in Arctic seas at a temperature below the freezingpoint, find themselves at home in British seas at a temperature several degrees higher, and continue to be found in still warmer seas, till near the Island of Zebu, where they occur at 70° of temperature. Dr. Fuchs does not deny that heat has an influence in controlling the distribution, but he contends that it is very much less than that of light.

THE death of William Spottiswoode, President of the Royal Society, was announced by cable from London, June 27th. Dr. Spottiswoode was born in 1825, and was graduated at Oxford in 1845, as first | class in mathematics. By inheritance he became Queen's printer, and managed that business through his life, but at the same time continued his studies, and became famous in mathematics, languages, and philosophy, and was active in educational matters. He contributed much that is of value to scientific journals. He was President of the Dublin Meeting of the British Association in 1878, and in that capacity delivered an address of remarkable qualities. A portrait of him and a short sketch were given in the "Monthly" for November, 1878.

MR. F. W. PUTNAM has described, in a paper before the American Antiquarian Society, a number of interesting copper implements from Mexico. These articles are now rare, because most of them have been sent to the melting-pot. The implements described by Mr. Putnam include a shapely axe from San Luis Potosi; axes from Tlacolula, Oaxaca ; "hoes," with semi-lunar blades, from Teotitlan del Valle and Oaxaca; and scrapers of a little different shape, which are now in Dr. Valentini's collection and in the Peabody Museum. The exact character of many of these implements is not yet determined.

ANOTHER French expedition has started, in the steamer Talisman, to explore the depths of the Atlantic. It will begin with the coast of Morocco and the vicinity of the Canary Islands, and will go thence to the Cape Verd Islands, the red-coral fisheries of San Jago, and the desert islands of Branco and Raza, which are frequented by saurians that are found nowhere else, and will pay particular attention to the Sargasso Sea and its fauna.

DR. H. LEFFMANN has observed, in bottoms of some of the silicious geyser-waters of the Yellowstone National Park, deposits of gelatinous matter, which an analysis has proved to be nearly pure silica. It is structureless, but becomes a white opaque mass when heated and dried. Confined for some weeks with strong sulphuric acid, it shrank to about one tenth its former volume.

THE REV. J. L. Zabriskie, of Nyack, New York, records the discovery, from observations of pods which he was keeping in his room, that the Wistaria-pod has the faculty of exploding with a very audible noise, and throwing its beans with force to a considerable distance. Two of the pods in his room thus exploded in succession. One of the beans was thrown to a distance of sixteen feet, and rebounded four feet. If it had been ejected with the same force from the position in which it grew on its native vine, it would have flown for a distance of at least

thirty feet.

PROFESSOR W. P. BLAKE has found native lead and minium occurring in galena, near Bellevue, Idaho. The native lead is in small, rounded masses or grains of an eighth or a quarter of an inch in diameter, and sometimes in reniform bunches weighing an ounce or more. The minium is generally found incrusting it.

of the waves in storms at sea is now genTHE efficiency of oil to temper the rage erally recognized, and it is becoming the practice for vessels to take oil with them to be used in this way in cases of extremity. The ship Glamorganshire was recently saved in a tempest by the timely use of oil; while a powerful steamer, the Navarre, neglecting it, was swept by the waves and went down in the North Sea, on the 6th of March, with those on board. The oil operates by preventing the waves around the vessel from breaking, and converting them into a heavy swell. "Chambers's Journal" remarks that "ships that leave port unfurnished with oil, in case of emergency, are defrauded of one of their chief elements of safety."

M. RICHET, Professor of Clinical Surgery at Paris, has been chosen to the seat in the French Academy of Sciences made vacant by the death of M. Sedillot.

THE greenhouses of the Dutch gardeners have been recently infested by a myriapod, heretofore unknown, called the Fontaria gracilis, which has the singular faculty of emitting a strong odor of prussic acid when attacked. A chemist of the country, M. Guldensteeden-Egeling, has ascertained that the animal really fabricates and secretes hydrocyanic acid. This substance has hitherto been regarded as exclusively of vegetable origin.

M. MARGIS, of Paris, has succeeded in obtaining oxygen directly from the atmosphere by dialysis. By forcing air through a series of membranous bags prepared by immersing taffeta in ether, sulphide of carbon, or alcohol, and covering with a fine layer of caoutchouc, he has secured an increase of the percentage of oxygen in respect to nitrogen till the fourth bag gives ninety-five per cent of pure oxygen.