144 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



A telegraphic despatch from Gottingcn, 

 Germany, September 25th, announces the 

 death of the chemist Friedrich Woehler, 

 Director of the Chemical Institute at that 

 place. Professor Woehler was born in 

 1 800, and was appointed to his position in 

 the Institute at Gottingen in 1836. Among 

 the important chemical discoveries with 

 which he is credited are those of a new 

 method of obtaining nickel pure, and the 

 isolation of the metal aluminium, for which 

 he was elected a chevalier of the Legion 

 of Honor. His text-books on organic and 

 inorganic chemistry are much used in Ger- 

 man schools. He contributed many original 

 papers to the German chemical journals. 



Our readers will remember our account 

 of the experiments of Mr. Bjerknes, of 

 Christiania, Norway, in the production of 

 phenomena similar to those of electrical and 

 magnetic attraction and repulsion by means 

 of hydro-dynamic, mechanical action. Mr. 

 Stroh has performed a series of similar ex- 

 periments, and has produced phenomena 

 similar to those obtained by Mr. Bjerknes, 

 by means of sonorous vibrations in the air. 

 He uses a melodeon reed, the sound of 

 which goes into a brass tube in which the 

 reed is inclosed, and from this into a larger 

 tube, to which is attached a bifurcating 

 India-rubber pipe, each branch of which 

 ends in a tambour. The vibrations may be 

 made consonant or dissonant by adjustment 

 of the lengths of the India-rubber tube 

 branches. When the vibrations are conso- 

 nant, the tambours are attracted toward 

 each other ; when the vibrations are disso- 

 nant, they are repelled. If a tambour in a 

 state of vibration be presented to a disk 

 which is not vibrating, attraction takes 

 place. Thus, the phenomena of attraction 

 and repulsion are imitated in air as Mr. 

 Bjerknes has imitated them in water, except 

 that they present themselves in an inverse 

 sense from that in which they are exhibited 

 under electric and magnetic influences. 



Dr. Stephen D. Peet maintains, in a 

 paper on the " Prehistoric Architectures of 

 America," that they differ from those of 

 any other continent, in that they exhibit 

 architecture in its lowest stages, and at the 

 same time give a clew to its development 

 throughout all its stages. They may thus 

 be used to aid in the study of the early 

 stages of historic architecture in other 

 lands. They, in fact, illustrate the transi- 

 tion between the prehistoric and the historic 

 states. In Europe, only the highest class 

 of prehistoric works can be called archi- 

 tectural ; in America, the lowest class are 

 worthy of that name. The American works, 

 therefore, begin where the European ones 

 leave off. Beginning at a point where 

 architecture is presented in an undifferen- 

 tiated state, the prehistoric works of Amer- 



ica show a connected line of progress, es- 

 pecially observable in the gradation which 

 is apparent in the works of the different 

 sections of the continent as we go from the 

 east to the west. 



Mr. Luctan J. Blake, of Boston, who 

 is studying at Berlin, on the Tyndall Schol- 

 arship, communicated to the Prussian Royal 

 Academy of Sciences, on the 15th of June, 

 through Professor Helmholtz, a paper on 

 the " Electrical Neutrality of Steam rising 

 from Still Surfaces of Electrified Water." 

 He describes a series of experiments from 

 which he draws the conclusion, contrary to 

 the theories of Becquerel and Sir William 

 Thomson, that in steam arising without eb- 

 ullition, when no spray is thrown up, no 

 convection of electricity takes place. He is 

 continuing his experiments to confirm this 

 law. 



Dr. D. G. Brinton, of Philadelphia, is 

 about to begin the publication of a series 

 of works to constitute a " Library of Abo- 

 riginal American Literature." Each work 

 will be the production of a native, and will 

 have some intrinsic importance in addition 

 to its value as a linguistic monument. The 

 books will be printed in the original tongue, 

 with an English translation and notes. 

 The first volume, " The Chronicles of the 

 Mayas," will contain five works, written in 

 the Maya language, shortly after the Span- 

 ish conquest of Yucatan, and carrying the 

 history back several centuries, four of 

 which have never been published or before 

 translated into any European tongue, with 

 a history of the conquest written by a Maya 

 chief, in 1562, also from an unpublished 

 manuscript, and a history of the Mayas. 

 It will be published before the end of the 

 year, and will be furnished to subscribers 

 at three dollars a copy. 



The annual congress of the German 

 Anthropological Society met at Frankfort, 

 August 14th. About five hundred members 

 were present. The president, Professor 

 Lucae, delivered the opening address on the 

 development of anthropology during the 

 last ten years, and was followed by Dr. 

 Schliemann, on his latest excavations at 

 Troy ; and Professor Virchow, on Mr. Dar- 

 win's relations to anthropology. 



A famous rose-bush at Hildesheim, in 

 Hanover, which is said to be a thousand 

 years old, and is reputed to have been plant- 

 ed by Charlemagne, has this year been 

 covered with an extraordinary profusion of 

 blossoms more, it is declared, than it was 

 ever known to bear before. New shoots 

 have been grafted on its stems within a few 

 years, and have grown finely. The bush 

 stands on the outer wall of the crypt of the 

 cathedral, with branches reaching to more 

 than thirty feet in breadth and nearly thirty- 

 five feet in height. 



