336 



NA TURE 



[Feb. 24, 1876 



measures), {e) A series of minerals and rocks, the Derbyshire 

 minerals being specially good ; and some educational sets of 

 fossils and minerals. All the above are properly arranged with 

 explanatory notes, so as to be useful to the uninitiated and to 

 teach geological rudiments, whilst affording advanced students 

 opportunity of comparing their "finds" and naming them. 

 (/) A series of the fauna and flora of North Derbyshire, including 

 mammals (stuffed), birds, and their nests and eggs, ferns and 

 mosses, &c. (g) Collection of old china, entirely obtained from 

 the older houses in the neighbourhood, Avith old books, orna- 

 ments, coins, &c. (A) Set of archaic mining tools from the old 

 lead mines of Castleton. {/) The natural and commercial pro- 

 ductions of the neighbourhood, {k) Geological maps and sections, 

 guide-book?, and a small scientific reference library. Mr. Pen- 

 nington's collections are all included in the museum. 



The investigation into the cause of the explosion at the Jabin 

 pit, near Lyons, in France, seems to show that the workmen 

 were not to blame for any imprudence in the use of their lamps, 

 but that the catastrophe was probably produced by the inflam- 

 mable air escaping from the coal beds by a great diminution 

 of barometric pressure, which reached 10 millimetres in a few 

 hours. This connection of explosions in mines with a diminu- 

 tion of barometric pressure has been frequently referred to 

 recently in connection with explosions in England. The ques- 

 tion has been asked whether it is not desirable to extend the 

 system of storm warnings to coal-mining districts ; if the miners 

 could only be induced to attend to them there seems no doubt 

 that a great saving of life would be thus effected. 



A VALUABLE and in many respects exhaustive memoir on the 

 temperature of the air at Brussels, by Prof. E. Quetelet, based 

 on forty years' observations ending with 1872, appears in Vol. 

 XLT. of the Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Belgium. The 

 paper presents in a more extended and permanent form the 

 leading features of the most important element of the climate of 

 Brussels, which appeared about a year ago in the form of a small 

 tract, briefly reviewed in Nature at the time (vol. xL, p. 444). 



Mrs. Marshall Hall, sen., writes that the lady who made 

 a successful ascent of Mont Blanc on the 31st ult., mentioned in 

 our last number, was Miss Stratton, a Welsh lady, not an 

 American. 



An apparatus of great delicacy has lately been devised by Dr. 

 Mosso of Turin, for measuring the movements of the blood- 

 vessels in man. A description of it, v/ith figures, appears in 

 Comptes Kendus of Jan. 24. The arrangement of the plethystito- 

 graph (as it is called) consists in enclosing a part of the body, 

 the fore-arm, e.g. , in a glass cylinder with caoutchouc ring, filling 

 the cylinder with tepid water, and measuring, by a special appa- 

 ratus, the quantity of water which flows out or in through a tube 

 connected with the cylinder, as the arm expands or contracts. 

 An opening in the cylinder is connected by a piece of caoutchouc 

 tubing with a glass tube opening downwards into a test tube 

 suspended from a double pulley with counterpoise to which the 

 recording lever is attached, in a vessel containing a mixture of 

 alcohol and water. When the vessels of the arm dilate water 

 passes from the cylinder into the test tube, which is thereby im- 

 mersed further, so that the counterpoise rises ; in the opposite 

 case water flows bick from the test-tube into the cylinder, the 

 test-tube rises, and the counterpoise descends. Among other 

 applications of the apparatus. Dr. Mosso employs it in studying 

 the physiology of thought and cerebral activity. The slightest 

 emotions are revealed by the instrument by a change in the state 

 of the blood-vessels. The entrance of a person during the ex- 

 periment, in whom one is interested, has the effect of diminishing 

 the volume of the fore-arm four to fifteen cubic centimetres. 

 The work of the brain during solution of an arithmetical or 

 Other problem, or the reading of a passage difficult to understand, 



is always accompanied by contraction of the vessels proportional 

 to the effort of thought. 



TfiK Perthshire Society of Natural Science has recently con- 

 ferred a great benefit on the City of Perth by drawing attention 

 through one of its members. Dr. Lauder Lindsay, to the many 

 imperfections of its water-supply. Perth, as our readers know, 

 stands on the banks of the finest river in the kingdom, and yet 

 its water-supply is lamentably deficient in quantity and quality. 

 The present system of supply was organised about fifty years 

 ago, and Dr. Lindsay brought it to the test of the universally 

 recognised principles of sanitary science, with the result stated. 

 Unfortunately Perth lies very low, and on that very account un- 

 usual care must be taken to keep the supply of water pure. After 

 the lesson which Dr. Lindsay has read the inhabitants, it will be 

 their own blame if they do not exercise what would be genuine 

 economy, and remedy a state of matters which must undoubtedly 

 exercise a deleterious influence on the health and prosperity of 

 the fair city. We think this practice of bringing science to bear 

 on matters of local importance is one quite within the sphere of 

 local scientific societies. 



The Meteorological Commission of Allier have now twenty 

 regular meteorological stations at different heights, varying from 

 686 to 3,773 feet. These stations, together with eighty others 

 for the observation of thunderstorms, have been established for 

 the investigation of the local climates of the department. It is 

 resolved by the Commission, in the interests of general meteoro- 

 logy, to connect its observations as much as possible with those 

 which are collected at Paris. 



The additions to the Zoological Society's Gardens daring the 

 past week include a Bay Bamboo R?t {Rhizomys badius) from 

 India, presented by Mr. Jas, Wood Mason ; an Anderson's 

 Kaleege {Euplocaiims andersoni) from Burmah, two Hill Franco- 

 lins {Arboricola torqucold) from India, presented by Mr. W, 

 Jamrach ; a Sociable Vulture {Vullur auricularis), two Cape 

 Francolins {Francolinus capaisis) from Africa, presented by Mr. 

 J. C. Hobbs ; two White-necked Storks {C/cofiiaepiscofii/;) from 

 India, received in exchange; two White-backed Pigeons {Co- 

 Imnba leuconoia) from the Himalayas, a Tiger Bittern ( Tigiisoma 

 brasiliense), five Geoflfroy's Doves {Peristera geoffroii) from South 

 America, purchased. 



THE INDUSTRIAL APPLICATIONS OF 

 OXYGEN^ 



n. 



"V^/E must now direct our attention to a small group of pro- 

 ' posals for extracting oxygen from the air by purely me- 

 chanical means, without the aid of any chemical action. They 

 are founded on one or other of two physical principles, diffusion 

 or absorption, 



'J". Graham, whose " inquiries into the laws of the diflTusion of 

 gases " will always be remembered as one of the most pei-fect of 

 his numerous and great researches, observed in 1866" that air 

 drawn through a small fissure of a thin india-rubber leaf contains 

 the constant proportion of 41 '6 parts of oxygen to 58 '4 parts of 

 nitrogen, so that half of the nitrogen of the atmospheric air is 

 kept back, and that this mixture makes red-hot coals burn with a 

 flame. Deville,^ however, tested this method with regard to its 

 industrial merits, and found that it required too much time to be 

 considered practical. 



Endeavours to utilise absorption have been made in two diffe- 

 rent ways. Messrs. Montmagnon and De Laire obtained a patent 

 in France in 1868 for a process, founded on the observations of 

 Angus Smith,* according to which charcoal takes up more oxygen 



' Translated, by permission of the editor, from the "Report on the Deve- 

 lopment of Chemical Industry, in conjunction with friends and fellow- 

 workers, by A. W. Hofmann." The present artic'e, as well as the previous 

 one, it should be understood, are by Dr. A. Oppenheim. Continued from 

 p. 295. 



- Graham, Compt. Rend. Ixiii, 471. 



3 Deville, Wagn. Jahresber., 1867, 216. ■♦ Bull. Soc. Chim. [2], xi., 261. 



