in Canada to the more careful discharge of their duties.

One of the periodical conflagrations to which the wooden-built city of Quebec is liable occurred June 8th, destroying a great part of the suburb of St. John. Nearly 700 buildings were destroyed, among them the fine church of St. John. The pecuniary damage amounted to nearly $2,000,000. The burned houses were the homes of some 9,000 people.

The Ontario Parliament closed its session March 4th. Several railway projects were chartered and subsidies granted, the chief of the railway bills being the one providing for the Sault Ste. Marie line. The principal act of general legislation was an act consolidating the superior courts of law and equity, and establishing a uniform system of pleading and practice. Important amendments were made in the license, municipal, and education laws. An act was passed to secure better protection of employés and the public against railroad accidents, and one to prevent the deterioration of rivers and streams through negligence in lumbering operations. The Liberal majority in the Assembly continued unbroken. The railway subsidies granted, it is expected, will speedily return to the Treasury in the form of increased revenue from crown lands and timber, resulting from the opening up of the country north of the Georgian Bay by the Sault Railway. A feeling was evinced against the subsidizing of further routes by the province, unless they promise advantages of the same exceptional character. Resolutions were passed in condemnation of the Dominion Government for its tardiness in adjusting the northern and western boundaries of the province, in accordance with the award which was made in 1878. An act was passed to give increased efficiency to mutual insurance companies of the province. The act to preserve the public interest in streams was disallowed on a petition to the Governor-General in Council, the reasons given being that it contravened a decision of a court of competent jurisdiction by affirming a public right where the court denied that there was one, that it took away proprietary rights without providing for compensation to the owner, and that it was retroactive in its operation. The Governor-General in Council is empowered, under the British North America act, to disallow provincial laws, not only because they are ultra vires, but if they are deemed an abuse of the legislative power within the sphere of provincial legislation. The disallowed act provided that all persons might use slides, dams, gates, booms, and works of excavation for floating timber, upon the payment of a reasonable toll to the owners of the improvements.

The Judicature Act was drawn up on the model of the act for the same purpose passed seven years before by the British Parliament. The Courts of Chancery and Common Pleas and the Queen's Bench were consolidated into a High Court of Justice. The distinction be

tween the rules of law and equity is abolished, and where they differ the rules of equity are to guide the court. Proceedings in chancery by a bill or information give place to the commonlaw writ. Technical pleading is done away with, and a plain statement in ordinary language is sufficient.

The total expenditures of Ontario in 1880 amounted to $2,243,663, of which $173,732 went for the expenses of the civil government, $111,585 for legislative expenses, $265,070 for the administration of justice, $505,104 for education, $505,598 for the maintenance of public institutions, $141,361 for public works, $52,982 for immigration, $107,282 for agriculture, arts, and literary institutions, $72,832 for hospitals and charities, $91,293 for miscellaneous expenses, $26,375 for public works, $96,839 for colonization roads, $59,046 for crown lands, and $34,558 refunded. The revenue for 1880 was $2,451,935. It was made up principally by a subsidy of $1,116,872; a specific grant of $80,000; interest on special funds, $136,696; crown-lands revenue, $616,311; revenue from public institutions, $63,982; from education, $44,284; interest on investments, $101,812; licenses, $91,207; law-stamps, $66,984. The assets of the province, consisting of investments, trust-funds held by the Dominion, deposits in bank, etc., amounted to $5,040,487, the liabilities to $820,398, leaving a surplus over and above all indebtedness of $4,220,088. The estimated expenditures for 1881 were $2,034,823 for current expenses, $228,691 for public works charged to capital account, and $45,677 for other purposes; together, $2,309,191. The estimate of receipts was $2,400,169.

An inquiry as to the aggregate indebtedness of municipalities in Ontario shows that it is altogether about $22,000,000. The principal objects for which the loans were raised were railway aid, which took about $8,400,000 of the proceeds of the loans; water-works and protection against fire, on which over $4,750,000 were expended; drainage and sewerage, $2,000,000: roads and bridges, $1,800,000; school-buildings, about $1,500,000; public buildings, $1,000,000; aid to manufacturers, $200,000. The municipal taxes for the year 1879 aggregated $7,872,461, being at a rate somewhat less than one cent on the dollar, the assessed valuation of the province amounting to $787,000,000 on a basis which would make the actual value of all property about $1,200,000,000. The municipal expenditures of the province aggregated in 1879 $11,137,747, of which $2,630,958 went for schools, $1,189,143 for roads, bridges, and sidewalks, and $651,967 for the administration of justice. Municipal administration cost $993,361.

The Province of Quebec is embarrassed by a debt of about $17,000,000, the interest and sinking fund for which absorb about $1,000,000 of the provincial revenues each year. No less than $12,000,000 represent the cost of the

North Shore Railway, which under government management yields but $70,000 a year. It is proposed to sell the road to the Canada Pacific syndicate, who, it is estimated, could earn from it as a branch of the Pacific Railway as much as $500,000 a year, and would be willing to pay for the property $8,000,000.

A special session of the Manitoba Legislature, called to take action on the boundary extension as soon as the Dominion Parliament should pass a law on the subject, opened March 3d. Manitoba, when it was created a province of the Dominion, was allowed the sum of $551,447 as an offset to the debts of the other provinces assumed by the Dominion. The expensive system of government set up brought the "Prairie Province" into financial straits. The government was subsequently simplified by the abolition of the Upper Legislative Chamber and the reduction of the number of salaried ministers. Nevertheless, the capital in the hands of the Dominion Government, which allowed five per cent per annum interest, has been consumed to meet current expenses, until there only remains of it the sum of $243,060. There were withdrawn from the fund in this way $158,486 between 1872 and 1875, and in 1880 the additional sum of $100,000 was taken to supply a deficit. The annual subsidies from the Dominion Treasury amount to about $100,000, being made up of the annual interest on the remainder of the indemnity fund, $12,153, a specific grant of $30,000, and 80 cents per head of the population. The revenue collected by the province from taxation does not exceed $15,000. The total amount available for the current provincial expenses is therefore only about $115,000 a year. The expenses amounted in 1880 to $181,329, and in 1881 were expected to be as great, or somewhat greater, on account of the extension of territory.

The agricultural capabilities of British Columbia are of an inferior order, but its mineral resources are probably very rich, and its timber undoubtedly of great value. Professor G. Dawson, of the Geological Survey, states that 110,000,000 acres, two thirds of the total area of the province, including Vancouver and Charlotte Islands, are covered with timber. The most valuable wood is the Douglas fir or Oregon pine. This esteemed commercial tree is found throughout Vancouver Island, adjacent to the 49th parallel of latitude, from the coast to and along the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains; near and about Fort George; northeastward as far as McLeod's Lake, at Jacla Lake, at Babine Lake, and in many other localities. This tree frequently exceeds 8 feet in diameter above the ground, and grows to a height of from 200 to 300 feet, forming great and dark forests. Masts for export are hewed octagonally from 20 to 32 inches diameter, and 60 to 120 feet long. Yards are hewed of 12 to 24 inches diameter, and 50 to 102 feet long.

The Western hemlock, which grows much larger than the hemlock of the Eastern prov

inces, is also found everywhere throughout the region of abundant rain-fall, being particularly fine and large in the Charlotte Islands. The other most important tree of the province is the red cedar, which grows there to a prodigious size. From Puget Sound about 150,000,000 feet of timber a year are shipped to California, 25,000,000 feet are sent to foreign countries, and 25,000,000 feet used at home.

In presenting the budget to the Columbia Legislature, Mr. Beaver complained that the Dominion would not assist the province by legislation to collect from the Chinese some contribution to the taxes. The Indians and the Chinese escape taxation altogether, and pay nothing for the support of the provincial government, but contribute to the expenses of the Dominion Government the duties on the imported and excise articles which they con

sume.

The revenue of Newfoundland for 1880 was $928,565, a decrease of over $60,000 as compared with 1879. This decrease was owing to smaller importations of molasses, sugar, spirits, wines, and tobacco. There is a floating debt of $77,825. The estimated requirements for 1881 were $989,860. The total expenditures were $1,105,490. The consolidated and debenture debt of the province on January 1, 1881, amounted to $1,450,990; but in the early part of the year $100,000 of this was discharged. The ship-building of 1880 was 132 vessels, of 4,998 tons; the total shipping owned in the colony is 1,830 vessels, of 86,561 tons. imports for the year 1880 were $6,966,243 in value, or $38.33 per capita; the exports, $6,784,883, or $37.33 per capita.

The

DUFAURE, JULES ARMAND STANISLAS, French ex-Minister, died at Paris, June 27th, aged eighty-three years. Dufaure was the last survivor of the illustrious group of statesmen who came to the front in the reign of Louis Philippe. Free from vanity and ambitious intrigue, he was one of the most trusted and esteemed of French politicians, and in every political crisis for the last forty years he exercised a quiet influence not inferior to that of the more conspicuous actors. Less of a theorist than the other statesmen of his school, which formed its ideas on the model of English constitutionalism, he understood better the capabilities and tendencies of France, and he did more than the others by his efforts as a practical politician and by his own example to implant constitutional principles in France, and to lay the foundations for the secure establishment of the republic. Dufaure was born December 4, 1798, at Saujon, in the department of the Charente-Inférieure. He immediately took a high position at the bar upon completing his legal studies at Paris. He entered political life in the early part of the reign of Louis Philippe, being elected deputy in 1834 for Nantes, which city returned him regularly, except during the empire, from which he held aloof, until 1878. He was appointed a mem

ber of the Council of State in 1836, but resigned in the following year and became one of the most active of the Opposition members. In May, 1839, he entered the Passy-Villemain Cabinet as Minister of Public Works. The Thiers Cabinet succeeded, the following year, which was followed by that of Guizot, in which Dufaure refused a place, and joined the Opposition, although most of his colleagues remained in office. He opposed the fortification of Paris and the compact with England regarding the right of search, over which was raised a cry against "perfidious Albion." He spoke in favor of the expropriation law, and in 1842 advocated the railway law. He became the leader of the famous "third party," which many of the chief liberals joined. After the Revolution of February Dufaure declared himself in favor of the republic, and took part in the Constituent Assembly as one of the leaders of the Moderate Democracy. Cavaignac called him to his Cabinet, October 13, 1848, as Minister of the Interior, and he had the direction of the official preparations for the election of a president of the republic. He favored the candidature of Cavaignac as being "a man and not an empty name." On December 20th he resigned from the ministry and resumed his seat in the Constituent and in the Legislative Assembly. On June 2, 1849, Louis Napoleon offered him the portfolio of the Interior again, which he accepted from patriotic motives, without ceasing to denounce the National Guards and the political meetings. He was dismissed October 31st, and took his stand as one of the most vigorous opponents of the personal politics of Louis Napoleon, of the revision of the Constitution, and of illegal re-election of the President. After the coup d'état he resumed practice at the Paris bar. After the German War and the fall of the second empire he was again elected a deputy from the department of Charente-Inférieure, and was chosen Minister of Justice under Thiers, and then became Vice-President of the Council. On May 19, 1873, he resigned office, and took a stand as leader of the Left Center against prolonging the extraordinary powers intrusted to MacMahon, and in favor of the adoption as a whole of the constitutional laws. He entered the Buffet Cabinet as Minister of Justice, and through this impolitic step lost his election as candidate for the Senate in January, 1876. He was then elected a deputy, and on March 9th was chosen President of the Council. tered the Senate after the death of Casimir Perier. Dufaure by his shrewd and determined course contributed materially to the fall of MacMahon and the election of Grévy to the presidency. Dufaure was a minister in seven different cabinets and under five different rulers. He never enjoyed any great measure of popularity. He was too often in the Opposition and too rigid in his principles to win

He en

popular admiration. He never courted it, nor planned combinations to secure his own advancement, nor connived in any of the acts of illegality or usurpation which have marked the course of French history in the nineteenth century. He was the obstinate defender of the principle of legality at every juncture, but refused his services to no government so long as it kept within the strict limits of what he considered constitutional action. Always following patriotic aims with single-minded purpose, he was a shrewd and crafty political tactician. As an orator, in the tribune or at the bar, he was remarkably clear and forcible in his statements, and was counted one of the most effective speakers, although his delivery was not attractive, and his speeches were devoid of wit or passion, but did not lack biting sarcasms on occasion. As a minister in the various departments which he filled he displayed the highest order of practical ability and judgment. The French railway system was developed according to his plans. Throughout his public life, even to the day of his death in extreme old age, Dufaure's counsels had more weight in critical junctures of public affairs than those of almost any of his contemporaries, and more than one grave national disaster was averted through his wisdom.

DYNAMITE MANUFACTURE. The French Academy of Sciences has recently awarded a prize of twenty-five hundred francs to Messrs. Boutmy and Foucher for introducing new modes of producing nitro-glycerine in quantity, by means of which the manufacture of dynamite has been rendered much safer than heretofore. The old method, in which fuming nitric acid, or a mixture of that substance and sulphuric acid, was made to act on glycerine, and the mass was suddenly immersed in water, often resulted in the production of enough heat to decompose a part of the nitro-glycerine and occasion a violent explosion in spite of the best refrigerating processes that could be employed. The principle of the new process, for which the prize has been conferred, consists in obviating the greater part of the heat by first engaging the glycerine in a combination with sulphuric acid, which forms a sulpho-glyceric acid, and then destroying this compound slowly, by means of nitric acid. Two liquors are prepared in advance-a sulpho-glyceric and a sulpho-nitric liquor, the latter with equal weights of sulphuric and nitric acids. These disengage a considerable amount of heat; they are allowed to cool, and are then combined in such proportions that the reaction takes place slowÎy. In the old method the nitro-glycerine is separated almost instantaneously, and rises in part to the surface, rendering washing difficult; in the new method it forms in about twenty hours, with a regularity which prevents danger, and goes to the bottom of the vessel, so that it can be washed rapidly.

Mouth.

Pharynx.

EARTH-WORMS. The important part played by earth-worms in the formation of vegetable mold has been made the subject of a special memoir by Charles Darwin. These articulates are distributed all over the world, being found in the loneliest islands of the sea, even in Kerguelen Land. There are but few genera of earth-worms, and they closely resemble each other. Lumbricus is the name of the best-known genus. The species have not been accurately distinguished and numbered; but only a part of them bring up earth in the form of castings, and are engaged in making tillable soil. They appear to be found wherever there is moist earth containing vegetable matter, but seem to abound most where the ground is loose and well charged with humus. Dryness is unfavorable and even fatal to them; but, although they are terrestrial animals, they have been found by M. Perrier to be capable of living for a considerable time under water. During the summer, when the ground is dry, and during the winter, when it is frozen, they penetrate to a considerable depth in the earth and cease to work. They are nocturnal in their habits, and may often be seen at night crawling over the ground, more often moving their heads and bodies around while their tails are still inserted in their burrows. Only sickly worms, such as are afflicted by the parasitic larva of a fly, as a rule travel in the day-time; and those which are seen dead on the ground after heavy rains are supposed to have been Upper part of in- creatures afflicted in some way that have died of weakness rathFIG. 1.-DIAGRAM OF THE er than by drowning. The body of a large

Esophagus.

Calciferous glands.

Esophagus.

Crop.

Gizzard.

testin..

Society," vol. xv, new series, pl. vii).

ALIMENTARY CANAL OF AN EARTH-WORM (Lumbricus), (copied from Ray worm consists of one or Lankester in "Quarterly two hundred almost Journal of Microscopical cylindrical rings or segments, each furnished with minute bristles, and is endowed with a well-developed muscular system. The mouth is provided with a little projection or lip, capable of taking hold of

things, and of sucking. Internally, a strong pharynx, corresponding, according to Perrier, with the protrusile trunk or proboscis of other annelids, and which is pushed forward when the animal eats, is situated behind the mouth. The pharynx leads into the œsophagus, on each side of the lower part of which are three pairs of large glands, which secrete a surprising amount of carbonate of lime. They are unlike anything that is known in any other animal, and their use is largely a matter of speculation. They are probably partly excretions of the excess of lime contained in the leaves which the animal eats, and may otherwise aid digestion by affording a neutralizing agent against the acids of its food. In most of the species the cesophagus is enlarged into a cup in front of the gizzard. The latter organ is lined with a smooth, thick, chitinous membrane, and is surrounded by weak longitudinal but powerful transverse muscles. Grains of sand and small stones, from one twentieth to a little more than one tenth of an inch in diameter, may be found in the gizzard and intestines, and are supposed to serve, like millstones, to triturate the food. The gizzard opens into the intestine, which presents a peculiar remarkable longitudinal involution of the walls, by which an extensive absorbent surface is gained. The circulatory system is well developed. Breathing is performed through the skin, without special respiratory organs. The nervous system is fairly developed, with two almost confluent cerebral ganglia situated near the anterior end.

Worms have no eyes, and are measurably indifferent to light; yet they can distinguish night from day, and are quickly affected by a strong light, and after some time by a moderate light shining continuously upon them. They do not much mind a moderate radiant heat, but are sensitive to cold. They have no sense of hearing, but are extremely sensitive to vibrations in any solid object. Worms in pots, which had paid no attention to the sound of a piano, when placed on the piano instantly drew into their holes when the notes were struck. Their whole body is sensitive to contact, as of a puff of air. Their sense of smell is feeble, but responds fairly well to the odor of the cabbage and onion or whatever they like. They are omnivorous, and swallow enormous quantities of earth, out of which they extract any digestible matter which it may contain; they also consume decayed and fresh leaves and vegetable matter, and raw, roasted, and decayed meat, but like raw fat best.

Mr. Darwin discovered in worms evidences of a degree of intelligence. They line their burrows with leaves as a protection, it is supposed, against the cold of the clammy ground, and plug the entrances to them with leaves

and leaf-stalks. It requires some manipulation to get these leaves in right, but the worms know how to perform it, and can discriminate between the easiest way to draw the leaf in and other ways. When they can not obtain leaves, petioles, sticks, etc., with which to plug up the mouths of their burrows, they often protect them by little heaps of stones; and such heaps of smooth, rounded pebbles may often be seen in gravel-walks. Their strength is shown by their often displacing stones in a well-trodden gravel-walk, a task that sometimes demands considerable effort.

castings may be seen in garden-walks piled up in towers of greater or less height around the burrows. The towers formed by a naturalized East Indian worm, at Nice, France, which are sometimes distributed as thickly as five or six to a square foot, are built to a height of from two and a half to three inches. The tower of a perichaeta in the Botanic Garden of Calcutta, of which Fig. 2 is an exact representation, measured three and a half inches high and 1.35 inch in diameter.

Some of the towers, as the figure shows, exhibit a considerable degree of skill in their construction. The castings are not always ejected on the surface of the ground, but are often lodged in any cavity that may be met in burrowing. The burrows run down, sometimes perpendicularly, generally a little obliquely, to a depth of three, six, and even eight feet, and are usually lined with a thin layer or plaster of fine, dark-colored earth which the animals have voided, in addition to which a lining is made, near the mouths, of leaves, also plastered. Bits of stones and seeds are also sometimes found in the bottom of the burrows, having been taken down apparently with a purpose.

The amount of earth brought up by worms from beneath the surface has been carefully estimated by observing the rate at which stones and other scattered objects on top of the ground are buried. A piece of waste, swampy land, which was inclosed, drained, plowed, harrowed, and thickly covered with burned marl and cinders, and sowed with grass, in 1822, fifteen years afterward presented the appearance, where holes were dug into it, shown by Fig. 3, the scale of which is half that of nature. Beneath a sod an inch and a half thick was a layer of vegetable mold, free from fragments of every kind, two and a half inches thick. Under this was another layer of mold, an inch and a half thick, full of fragments of burned marl, fragments of coalcinders, and a few white-quartz pebbles. Beneath this layer, and at a depth of four and a half inches from the surface, the original black, peaty, sandy soil with a few quartz pebbles was encountered. Six and a half years afterward this field was re-examined, and the fragments were found at from four to five inches below the surface, having been covered in that time with an inch and a half more of mold. The average annual increase of thickness for the whole period was 19 of an inch. This was less than the average increase of thickness in some other fields similarly observed, in which the accumulation amounted to 21 and 22 of an inch annually. Another field, which was known as "the stony field," and in which the stones lay so thick that they clattered as one ran down the slope of the hill, became so covered with mold in thirty years that a horse could gallop over the compact turf from one end of the field to the other, and not strike a stone with his shoes. A flagged path in Mr.