XVI NOTES BY THE EDITOR 



of steel. 5. The continued accumulation of evidence respecting the 

 geological history of the human race. 6. The discovery of ten new 

 asteroidal planets. 7. The appearance and near approach to the earth 

 of a brilliant and heretofore unrecognized comet. 



The value of the laws deduced by modern scientific research for the 

 preservation of health and the prevention of desease have also received 

 a most striking illustration during the past year from the efforts and 

 action of the United States Sanitary Commission. Through their la- 

 bors and counsels mainly, an army of over five hundred thousand men, 

 unaccustomed to the life of a soldier, drawn from city, farm, and fac- 

 tory, and brought into the field with scarcely an idea on their part of 

 the insalubrious influences which are the invariable accompaniments 

 of such gatherings, have been kept in a condition of health, entirely 

 unparalleled in history. Such a result contrasts strongly with the con- 

 dition of the British army in the Crimea in 1854 ; which, at no time 

 exceeding thirty thousand men, lost of this number, from disease, in 

 seven months, over thirteen thousand soldiers. 



Among the scientific publications of the past year especially worthy 

 of note we may mention the following : 



Report of Maj. Alfred Mordecai, of the Military Commission to 

 Europe in 1855-6. This work, published by Congress, embodies de- 

 scriptions of all the recent improvements and experiments made in 

 the various countries of Europe during the last few years in relation 

 to ordnance, ordnance material, and infantry arms, especially rifled 

 weapons. It includes a valuable work by Capt. Schon, of Saxony, on 

 rifled infantry arms, translated by Capt. J. Gorgas, U. S. A. ; a descrip- 

 tion of the new French system of field artillery ; the construction of 

 shot, bombs, fuses, transportation of ammunition, use of gun-cotton by 

 the Austrians, and a summary of the recent experiments in relation 

 to rifled cannon and small arms in England. 



Report upon the Physics and Hydraulics of the Mississippi River ; 

 upon the Protection of the Alluvial Region against Overflow ; and upon 



sively prove that the appearance of the blue line entirely depends upon tempera- 

 ture. The spectrum of chloride of lithium ignited in a Bunsen's burner flame does 

 not disclose the faintest trace of the blue line. Replace the Bunsen's burner by a 

 jet of hydrogen, the temperature of which is higher than that of the Bunsen's 

 burner, and the blue line appears, faint, it is true, but sharp and quite unmistak- 

 able. If oxygen be now slowly turned into the jet, the brilliancy of the blue line 

 increases until the temperature of the flame rises high enough to fuse the plati- 

 num, and thu#puts an end to the experiment." 



If, therefore, the lines of the spectra vary with the temperature of the burning 

 bodies, and if the temperature of the sun is really much higher than any pro- 

 duced artificially, it is obviously doubtful whether we can tell what substances 

 do, or do not, produce the fixed lines visible in the solar spectrum. 



