February 3, 1898] 



NATURE 



323 



son, F.R.S. Indian Section (Thursday afternoons, at 4.30 

 o'clock) : February 17, the plague in Bombay, by Dr. Herbert 

 Mills Birdwood ; March 31, the earthquake in Assam, by Mr. 

 Henry Luttman- Johnson. Foreign and Colonial Section (Tues- 

 day afternoons at 4.30 o'clock) : February 15, the goldfields of 

 Klondike and British Columbia, by Mr. W. Hamilton Merritt. 

 April 5, the sugar industry in the West Indies, by Mr. T. R. 

 Tufnell. Cantor Lectures (Monday evenings, at eight o'clock) : 

 Prof. W. Noel Hartley, F.R.S., the thermo-chemistry of the 

 Bessemer process (three lectures) ; Dr. D. Morris, C.M.G., 

 india-rubber (two lectures); Prof. Carus Wilson, electric traction 

 (four lectures). 



A FEW particulars with reference to the late Dr. George 

 Henry Horn, President of the American Entomological Society, 

 are given in the Entomologist's Monthly Magazine. Dr. Horn 

 was born April 7, 1840, in Philadelphia, and died November 

 24, 1897. He graduated in medicine in 1861, and from 1862 to 

 1866 was surgeon in the U.S. army. Subsequently he estab- 

 lished himself as a physician in Philadelphia, and had an exten- 

 sive practice. Before he graduated he published papers on recent 

 and fossil corals, but eventually turned his attention entirely to 

 North American Coleoptera, as a pupil of, and fellow-worker 

 with, Leconte, until the death of the latter in 1883, and after- 

 wards on his own account. It has been said that if the death of 

 Leconte was a severe blow to North American coleopterology, 

 that of Horn is probably greater. His first entomological paper 

 was published in i860, and was followed by others (jointly or 

 separately) to the number of about 150, appearing almost 

 entirely in America, but he worked out the Eucneniida for 

 the " Biologia Centrali-Americana." As already announced, 

 his collections, and a sum of money, have been left to the 

 American Entomological Society, of which he had been long 

 President. 



Prof. David P. Todd, Director of Amherst College Observ- 

 atory, Amherst, Massachusetts, U.S.A., has nearly completed 

 a bibliography of eclipse research to join on with Ranyard's 

 classic work published many years ago in the Memoirs of the 

 Royal Astronomical Society. He would be glad to receive 

 copies of papers and titles of works and articles published since 

 1875. 



The Lincolnshire Science Society, the establishment of which 

 was referred to in Nature of December 30, 1897, should 

 apparently have been christened the Lincoln Science Society ; 

 for a prospectus just received shows that a Lincolnshire 

 Naturalists' Union has been in existence several years. There 

 is hardly room for two county Societies having the same aims 

 and objects, and the establishment of the new Society cannot 

 but have a prejudicial effect upon the older Union, which ought 

 to represent the combined forces of the different local societies 

 in Lincolnshire. For the spirit of competition to enter into the 

 matter at all is a mistake, and if the two organisations do not 

 arrive at a concordat, the work of one will prejudice rather than 

 assist the work of the other. It appears that the Lincolnshire 

 Naturalists' Union initiated a scheme for the formation of a 

 County Museum before the new Society took up the matter. 



In the last number of the U.S. Monthly Weather Review 

 (October 1897), the editor draws attention to a proposal for 

 establishing a meteorological station on Satulah Mountain, 

 North Carolina, at an altitude of about 5000 feet. The summit 

 of the peak is fairly level, and, with the exception of about a 

 quarter of a mile, is accessible by vehicles. Prof. Abbe points 

 out that a continuous record at the summit would undoubtedly 

 contribute to the elucidation of some interesting meteorological 

 problems, but that in view of the many unsuccessful attempts 

 to maintain self-recording instruments in isolated places, watchful 

 NO. 1475. VOL. 57] 



observers would be necessary. Systematic observations are 

 being made at great elevations by means of balloons and kites,, 

 and these efforts may be usefully supplemented by renewed 

 attention to the establishment of mountain stations. 



At the meeting of the French Meteorological Society on 

 January 4, M. Moureaux made an important communication on 

 the results of a mission entrusted to him by the Imperial 

 Geographical Society of St. Petersburg with reference to the 

 magnetic exploration of the Government of Koursk. The 

 whole area of this province is intensely disturbed, and the 

 differences between theory and observation are so great that it 

 is not possible to draw isomagnetic lines. At two points 

 situated about 450 yards apart the declinations are - li° and 

 -t- 45°. In one district the declination at two stations about a 

 mile and a quarter apart varied from - 34° to -f 96°. The dip 

 ranged from 48° to 79°, and the horizontal component reached 

 0'59, whereas the maximum normal value of this element in the 

 equatorial regions is below 0*40. From these observations it 

 results that the magnetic force in that locality is as great as it 

 would be in the immediate vicinity of the magnetic poles. Scv 

 far as is known at present, there is nothing near the surface oi 

 the ground to cause these anomalies. 



The tracing of the pretty curves formed by compounding 

 pendulum vibrations of different periods is a fascinating pastime 

 of which we were beginning to believe the resources were pretty 

 well exhausted. Prof. Charles Schlichter, of Winconsin, has, 

 however, discovered "fresh woods and pastures new" by ex- 

 tending the method to space of three dimensions, and represent- 

 ing, by the aid of the stereoscope, the resultant of harmonic 

 motions of three frequencies in three different directions mutually 

 at right angles. To do this, Prof. Schlichter attaches a miniature 

 electric lamp to the bob of a Blackburn pendulum vibrating in a 

 horizontal plane, and photographs the tiny speck of light by 

 means of a stereoscopic camera attached to a pendulum which 

 swings in a vertical plane about a horizontal axis through the 

 optical centres of the lenses. This last pendulum gives the third 

 vibration-component. When the diagrams are viewed through 

 the stereoscope, the curves spring out into relief like bent wires ; 

 their forms for many of the higher ratios, such as 5:6:9 or 

 5:8:9 being very striking. 



Experiments on the action of Rontgen rays on vegetable 

 life have hitherto mostly led to negative results ; but Signor G. 

 Tolomei, writing in the Atti dei Lincei, is led to the conclusion 

 that their action is identical with that of light. On exposing to 

 the action of Rontgen rays branches of Elodea canadensis im- 

 mersed in water charged with carbonic anhydride, evolution of 

 bubbles took place as in the presence of sunshine or electric 

 or magnesium light. The same similarity was observed in the 

 effects on the lower vegetable forms, both Rontgen rays and 

 light causing retardation in the absorption of oxygen by Myco- 

 derma aceti, and in the evolution of carbonic anhydride by 

 Saccharomyces. Again, in their action on Bacillus attthracis 

 the Rontgen rays behave in the same way as sunshine, but in a 

 minor degree ; when a gelatine film was exposed for twenty-four 

 hours to the radiations from a Crookes' tube, with the inter- 

 position of a zinc screen having an X-shaped aperture, the 

 letter appeared transparent on an opaque background. That 

 the action was due to destruction of the germs, and not to the 

 generation of any toxic quality in the agar, was proved thus : 

 when a sterilised film was partially exposed to the rays, and 

 subsequently brought into contact with a stratum of dried spores, 

 the spores began to germinate all over the film ; but when the 

 stratum of spores was exposed to the rays, the screen with the 

 letter X being interposed, and the film subsequently brought into 

 contact with them, only those spores which had been protected. 



