Mayer & Walkoff, who have been experimenting on the respiration of plants, find that the action goes on both in light and darkness, and that changes of temperature within normal limits have little effect. There is no direct relation between growth in length and respiration, a conclusion that is in conflict with that of previous experiments. The famous "Blue Grotto" in the island of Capri, Italy, has been investigated spectroscopically. Most of the light enters through the water, which absorbs the red rays entirely and so much of the yellow as to make the D line scarcely visible. The green, blue, and indigo rays are very bright, and the F and _b_ lines unite in a well marked absorption line. The springs of Weissenburg in the Bernese Oberland yield a water which is popularly supposed to have the power of cicatrizing cavities in the lungs, but its analysis shows no reason for such a power. Sulphates of lime and magnesia are its principal solid ingredients, with chloride and a little iodide of lithium and an organic compound having the odor of blackberries. The mountains about Innsbruck in the Tyrol, as well as other parts of the Alps, present the singular phenomenon of a climate more moderate at a considerable elevation than in the valleys. Prof. Kerner finds that there is a warm region midway up the mountain, lying between two colder zones above and below it. We have heretofore referred to a similar phenomenon in Indiana. It is remarked by anthropologists that differences of color are one of the most marked signs of race. The Aryan word for caste is _Varanum_, meaning color, and the Aryans are supposed to have used it to distinguish themselves from the Dasyuf, with whom they came in contact on crossing the Indus, when migrating from Central Asia. The first migrating wave from that centre of human creation can no longer be traced, and only its remnants are found among the most degraded of the hill tribe and slave population in India. Prof. Rollesten thinks that the earliest races of man were preeminently of the Australioid type, which is now brown-skinned and wavy haired, with long narrow heads.