208 



NA rURE 



\June 27, 1889 



the most part incorporated with the previous collection. The 

 total number of specimens reaches to 46,000, being nearly 

 double that of the Berkeley Herbarium ; and these, approxi- 

 mately, represent — 



Hymenomycetes 11,000 



Gasteromycetes and Myxogastres 2,oco 



Ustilagines and Uredines 6,000 



Discomycetes 6,000 



Pyrenomycetes 12,000 



Incompletse , 9,000 



The number of species has not been calculated. A large 

 number of these are types, and others as important as types ; 

 such, for instance, are the individual specimens used in the illus- 

 tration of "Mycographia." The entire collection is a most 

 valuable addition to the national collection at Kew, containing 

 as it does contributions from most of the mycologists of the 

 past forty years — Berkeley, Broome, Bloxam, Cesati, Currey, 

 Curtis, De Notaris, Duby, Ellis, Fries, Kalchbrenner, 

 Leveille, Montagne, Peck, Ravenal, Rabenhorst, Westendorp, 

 Winter, &c., &c. 



In a British official Report on Brazil, which has just been laid 

 before Parliament, reference is made to the Pasteur Institute 

 founded at Rio de Janeiro on February 9, 1888. Out of 106 

 persons treated between then and January 8, 1889, only one died, 

 viz. a child who only attended ten times out of twenty-three 

 attendances ordered. In sixty-two instances the dog biting the 

 people treated at Rio was recognized as undoubtedly mad. 

 Besides the 106 cases, 130 other persons were sent away as 

 having nothing the matter with them. 



The National Association for the Promotion of Technical 

 Education has reprinted the excellent series of "Opinions of 

 Practical Men " on the industrial value of technical training, 

 which lately appeared in the Contemporary Revieiv. A prefatory 

 note is contributed by Lord Hartington. 



We regret to announce the death of Signor G. Cacciatore, 

 Director of the Palermo Observatory. He died on June 16, in 

 his seventy-sixth year. 



Prof. Oscar Howard Mitchell, of Marietta College, 

 U.S.A., died at Marietta on March 29, in his thirty-eighth year. 

 Prof. Mitchell did some mathematical work which excited the 

 warm admiration of Prof. Sylvester, whose pupil he had been. 

 Of two papers by him in the American yotirfial of Mathematics, 

 Prof. Sylvester wrote : " I should have been very glad, not to 

 say proud, to have been the author of them." 



Early on Saturday morning an earthquake occurred at Watts 

 Town, in the valley of the Little Rhondda. A shock, which 

 was accompanied by a rumbling noise, shook the walls of houses, 

 and caused the inhabitants to run into the streets in alarm. 

 Crockery was broken, and in one instance children were thrown 

 from their beds. At Pontygwaith the shock was severely felt. 

 Mr. Davis, of Penrhys Cottage, says he was alarmed by the 

 noise, and thought it a more than usually violent explosion in 

 one of the collieries which abound in the valley. The walls of 

 his house shook so that he thought the place was coming down, 

 and he ran into the street. The scene in Llewellyn Street was 

 one of the wildest confusion, women and children partly un- 

 dressed running hither and thither, the greater number of them 

 being of Mr. Davis's opinion that an explosion had occurred. 

 A considerable time elapsed before the people were induced to 

 go back to bed. The weather had been exceedingly sultry for 

 some days. 



We learn from the American Meteorological Journal that the 

 Chief Signal Officer, Washington, has issued the following in- 

 structions relating to weather predictions for two or three days : — 

 " In view of the great importance of long-time weather predictions 

 to the hi=:ine-;s interests of the country, it is hereby directed 



that, on and after May i, 1889, the Indications Official shall 

 make, whenever practicable, a general prediction, showing the 

 condition of the weather two or three days in advance. This 

 class of long-time predictions will be confined to such occasions 

 and such sections of the country as from peculiar and persistent 

 meteorological conditions seem to urge successful forecasts. 

 These predictions will not be too much in detail, but will 

 clearly set forth the section of the country for which they are 

 intended, and the days of the week which they will cover. . . . 

 In making these long-time forecasts, the language should be 

 varied according to the necessities of the occasion, but should 

 always be in such form as to convey clearly to the general public 

 the opinions of the Indications Official, and also the degree 

 of positiveness that attaches to his opinions." 



Kruss and Schmidt's statement that both nickel and cobalt 

 contain a small percentage of a hitherto unknown element — 

 gnomium — amounting in the case of one specimen of nickel to as 

 much as 2 percent. [Ber. der deut. chem. Gesellsch., xxii. 11 ; 

 Nature, vol. xxxix. p. 325), has not been permitted to pass un- 

 challenged, and quite recently two papers have appeared which 

 tend to show that the supposed new element is non-existent. At 

 the time when they were led to recognize the presence of this 

 connnon impurity, Kriiss and Schmidt were engaged in repeat- 

 ing Winkler's old determination of the atomic weights of nickel 

 and cobalt, in which the ratio Au : Ni or Au : Co was arrived at 

 from the amount of gold precipitated by these metals from 

 neutral solutions of gold chloride. Winkler, in the meantime, 

 has repeated this work with carefully purified materials {Ber. der 

 deut. chim. Gesellsch., xxii. 890), and has not only failed to 

 obtain any evidence of the existence of gnomium, but moreover 

 calls in question the purity of the metallic specimens employed 

 by Kriiss and Schmidt. A communication from Dr. Fleitmann 

 to the Chemiker Zeitung (xiii. 757) lends considerable support to 

 this view. Adopting the method patented by Kriiss and Schmidt 

 for separating this common impurity from nickel and cobalt by 

 extracting the hydroxides of these metals with sodium hydroxide, 

 Fleitmann has examined a number of specimens of commercially 

 pure nickel and cobalt, and, so far from obtaining 2 per cent, of 

 gnomium oxide, has failed to isolate from 50 grammes of material 

 a weighable amount of any impurity which would serve to 

 justify the view that a hitherto unknown element was associated 

 with these metals. Fleitmann points out that when the hydrox- 

 ides of commercially pure nickel and cobalt are treated with 

 large quantities of sodium hydroxide, impurities go into solution 

 which vary in composition and amount with the source and 

 degree of purity of the metals ; these impurities consist of small 

 quantities of the oxides of lead, zinc, arsenic, manganese, 

 molybdenum, silicium, aluminium, cerium, chromium, &c., 

 together with an amount of nickel or cobalt oxide not exceeding 

 1/20 per cent, of the hydroxide extracted, and when separated 

 from the alkaline solution by the addition of an acid and subse- 

 quent precipitation with ammonium carbonate give rise to a 

 highly complex mixture of oxides and acids which can only be 

 separated and identified with considerable difficulty. It is not 

 improbable, therefore, that Kriiss and Schmidt have been 

 dealing with some of the constituents of this mixture, and that 

 on further examination gnomium oxide will prove to be a mixture 

 of the oxides of elements already known. 



We learn from the Daily Inter-Ocean, of Chicago, that 

 Lieutenant Schwatka has reported the discovery of a large tribe 

 of cave-dwellers in the unexplored regions of Northern Mexico. 

 Their abodes are exactly like the old, abandoned cliff-dwellings 

 of Arizona and New Mexico. So wild and timid were the 

 inmates that it was hardly possible to get near them. Upon the 

 approach of white people they usually fly to their caves or cliffs 

 by means of notched sticks placed against the face of the cliffs. 

 They can also ascend perpendicular cliffs without the use of 



