720 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Thomas Rymeu Jones, Professor of Com- 

 parative Anatomy at King's College, Lon- 

 don, has recently died. He was author of 

 a " General Outline of the Animal King- 

 dom," which was forty years ago considered 

 the best book of its kind in England. 



The apparatus invented by Mouchat for 

 utilizing the direct rays of the sun as a 

 source of power has been so improved by 

 M. Pifre, a French engineer, that he claims 

 to be able to make available eighty per 

 cent, of the received heat of the sun. 



The organization of an entomological 

 club has recently been completed in this 

 city by the election of Professor A. R. Grote 

 as President, M. Berthold Xeumoegen as 

 Treasurer, and Mr. Harry Edwards as Sec- 

 retary. Its object is the promotion of ento- 

 mological science, and the formation of a 

 metropolitan collection of entomological ob- 

 jects. The constitution provides for the 

 publication of a journal devoted to the dif- 

 ferent branches of entomology, the first num- 

 ber of which is issued for January of this 

 year. 



Professor Huxley, in a recent paper be- 

 fore the London Zoological Society, said he 

 was not aware of any zoologist who now 

 maintains the independent creation hypothe- 

 sis. 



SiGNOR Serrano Fatigati has made re- 

 searches into the influence of diflferent col- 

 ors on the development and respiration of 

 the infusoriifi, which lead to the following 

 conclusions : L Violet light promotes, green 

 light retards, the development of these low- 

 er existences ; 2. If a number of these or- 

 ganisms are put in distilled water, they will 

 die quicker in a violet light than in a light 

 of any other color; 3. The production of 

 carbonic acid is greater in violet, less in 

 green light, than in any other color ; 4. All 

 of these circumstances indicate that the res- 

 piration of the infusoria? is faster in violet, 

 and slower in green light, than in any other 

 color. 



Dr. Henry Draper having reported to 

 the French Academy of Sciences that he had 

 succeeded in taking distinct photographs of 

 the nebula in Orion, which would be useful 

 in the future to show if any change should 

 take place in that object, M. Janssen has pro- 

 posed that systematic stellar photography be 

 undertaken at as great a number of obser- 

 vatories as possible. He is preparing to be- 

 gin such a work at the observatory at Meu- 

 don, with which he is connected. 



The experimental electric railway pro- 

 posed about a year ago by Siemens has been 

 built between the Anhalter Station, in Ber- 

 lin, and a suburb called Lichtenfeld. It was 

 to be opened to the public about the first of 

 February. 



The Boston Free Library contains three 

 hundred and sixty thousand books, and last 

 year there were taken out eleven hundred 

 and sixty thousand volumes. 



The phylloxera has appeared in the Cri- 

 mea, imported, it is supposed, with vines 

 from France. It has extended very slowly 

 hitherto ; but fears are expressed that it 

 may invade the wild vineyards of the coun- 

 try, when it might destroy all the vines in 

 the valleys of the Rion and Kura Rivers. 



The sinking of the base of the French 

 entrance to the Mont Cenis Tunnel has 

 obliged the railway company to bore a new 

 entrance, which has been begun a little over 

 half a mile to one side of the present open- 

 ing, and will join the old tunnel at a point 

 about two thousand feet from its mouth. 



In Siberia, a country so rich in gigantic 

 fossils, the body of a colossal rhinoceros has 

 been discovered in the Wcrchojanski dis- 

 trict. It was found on the bank of a small 

 tributary to the Jana River, and was laid 

 bare by the action of the water. Similar to 

 the mammoth washed ashore by the Lena 

 River in 1799, it is remarkably well pre- 

 served, the skin being unbroken and covered 

 with long hair. Unfortunately, only the 

 skull of this rare fossil has reached St. Pe- 

 tersburg, and a foot is said to be at Irkutsk, 

 while the remainder was allowed to be washed 

 away by the river soon after it had been dis- 

 covered. The investigation of the skull gave 

 the interesting result that this rhinoceros 

 {R. Mcrckii) is a connecting form between . 

 the species now existing and the so-called 

 Rhinoceros iichorrhinvs, remains of which 

 are not unfrequently found in the gravel 

 strata of eastern Prussia. It is supposed 

 that R. Merckil is the now extinct inhabit- 

 ant of the eastern part of Siberia. Nature. 



Dr. B. a. Gould, Director of the Obser- 

 vatory at Cordoba, in the Argentine Repub- 

 lic, has been elected correspondent of the 

 French Academy of Science, in the place of 

 the late Professor C. A. F. Peters. 



Died in Liverpool, January 3, 1881, Mr. 

 John T. Towson, aged seventy-seven years. 

 Mr. Towson was well known for valuable 

 investigations relative to the subject of 

 navigation, especially the determination of 

 quickest routes to trans-oceanic ports, and 

 the deviation of the compasses on board of 

 iron ships. In 1863 he prepared a manual 

 entitled " Practical Information on the De- 

 viation of the Compass, for the Use of 

 Masters and Mates of Iron Ships," which 

 was subsequently published by the English 

 Board of Trade. 



Professor Huxley has been appointed 

 to the inspectorship of fisheries, a position 

 made vacant by the death of Mr. Frank 

 Buckland. 



