XIV NOTES BY THE EDITOR. 



by the stomach instead of the lung's, and its undoubted efficacy as 

 a sedative in nervous diseases and insanity, has drawn the atten- 

 tion of physiological chemists to the nearly unexplored field of the 

 action of medicines by decomposition within the inmost recesses 

 of the body. 



Deep-sea dredgings have revealed an extensive and varied 

 range of life at depths heretofore deemed untenanted, and have 

 proved that there is a band of organisms encircling the globe at 

 tlie bottom of the ocean, — these organisms, too, resembling 

 those found in the immensely remote cretaceous epoch. The 

 amoeba, described on p. 294, seems to be one of the links which 

 connect the inorganic with the organic world, its organloss tissue 

 being capable of combining physical forces so as to assume organic 

 functions." 



Great advances have been made in celestial chemistry during 

 the year, through the medium of spectrum analysis. 



The observations of Huggins by means of this delicate method 

 have proved that the star Sirius is receding from the earth at tiie 

 rate of 29.4 miles per second ; the observations of Huggins have 

 been confirmed by Father Secchi, made at Rome. It is thought 

 that the results of these and similar obsei-vations may one day 

 lead to a determination of the motion of the solar system in space. 

 By the same method of analysis, traces of aqueous vapor have 

 been discovered in some of the planets. 



The President of the British Association, in his address at Exeter, 

 thus details Lockyer^s discovery : — 



•' After having observed the remarkable spectrum of the 

 prominences during the total eclipse, it occurred to M. Janssen 

 that the same method might allow the prominences to be detected 

 at any time ; and on trial he succeeded in detecting them the very 

 day after the eclipse. The results of his observations were sent 

 by post, and were received shortly after the account of Mr. 

 Lock3'er"'s discovery had been communicated by Mr. De La Rue to 

 the French Academy. In the way hitherto described a prominence 

 is not seen as a whole, but the observer knows when its image is 

 intercepted by the slit; and by varying a little the position of the 

 slit, a series of sections of the prominence are obtained, by putting 

 which together the form of the prominence is deduced. Shortly 

 after Mr. Lockyer's communication of his discovery, Mr. Huggins, 

 who had l)een independently engaged in the attempt.to render the 

 prominences visible by the aid of the spectroscope, succeeded in 

 seeing a prominence as a whole by somewhat widejiing the slit, 



