# Popular Science Monthly/Volume 8/April 1876/Notes

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By a mistake of the printer, the heading to Dr. Jerome Kidder's advertisement in the last number of the Monthly was made to read, "Superior Electro-Chemical Apparatus." It should have read, "Superior Electro-Medical Apparatus," as it now stands.
Last summer the French Assembly voted to M. Pasteur a life-pension of 12,000 francs, in consideration of his public services as a scientific investigator. Another pension of 6,000 francs was lately allowed him by a decree of the Marshal-President.
In conjunction with the U. S. Fisheries Commission the Smithsonian Institution will exhibit at Philadelphia the resources of the United States derivable from the waters, including the objects themselves, the products derived from them, the apparatus by which the objects are captured or utilized, and finally the means by which they are multiplied and maintained in a healthy state. The last section is intended to illustrate the present state of pisciculture in this country.
At the annual meeting of the American Microscopical Society of the City of New York, held on January 25th, Dr. John B. Rich was elected President, and Mr. C. F. Cox, 13 William Street, Secretary for the present year.
The Loan Collection of Scientific Instruments, soon to be placed on exhibition in London, will undoubtedly be the most successful enterprise of the kind ever attempted. Nearly every civilized country will be represented. Not only modern instruments, but also those possessing a more strictly historical interest—such as apparatus once used by Galileo, Tycho Brahe, Lavoisier, Priestley, Boyle, Herschel, etc.—will have a place in this collection.
In some parts of Russia the young shoots of the "cat-tail" (Typha latifolia) are used as asparagus; they are said to be delicious. The plant grows abundantly in the United States in swampy localities.
Captain Allen Young will sail again next May, from England, to renew the search after the remains of Sir John Franklin's expedition. He will first visit the entrance of Smith Sound, with a view to receive intelligence from the Alert and Discovery.
The death is announced of George Poulett Scrope, the geologist, lie was born in 1797, and received his education at Barrow School and Cambridge University. In 1825 he published his first scientific work, "Considerations of Volcanoes." Two years later he published a treatise on "The Geology and Extinct Volcanoes of Central France," a work of signal merit. In 1833 he entered political life as a member of Parliament, and published a number of pamphlets on a variety of governmental topics. His later scientific writings consist of articles contributed to the Journal of the Geological Society and the Geological Magazine.
A signal for the use of the Coast Survey has been erected on the summit of Mount Shasta, California, at an elevation of 14,402 feet. It is described in the Scientific American as being a hollow cylinder of galvanized iron 12 feet high and 2\ feet in diameter, surrounded by a cone of nickel-plated copper, with concave sides, 3 feet high and 3 feet in diameter at the base. The nickel-plated cone is a brilliant reflect or and will reflect the sunlight in such a manner that the reflection can be seen for a distance of 100 miles or over.
One of the grandest engineering projects of the time is the union of the Black and Caspian Seas. The plan is to join by a canal the tributaries of the Manytch and the Kouma, two considerable rivers which drain the northern slope of the Caucasus. If these two seas were united, the naval force of Russia would be practically doubled, for then her Caspian fleet could, in case of necessity, be added to that which holds the Black Sea.
An old lioness in the Dublin Zoölogical Gardens was, during her last illness, much worried by rats, against which she could no longer defend herself. A terrier dog having been placed in the cage to protect the sufferer, the lioness at first received him with a surly growl; but, when she saw him kill the first rat, she began to appreciate her visitor. The lioness coaxed the terrier to her, folded her paws round him, and the dog slept each night on her breast enfolded with her paws, and protecting her rest from disturbance.
It is stated in the Tribune that Prof. S. S. Haldeman recently found in an excavation in the vicinity of Chickies, Pa., a large number of Indian relics. The collection includes one hundred pieces of pottery, sixty stone arrow-heads, and one of copper; a tomahawk, eight stone chisels, several mallets and pipe-stems; also a few of those instruments commonly called "sinkers," but the proper use of which is unknown.