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 preëminently of the Australioid type, which is now brown-skinned and wavy haired, with long narrow heads.
Messrs. Gladstone & Tribe have been investigating the results of the decomposition of alcohol by aluminium. When absolute alcohol, in which iodine has been dissolved, is poured upon finely divided aluminium in a flask, energetic action takes place and large quantities of hydrogen are evolved. A pasty mass remains, and this heated to 100 deg. C., gives off alcohol, and leaves a solid residue, which liquefies at 275 deg. C., alcohol and an oily body containing iodine passing over. At a higher temperature, this product was again decomposed, with formation of alcohol, ethylene, and alumina. But the most interesting results were obtained under diminished pressure. Then a greenish white solid sublimed, and this was found to be aluminic ethylate. This is therefore the second known organometallic body, containing oxygen, which is capable of distillation, cacodylic oxide being the other.
Prof. Huxley's ingenious if somewhat shallow evasion of the Biblical account of creation, by crediting it to Milton rather than to Moses, has perhaps aroused many minds to inquire what modern theologians really do think of the first chapters of Genesis. This question is answered by a recent publication[12] by Dr. Cocker of the Michigan State University. In the "Theistic Conception of the World" he treats the first two chapters of the Bible as a poem, which he calls the "symbolical hymn of creation." It has an exordium, six strophes, each with its refrain, and an episode. He does not believe the sacred narrative intends to describe the exact mode of forming the world, nor even to set the successive events in order. It is an ascription, designed to embody in symbolical language the fact that all existence is derived from God. One paragraph will show the broad ground on which this conclusion is based: