278 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



comparative number of male to female plants is 

 affected by thick sowing, which increases the relative 

 number of male plants. The result is attributed to 

 an insufficiency of nutrition during the embryonal 

 stage. 



As a method of destroying infection and insect life, 

 it is said in a contemporary that a bottle of bromine 

 left open all night in the room will answer the 

 purpose. It is to be hoped that no one who is un- 

 acquainted with bromine will rashly try to put this 

 into practice, and it is unlikely that any one who has 

 experienced the effects of a little bromine vapour on 

 the eyes will wish to be the first to go into the room 

 the next morning. 



Everybody will be sorry to hear that Professor 

 Huxley has been obliged, through continued ill- 

 health, to resign the Presidency of the Royal Society. 

 Professor Stokes is to succeed him as President. 



Dr. J. E. Taylor, F.G.S., Editor of Science- 

 Gossip, has just returned from a highly successful 

 lecturing tour in the Australian Colonies. His last 

 lecture was delivered at the Melbourne University on 

 " The Origin of the Atmosphere." 



On October 17th, the first telpherage line was 

 opened at Glynde in Sussex. This is a new means 

 by which goods and passengers can be conveyed by 

 means of electricity without driver, guard, signal- 

 men, or attendants. The line is one mile in length, 

 and is used for carrying clay. It is not intended to 

 compete with railways, but to do cheaply the work 

 of horses, tramways, &c. 



Liverpool intends to hold ah International Exhi- 

 bition in May next. The corporation have granted 

 a site of 35 acres for the purpose. 



Dr. Thomas Davidson, F.R.S., the celebrated 

 paleontologist, has just died at the age of 69. He 

 was distinguished for his researches and numerous 

 publications on the Fossil brachiopoda. 



Penny Science Lectures are being delivered at the 

 Royal Victoria Hall and Coffee Tavern, Waterloo 

 Bridge Road. Sir John Lubbock and Mr. W. Lant 

 _ Carpenter have already lectured there. 



The third annual session of the Youth Scientific 

 and Literary Society commenced November 19th, 

 1885, when a general meeting was held at head- 

 quarters, The Tolmers Square Institute, Drummond 

 Street, Euston Road, N.W. The officers for the 

 session are : President, Alex. Ramsay, F.G.S., 

 E.R.G.S., Editor of the "Garner," &c. ; Vice-Presi- 

 dents: (Scientific), J. W. Williams, D.Sc, B.A., 

 F.L.S.J iVc. (late Pres.), and (Literary), Rupert Parry, 

 F.S.Sc. 



Composite portraiture is again the subject of a 

 paper in " Science," this time by Mr. Joseph Jastrow, 

 who describes how the effect may be produced by a 

 stereoscope, and even from two living faces, without 



the intervention of photography at all. In the course 

 of his paper he says, that the characteristics of the 

 results are the means of those of the originals em- 

 ployed. Thus the composite portrait of a young 

 lady of twenty and her mother of sixty, gives a lady 

 of about forty, while one of a young lady and her 

 grandmother gives a face more like the mother than 

 like the grandmother or the granddaughter. 



The simplest form of electric lamp for use by 

 surgeons, &c, according to " Engineering," is one 

 brought out by Messrs. Woodhouse and Rawson, in 

 which the use of an external reflector is dispensed 

 with, one side of the lamp bulb being silvered so as 

 to reflect the light. 



In the address of Mr. B. Baker, M.S.C.E., presi- 

 dent of Section G in the British Association, he said 

 that at the present time absolute chaos prevails 

 among engineers as to rules respecting the strength 

 of metallic bridges. That a bridge which would 

 be passed by our Board of Trade would require 

 strengthening in different parts from five to six per 

 cent, before passing the German Government or the 

 leading railway companies in America ; that iron 

 girders are injured by a change in the weight they 

 support, that which is a relief to a muscle being bad 

 for a bar of iron. " Hundreds of existing railway 

 bridges which carry twenty trains a day with perfect 

 safety, would break down quickly with twenty trains 

 per hour." 



Grano-metallic stone is formed of a certain 

 proportion of blast furnace slag and granite, crushed, 

 chemically treated, dried, and mixed with Portland 

 cement, made into paste with alkaline solution, and 

 laid on rough ballast, a smooth surface being given 

 at finish. It is said to be ready for use in twelve 

 hours in ordinary weather. It is both fire-proof and 

 water-proof, and is not slippery, since particles of hard 

 slag always project. It has already been laid down 

 in the Strand. 



Mr. A. Somerville, F.L.S., has conferred a 

 great boon on students of British Conchology, by the 

 publication of a list of British marine shells, com- 

 prising those of brachiopoda and mollusca proper, 

 after the arrangements in the late Dr. Jeffrey's 

 " British Conchology," including additions up to the 

 present year. 



Perhaps there is no more enthusiastic group of 

 naturalists than is to be found in Yorkshire and 

 Lancashire. Nowhere is the upivard levelling ten- 

 dency of natural science more plainly seen. Every 

 town has a society of some kind — sometimes several 

 such— devoted to these studies, and the members 

 include every class of the community, although we 

 are glad to know that the artisans frequently form the 

 chief portion . No modern studies are better calculated 

 to sweeten a life of toil than those of botany, zoology, 

 and geology. We should like our readers to see the 



