FRAGMENTS' OF SCIENCE. 



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thusiastic explorer, M. Louis Armand, of 

 Paris. It can only be entered by a " well " 

 two hundred and forty feet deep, and below 

 this lies another of still greater depth. The 

 party was provided with rope ladders for 

 use in such places ; and the intrepid investi- 

 gator who essayed the descent went down, 

 by actual measurement, six hundred feet 

 from the surface. He described the stalac- 

 tites as magnificent. Both from a geologi- 

 cal and an archasological point of view this 

 account was of unusual interest. Dr. Hovey 

 had many beautiful views of the canons and 

 the cave openings in their walls ; while his 

 observations, and those of the Societe de 

 Speleologie, are very curious as to the per- 

 sistence, in this strangely overlooked region, 

 of conditions closely akin to what are usu- 

 ally called " prehistoric " times. 



Molecular Asymmetry and Life. — Speak- 

 ing in his presidential address to the Chem- 

 ical Section of the British Association on 

 Stereochemistry and Vitalism, Prof. A. R. 

 Japp expressed the conclusion that " the 

 production of single asymmetric compounds 

 or their isolation from the mixture of their 

 enantiomorphs [or opposite forms] is, as 

 Pasteur firmly held, the prerogative of life. 

 Only the living organism, with its asymmet- 

 ric tissues, or the asymmetric productions 

 of the living organism, or the living intelli- 

 gence with its conception of asymmetry, can 

 produce this result. Only asymmetry can 

 beget asymmetry. The absolute origin of 

 the compounds of one-sided asymmetry is a 

 mystery as profound as the absolute origin 

 of life itself. The two phenomena are inti- 

 mately connected. ... No fortuitous con- 

 course of atoms, even with all eternity for 

 them to clash and combine in, could compass 

 this feat of the formation of the first optic- 

 ally active organic compound. Coincidence 

 is excluded, and every purely mechanical 

 explanation of the phenomena must neces- 

 sarily fail. I see no escape from the conclu 

 sion that at the moment when life first arose 

 a directive force came into play — a force of 

 precisely the same character as that which 

 enables the intelligent operator, by the exer- 

 cise of his will, to select one crystallized en- 

 antiomorph and reject its asymmetric oppo- 

 site. I would emphasize the fact that the 

 operation of a directive force of this na- 



ture does not involve a violation of the law 

 of the conservation of energy." 



Dr. Russell's Photographic Researches. 



— At the recent meeting of the British Asso- 

 ciation at Bristol, Dr. W. T. Russell gave, 

 before the Chemical Section, some further 

 information regarding his recent researches 

 on the surprising action exerted by certain 

 substances in the absence of light on photo- 

 graphic plates. The Journal of the Society 

 of Arts gives some of his more striking re- 

 sults : " Some ordinary type, a portion of the 

 cover of Punch, and the wrapper of a packet 

 of tobacco produced strongly defined pic- 

 tures ; the last mentioned was particularly 

 interesting, inasmuch as the red ink had 

 proved active, the blue inactive. Strangely, 

 writing ink (old-fashioned) is quite inactive, 

 and paper having writing on it in ink, even 

 over a hnndred years old, when placed be- 

 tween a sheet of active material and a sen- 

 sitive plate, yielded a picture in which the 

 writing appeared quite distinctly, white on 

 black, in spite of the original being in some 

 cases indistinct; ferrous sulphate behaves 

 like ink. The list of materials that are ac- 

 tive is very long, and includes wood, which 

 gives a picture of the grain and knots. 

 Many metals are active, but zinc is very ac- 

 tive only when bright, so that a dirty sheet 

 of zinc rubbed with sandpaper gives a pic- 

 ture of the scratches. Many alloys are also 

 active, pewter and fusible metal being two 

 of them, and curiously some brasses are, 

 while others are not. The effective agency 

 that passes from the material to the sensitive 

 plate shows peculiarities. It passes through 

 gelatin, gutta-percha, celluloid, collodion, 

 wet gum arabic, and some paper, while other 

 paper, glass, minerals transparent to light, 

 and many other substances are opaque to 

 these emanations, and some striking effects 

 were exhibited demonstrating the interfer- 

 ence of these opaque substances when inter- 

 posed between an active substance and the 

 sensitive plate. For instance, a five-pound 

 note placed printing downward on the sensi- 

 tive plate gave a picture of the printing in- 

 scription, but when placed under a zinc plate 

 with the printing toward the zinc plate it 

 gave a picture of the opaque paper with the 

 water marks distinctly showing, and, what is 

 still more astonishing, the zinc plate, after 



