July 20, 1876] NAT URE 



the lever, the external air penetrates into" the chest, the walls 

 of which rise as in life. They return to their former position 

 when the lever is raised, and these respiratory movements may 

 be repeated fifteen to eighteen times a minute, as in a living 

 man. By means of a tube communicating with a reservoir, and 

 inserted in the windpipe, M. Woillez found that a litre of air, 

 on an average, entered the air passages at each artificial inspi- 

 ration, whereas the physiological average is only a demi-litre. 

 Thus, more than a hundred litres of air can be passed through 

 the lungs of an asphyxiated person in ten minutes. There is 

 no danger of rupturing the lungs, however strongly the lever 

 be wrought, for the force of penetration of the air is never supe- 

 rior to the weight of the atmosphere. 



The direction of plant-growth, it is known, is determined 

 both by light and by gravity. The geotrop'sm, or action of 

 gravity exclusive of light has before been examined ; and recently 

 M. MUUer (Thurgau), we learn from Flora, has endeavoured to 

 study the converse fact of heliotropism, by excluding the influence 

 of gravity as far as possible. He grew his plants in a cylinder 

 rotating about its horizontal axis. The apparatus was so 

 arranged that the light, coming through an aperture in the 

 shutter of a dark room, fell parallel to the axis ; the bendings 

 observed were thus purely heliotropical. Among other results he 

 found that only those zones which were not fully grown out, 

 showed heliotropic bendings ; that the most strongly growing 

 paits of the stem were most sensitive to one-sided illumination ; 

 that the bending takes some (variable) time to manifest itself 

 and continues some time after removal of the cause ; that the 

 rate of bending is at first slow, gradually increases to a maximum, 

 and thereafter diminishes ; thatthe bending is greater the intenser 

 the light, &:c. 



In the Upsala Universitets Arsskrifi for 1874, Dr. Hamberg 

 gives a most interesting paper, illustrated with eight coloured 

 maps, on the night-frosts which have occurred in Sweden during 

 1871-72-73, from May 20 to September 30, or during that por- 

 tion of the year of most interest to agriculturists. The obser- 

 vations of 285 Swedish observers are elaborately discussed, from 

 which it appears that 80 per cent, of these frosts occur with 

 northerly winds on the day preceding and on the days following 

 them, but that during the night of the frost either the wind is 

 very light or the air is calm. The ma.p exhibiting the distribu- 

 tion of the spring frosts shows an abnormal excess on the south 

 or lee side of the great lakes, arising, in all likelihood, from the 

 low temperature of these lakes in spring. In autumn, on the 

 other hand, when the temperature of the lakes is high, no such 

 excess of frosts occur over the region south of them. One of 

 the most striking results is the relatively small number of frosts 

 over the district immediately to the north of Lake Wener, a 

 result which may be due to the remarkable deflection of the 

 wind in summer over this part of Scandinavia, so that winds are 

 there south-westerly when they are north-westerly and westerly 

 on the west of Norway. Six of the maps show well the inti- 

 mate relation existing between the frosts and areas of high 

 barometric pressure, and suggest that, if desired, the telegraph 

 mi"ht be employed to give warning of these frosts, which are 

 so destructive to vegetation. 



The Supplemenio alia Meteorologia Italiana for 1875, fasc. iii., 

 is entirely occupied with an exhaustive discussion of the tem- 

 perature of Modena, by Prof. Ragona, director of the Royal 

 Observatory there, based on the observations of the twelve 

 years ending 1874- Among the more interesting points dis- 

 cussed with considerable fulness, are the anomalies of tempera- 

 ture which have occurred during the twelve years, particular 

 attention being given to those anomalies which show a tendency 

 to recur about the same dates from year to year. The prevailing 



261 



winds at Modena are west and south-west from November to 

 February and north-east during the other months, and the 

 changes of these winds is a point of the greatest importance in 

 their relations to the anomalies of temperature which accom- 

 pany them. Fasc. iv. contains an account by P. A. Serpieri, 

 director of the Observatory of Urbino, of the earthquake which 

 occurred in the night of March 17-18, 1875 ; and a notice, by 

 Almerico da Schio, of the stations established, or in the course 

 of being established, in the province of Vicenza, for meteoro- 

 logical observations, or for observations of rainfall, of weather, 

 or of the depth of the rivers. Upwards of sixty such stations 

 are indicated on the map of the province accompanying the 

 paper. 



Two important publications, constituting Nos. 5 and 6 of the 

 Bulletin of the U.S. National Museum, by Mr. G. Brown 

 Goode, Assistant Curator of that establishment, have lately been 

 published by the Interior Department. The first, a catalogue of 

 the fishes of the Bermudas in the collection of the museum, gives 

 the first complete account of the ichthyology of that portion of 

 the world. These were principally obtained by Mr. Goode 

 during a visit to the islands in the months of February and 

 March, and are notes on the character of the species, containing 

 many important facts in regard to their natural history. Seventy, 

 five species in all were actually obtained, and the existence of 

 others determined, but not established by specimens. A chief 

 value of the paper is in the description of the colours of the fish 

 while living, and the notes on their size and hints on their 

 popular names, their capture, and economical value. The second 

 publication was prepared by Mr. Goode as a classification of the 

 collections made by the Smithsonian Institution and the United 

 States Fish Commission for the Centennial Exhibition at Phila- 

 delphia. 



The additions to the Zoological Society's Gardens during the 

 past week include two Royal Pythons {Python regius) from West 

 Africa, presented by Mr. J. J. Kendall j a Greater Sulphur 

 Crested Cockatoo {Cacatua galerita) from Australia, presented 

 by Mrs. Baliol Scott ; two Striped Hysenas {Hyccna striata), an 

 Alligator {Alligator viississippiensis) from North America ; two 

 American White Cranes ( Grus americana) from North America ; 

 a Green-winged Trumpeter {Psophia viridis) from Brazil, pur- 

 chased ; three Shoveler Ducks {Spatula clypeata) hatched in the 

 Gardens. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 



Journal of the Chemical Socitty, April. — A paper on ox3marco- 

 tine, a new opium educt, and its relationships to narcotine and 

 narceine, is contributed by Dr. Wright and Mr. G. H. Beckett. 

 This new body is obtained from an indistinctly crystalline mass, 

 which, during the preparation and purification of narceine from 

 opium liquors, is often left undissolved on boiling the partially 

 purified narceine with water. This crude product contains the 

 new opium alkaloid, bearing to narcotine the relationship of 

 benzoic acid to benzoic aldehyde. — Dr. H. E. Armstrong and 

 Mr. George Harrow contribute two papers : one on the action 

 of potassic sulphite on the haloid derivatives of phenol, the other 

 on the action of nitric acid on tribromophenol. The length of 

 the chemical names made use of in these papers is positively 

 alarming, e.g., dichlorophenolorthosulphonateand diorthobromo- 

 paranitrophenol. — Mr. Cornelius O'Sullivan contributes a paper 

 on maltose, which is intended to show that maltose, obtained by 

 the action of malt-extract on starch, ft a simple body, isomeric 

 with cane-sugar, and not a mixture of dextrin with dextrose, as 

 M. Bondonneau, in a note recently presented to the Academy, 

 regards it. — Mr. M. M. Pattison Muir, F.R.S.E., gives a method 

 of estimating bismuth volumetrically. Potassium chromate or 

 potassium dichromate solution is run into a nearly neutral solution 

 of bismuth nitrate until the whole of the metal is precipitated in 

 the form of chromate. The final point of the reaction is deter- 

 mined by the formation oT red silver chromate, when a drop of 



