H 



NATURE 



{May 2, 1889 



310 feet long, one from each side, were erected, and the inter- 

 vening space of 200 feet was crossed by a girder. There was 

 4hus a space between the pillars of 820 feet, which is said to be 

 the largest span of any rigid bridge in the world. The weight of 

 the span is 3300 tons. The bridge was sent out in pieces from the 

 •works of Messrs. Westwood, of Poplar, and now, sixteen months 

 «fter the arrival of the materials from England, it is practically 

 complete. 



A CORRESPONDENT writes to us about a "find " which, he 

 thinks, may prove to hz of some interes'. At Hornsey, near 

 Turnpike Lane, an excavation— about 18 or 20 feet wide, and 

 :about 20 feet deep — is being made in connection with a new 

 pumping-station. In cutting into the clay, the men have come 

 iipon large fragments of a white substance, in the inside of which 

 :are what appear to hz "the vertebrce of some animal." Our 

 -correspondent expresses a hope that some one competent to form 

 an opinion about the matter will "take a run down to Turn- 

 pike Lane " (near the Great Northern station at Hornsey), and 

 -examine the objects which he believes to be fossils. After the 

 present week, he says, there will probably be no opportunity of 

 ■seeing the clay in the state in which it was when the objects were 

 removed from it. 



At the meeting of the Scientific Committee of the Royal 

 Ho ticultural Society, on April 23, Mr. W. T. Thiselton Dyer 

 presented a note from Mr. Scott, the Director of the Meteoro- 

 logical Office, relating to the " useful " temperature as r.'ckoned 

 in " day degrees," and to the amount of sunshine since January 

 I of the present year, a? compared with recent years. The 

 present season, it seem^, has been much better than the last, 

 •except as regards t'le amount of sunshine, in which there is not 

 much improvement. 



Sir James Hector has issued the Meteorologlcil Report for 

 New Zealand, contiiining observations for the years 1883 and 

 1884. Returns have been published since 1853, but since the 

 year 1880 the number of stations has been greatly reduced, in 

 favour of current weather reports ; the principal stations are now 

 ■only four in number. With the view of enabling daily weather 

 a-eports to be issued by the press throughout the colony, with the 

 ieast possible expense, a series of twenty typical isobaric charts 

 -were prepared and are shown in the Report. Each represents 

 ^ certain type of weather and bears a distinguishing number, 

 which is telegraphed to the leading journals, so that when the 

 •number for the day is quoted, the diagram can be printed, and, 

 although not absolutely correct, it is of great assistance in making 

 I'cnown the general condition of the weather. The Report also 

 contains some valuable returns from stations in the Fiji group of 

 islands. 



A NEW amine, methyl-ethylamine, CoH3(CFIa)NH, has been 

 ■obtained by Drs. Skraup and Wiegmann, by the action of 

 .alcoholic potash upon m Drphine. Not only is the actual pre- 

 paration of this hitherto unknown amine of importance in itself 

 as completing a series of isomers of the fjrmula CjHaN, but the 

 •fact of its derivation from morphine also throws considerable 

 light upon the constitution of that alkaloid. It has been shown 

 tiy several chemists that morphine, Cj^H^gNOa, is a derivative of 

 phenanthrene, CnHi„. As a methyl and an ethyl group have 

 now been extracted in the form of an amine, it appears very 

 liikely that these groups are present in-mor^jhine, replacing two 

 hydrogen atoms of phenanthrene and piobably attached to 

 Jiitrogen. If this be so, morphine may turn out to be the iso- 

 •nilrile of a substituted phenanthrene, and it remains now for 

 future work to test the truth of this, and to determine the 

 positions and functions of the oxygen atoms. In the latter con- 

 nection, it was found in the course of this investigation that, in 

 addition to the volatile amine, ase:o.nd substance of phenol-like 

 properties was also formed, but great difficulties were met with 

 in its purification. In the actual experiments, morphine was 



heated for about five hours at 180° C. with ten times as much of 

 a twenty per cent, solution of potash in alcohol. A volatile sub- 

 stance of amine-like odour was evolved, and was driven over by 

 means of a current of coal gas into dilute sulphuric acid. The 

 filtered acid solution was then supersaturated with soda and the 

 purified amine distilled over in steam into a standard solution of 

 hydrochloric acid. It was only found possible to eliminate 

 from the morphine in this way about 50 per cent', of its 

 nitrogen. The concentrated hydrochloric acid solution deposited 

 crystals of a hydrochloride, and the solution also gave with 

 platinum chloride crystals of a platinochloride melting at 208°. 

 Analysis of this latter salt showed that the amine present pos- 

 sessed the empirical formula C3H9N. There are four possible 

 isomers of this formula, three of which, trimethylamine, propyl- 

 amine, and isopropylamine, have been prepared ; and methyl 

 ethylamine, which has hitherto been unknown. The hydro- 

 chloride yielded the ba e itself, by action of the strongest potash, 

 in the form of a clear liquid of intense amine odour, unlike, how- 

 ever, that of trimethylamine. The properties of its salts were 

 also found to exclude the possibility of its being propyl- or iso- 

 propylamine, so an attempt was ma-le to prepare synthetically 

 the only other possible isomer, methyl-ethylamine. This was 

 successfully accomplished by heating methyl iodide with a 

 mixture of 30 per cent, ethylamine solution and alcohol in a 

 sealed tube at 100° for three hours. The product was distilled as 

 far as possible in steam, the residue decomposed with potash, and 

 the remainder of the volatile amines driven over in steam. The 

 aqueous solution of the mixed distillate was then shaken with 

 ethyl oxalate, and successive products were obtained, on con- 

 centration, of diethyl oxamide, acid ethylamine oxalate, and, 

 lastly, the oxa'ate of the sought for base, methyl-ethylamine. 

 This salt, when recrystallized, melted at 154°, like the oxalate 

 prepared from the amine derived from morphine; and from it 

 the hydrochloride, platinochloride, gold chloride, and free base 

 were prepared, in every case the products being identical with 

 those prepared from the base of morphine. 



Messrs. Smith, Elder, and Co. have issued a third 

 edition of Darwin's work on "Coral Reefs." To this edi- 

 tion Prof. Bonney contributes an appendix, giving an account 

 of recent speculations — about which there was lately so much 

 discussion in Nature — as to the origin of coral reefs. 



A CHEAP edition of Darwin's "Journal of Researches into the 

 Natural History and Geology of the Countries visited during the 

 Voyage of H.M. S. Beadle round the World," has been 

 published by Mr. Murray. The portrait of Darwin which ap- 

 peared in the Nature series of " Scientific Worthies " is 

 prefixed to this edition. 



Messrs. Charles Grikfn and Co. have published a sixth 

 edition of " A Pocket-book of Electrical Rules and Tables for the 

 use of Electricians and Engineers," by John Munro and Andrew 

 Jamieson. The work has been thoroughly revised, and enlarged 

 by about I20 pages and 60 new figures. 



SoMt valuable contributions towards a Flora of Caithness, by 

 J. F. Grant and Arthur Bennett, have been reprinted from the 

 Scottish Naturalist. The number of species and varieties that 

 are admitted for the county of Caithness is over 600, a fair num- 

 ber, the authors think, considering the physical features of the 

 county. Caithness has about 80 species that have not yet been 

 found in Sutherland, and about the same number not yet found 

 in the Orkneys. 



The Smithsonian Institution has issue I six lithographs illustra- 

 tive of the anatomy of Astrangla Dj'tae. The plates were 

 drawn by Mr. Sonrel, in 1849, under the direction of Prof. 

 Agassiz, who intended to prepare a complete memoir on the 

 subject. Mr. J. Walter Fewkes has written an explanation of 

 the plates to m.ake them available to students of marine in- 

 vertebrates. 



