FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



855 



F, Frederick W. True ; Section G, W. A. Hel- 

 lerman ; Section H, George A. Dorsey ; Sec- 

 tion I, Calvin M. Woodward. 



New Elements. — Prof. Charles F. Brush, 

 in a preliminary paper read to the American 

 Association, described a new atmospheric 

 gas which he discovered while examining 

 glass for occluded hydrogen, and has found 

 absorbed in many substances. It has been 

 partially separated from air by diffusion. The 

 chief characteristic of this gas thus far ex- 

 perimentally determined is enormous heat 

 conductivity at low pressure. Even when 

 mixed with a large excess of other gases, its 

 heat conductivity is about a hundred times 

 that of hydrogen, and this will probably be 

 increased many times when it is obtained 

 pure. Taking the heat conductivity at this 

 figure — a very moderate estimate — the mean 

 molecular velocity of the new gas is calcu- 

 lated to be more than a hundred miles a 

 second, and its density only a thousandth 

 part that of hydrogen, while the specific 

 heat is found to be six thousand times 

 greater than that of hydrogen. A gas hav- 

 ing attributes anything like these could not 

 possibly be confined to the earth's atmos- 

 phere ; hence the new gas probably extends 

 indefinitely into space, and constitutes an 

 interstellar atmosphere. In recognition of 

 this probability. Professor Brush has named 

 it etheiion. Professor Nasini, of Padua, and 

 two associates report that in studying the 

 gases emanating from the earth in various 

 parts of Italy, with the object of detecting 

 the presence of argon, belmm, etc., they 

 have discovered in the spectrum of the gases 

 of the Solfatara di Pozzuoli, along with other 

 lines deserving investigation, a fairly bright 

 line corresponding with that of (solar) corona 

 1474 K, attributed to coronium, an element 

 not previously discovered on the earth, and 

 which should be lighter than hydrogen. 



A Paradise for Wild inimals. — During 

 the last four years, the London Spectator 

 tells us, the Duke of Bedford has carried 

 out a scheme of animal acclimatization in 

 the park at Woburn Abbey never before 

 attempted in England. " Birds as well as 

 quadrupeds are the subjects of this experi- 

 ment. . . . But the greater number of the 

 animals are various kinds of deer, of which 



no fewer than thirty-one species are in the 

 open park or paddocks, bisons, zebras, ante- 

 lopes, wild sheep and goats, and yaks. The 

 novelty and freshness of this experiment con- 

 sist not only in the accumulation of such a 

 number of species, interesting as this is to the 

 naturalist, but in their way of life, free and 

 unmolested in an English park. That is the 

 lot of the greater number of the animals at 

 Woburn, some being entirely free and roam- 

 ing at large, like the native red deer and 

 fallow deer, while the others, though for the 

 present in separate inclosures, are kept in 

 ' reserves ' so spacious and so lightly though 

 effectively separated that they have the ap- 

 pearance of enjoying the same degree of lib- 

 erty." The general effect on the view of this 

 gathering of animals from all quarters of 

 the earth on the green pastures and under 

 the elms and oaks round the home of a great 

 English family is described as being mag- 

 nificent. " During the journey back by train 

 through Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, 

 the valleys and meadows stocked with our 

 ordinary domestic animals seem solitary and 

 deserted after the eye has rested for hours 

 on the varied and impressive forms that 

 crowd the slopes, groves, and glades of this 

 glorious park. This effect is due in part to 

 the largeness of the scale on which the stock- 

 ing of Woburn with wild animals has been 

 carried out. In the phrase of the farmer, 

 the park ' carries a larger head ' of animals 

 than is commonly seen on a similar area, 

 even in the richest pastures. The scene re- 

 calls the descriptions of the early travelers 

 in southern Africa, when the large fauna 

 roamed there in unbroken numbers and with 

 little fear of man. . . . From one position, 

 looking up a long green slope toward the 

 abbey, there could be seen at the time of 

 the writer's last visit between two and three 

 hundred animals, both birds and beasts, 

 feeding or sleeping within sight of the im- 

 mediate front of the spectators. These 

 varied in species from cranes, storks, and 

 almost every known species of swan, to 

 wapiti stags, antelopes, and zebras, walking, 

 sitting, galloping, feeding, or sleeping. For 

 quite half a mile up the slope the white 

 swan and other wild fowl were dotted among 

 the deer and other ruminants, presenting a 

 strange and most attractive example of the 

 real ' paradise ' which animals will make for 



