THE WISCONSIN FARM ER.



mind we could have no intercourse with them.
Animals can be trained, and this pitoves the
existence of reason; a connection seen between
cause and effea  The means of training ani-
mals are the same as those employed for train-
ing chilren; certain sounds are used as signals.
This supposes a perfect logical process, tracing
the sequence of effect from its cause"

  FLAX COTTON.-We are very glad to see that
the Senate. in its appropriations for the Agri-
cultural Department, provided $20,00)0 for ex-
perimcnts in preparing hemp and flax as a
Substitute for cotton. Invention has already
reached a point where it seems to be on the
very verge of complete snucess in the manu-
facture of flax on cotton machinery. Our most
skillful manutacturers and machinists, in this
part of the country, are very sanguine it. their
belief that the results will he accomplished, and
those who have given most attention to the
subject are the men who are most sanguine.
But the requisite investigations and experi-
ments need to be conducted on a scale which
requires considerable outlay.  If the problem
shall be solved, and the vast quantities of ma-
terials that are now absolutely thrown away
shall be used upon the spindles that are now
spinning cotton that costs a dollar a pound,
what a blessing it will be to the West, to the
East, to the whole world!
                      .
  EFFECT OF SHOT ON VESsEI.s.-A shot does
not make a hole of its own size right through
the wood, but indents it, the fibres springing
back after the shock. Generally the course ol
the shot can only be traced with a wire, some-
times by a hole as large us a man's finger.
The damage most often happens on the inside
of a vessel, in splintering and breaking thi
wood, after the main force of the shot is spent
Forts Hamilton and Richmond, which are aboui
a mile apart, with a vessel lying between then
could not with their guns send a shot through
two feet of its timbers.  There is rarely at
instance where a ship was sunk by a solid shot
Hot shot and shell do the mischief. The lattei
will sometimes make apertures of several fee
through the sides of vessels.

   AN IMPROVEMENT IN TELGCuAPuY.-The Vis
 count de Vougy, director general of the elec
 tric telegraph throughout France, has invite4
 several scientific members of the National In
 stitute and some of the chief clerks in the tel
 egraph department to assist at experiment
 about to be made with the typo-telegraph in
 vented by the Chevalier Bonnelli. The typo
 telegraph of this scientific engineer can prin
 600 despatches of 25 words within an hour.-
 According to the system of Morse now in use
 it would require not les than twenty wire
 and 60 clerks to accomplish a similar work
 Should the experiments prove satisfactory. i
 is said that the Government will concede to th



Chevalier Bounell the working of the line from
,aris to Lyons and Marseilles.

A LAzGE PsARL.-In the - Loan Collection"
,scently exhibited at South Kensington, Lou-
ion, wry a pearl which is believed to be the
arge^est now known. Its weight is three oun-
ees; it is two inches in length, and four and a
half in circumference; its sides are nearly
straight, somewhat widening toward the lower
     rnrt. ~ ~

 THE CaInE Or Muaiosz.-There are four
nurders committed in England for every mil-
lion inhabitants; 17 in Belgium; 20 in Sardin-
a; 81 in France; 36 in Austria; 68 in Bava-
rs; 45 in Lombardy; 100 in Rome: 90 in
Sicily; 200 in Naples. Murder is almost un-
known in the valleys of the Vaudois.



EDUCATIONAL.



       Prun the Journal of ZuacstioD.
Letters to the Governor on our Educational
                Wants.
         SCIENTIFIC SCHOOLS.



  * * * Not only are civilized and barbar-
ous states of society distinguished from each
other by the presence of science in the former,
and its absence in the latter, but the extent
and influence of civilization may be measured
by the degree to which science takes the place
of mere empirical traditional knowledge, and
that scientific processes underlie merely man-
ual skill. And in nothing is the advancement
of modern civilization more unequivocally in-
dicated than in the multiplication of institu-
tions for the promotion of applied science.-
These institutions are partly a natural out-
growth of the general progress of science;
partly a result of the pressure, so to speak, of
human wants-a pressure arising from the very
fact of the increase of population in given dis-
tricts; and partly a necessity of the restless
and inquiring spirit of the human mind, in
those countries and states of society where the
work of progress and improvement has once
fairly commenced.
  In the Old World special Scientific Schools
of various kinds have become so common as
to form a settled and prominent part of educa-
tional and industrial effort. France is espe-
cially distinguished for the number and variety



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