silk between the teeth every day. Toothpicks may do-harm if abused, by causing irritation of the gum between the teeth, and its consequent absorption; and if the picks are made of wood, splinters are liable to be left behind, which have in many cases caused even the loss of a tooth; but used judiciously they are of great value in routing the attacking forces in caries—namely, accumulations of food and mucous secretions. It has been urged against them that they might dislodge a filling; but if a filling is so insecure it must be faulty, and the sooner it is replaced the better, for decay, due to the impossibility of keeping the surface clean, must be going on underneath it.
A Foot, Stilt, and Horse Race.—A race between three pedestrians, three stilt walkers, and three horses took place from Bordeaux, France, early in May, over a course, returning to Bordeaux, of four hundred and twenty kilometres. At ninety-one kilometres the horses were ahead, one an hour and a half in advance of the third; the stiltmen were behind them, and the pedestrians were far in the rear, with one of them dropped from the course. At one hundred and fifty kilometres a stiltman had got ahead of one of the horses. At one hundred and sixty-six kilometres one of the horses was taken out ill, and the horse which had been passed by a stilt walker had caught up with him. At two hundred and thirty-five kilometres the pedestrians had given up the struggle. At three hundred and five kilometres the rivals were the leading stilt walker and the horse which he had once passed, the other horse beginning to fail. The rivalry between the stilt walker and horse was kept up till the end of the race, when the horse came into Bordeaux twenty-eight minutes ahead. The time was sixty-two hours and twenty-seven minutes.
Marine Silk.—To the various kinds of silks known in trade must now be added, according to the French journal L'Industrie textile, a marine silk, derived from shells, or from the filaments, technically known as the byssus, which are secreted by some mollusks, including the mussels, which fasten themselves to the rocks. These filaments are very strong, as one may easily find out by trying to pull apart a cluster of mussels attached by them to one another. Though very fine, the filaments of the mussel shells are generally too short to be of much use; but they are long enough in some kinds, among which is a pinna very common in the Mediterranean and known to French fishermen as the jambonneau, or little ham, from its peculiar shape and color. These shells are raked up from a depth of between six and nine metres near the coast of Sicily. The threads are slender but extremely tough, and a considerable effort is required to detach them from the rock. The tuft, having been detached from the shell, is washed in soapsuds and dried in the shade. The useless parts are cut away, and the available threads are rubbed in the hands to give them suppleness, and then sorted and separated by combing—an operation in which a waste of about two thirds of the raw material is incurred. Two or three of the threads are spun with a thread of silk, whereby a very strong cord is obtained. The cord is washed in water acidulated with lime juice, rubbed again with the hand, and smoothed with a hot iron, by which it is finally given a beautiful brownish gilt color.
John Wesley an Evolutionist.—It will probably be a novel idea to our Methodist friends to find in John Wesley a precursor of Spencer and Darwin in outlining the doctrine of evolution. This has, nevertheless, been done by William H. Mills, in a paper read before the Chit Chat Club of San Francisco, entitled "John Wesley an Evolutionist." Mr. Mills exhibits as his authority a work entitled Wesley's Philosophy, in two volumes, which was published by the Methodist Book Concern in New York in 1823. In this work, in which Mr. Wesley expressed himself as believing that he was presenting only such matters as had been established by investigation and research, he says: "The same general design comprises all parts of terrestrial creation. A globule of light, a molecule of earth, a grain of salt, a particle of moldiness, a polypus, a shell-fish, a bird, a quadruped, and man, are only different strokes of this design, and represent all possible modifications of the matter of our globe. My expression falls greatly beneath reality; these various productions are not different strokes of the same design; they are
