44 



NATURE 



{Nov. 14, 1878 



completed, the geographical position of every city in 

 Southern America -will be known with exactitude. 



The Annual Meeting of the Dutch Geographical 

 Society took place at Delft on October 27, when inter- 

 esting communications were made by the president 

 regarding the exploring expedition sent to Sumatra by 

 the Society. The explorers report having passed through 

 a number of districts which had never been visited before 

 by Europeans, but through the resistance offered by one 

 of the native chieftains, the expedition has now unfortu- 

 nately been discontinued, and most of its members are 

 on their way back to Holland. 



It is stated that the Russian Minister of Communica- 

 tions will shortly send a special expedition to the Amu 

 Darya district, to describe the new waterway formed by 

 the overflow of that river. 



The New York Herald publishes a complete list of 

 positions on the Amazon and Madeira rivers which have 

 been determined by the United States Survey Expedition 

 in the corvette Enterprise, Commander Selfridge. They 

 are ninety-two in number. The survey has demon- 

 strated that it is possible for vessels drawing sixteen 

 feet of water to pass during nine months of the year, 

 and by careful navigation during the whole year, up 

 to St. Antonio, on the Madeira. The river is always 

 practicable for vessels drawing only eight feet. The 

 Upper Madeira is not safely navigable except between 

 December and July. Every evening the officers specially 

 charged with the duty landed and ascertained the lati- 

 tude and longitude of the halting-place, with reference 

 also to its bearings with respect to certain conspicuous 

 stars north and south, east and west. Six careful sets of 

 observations, at intervals, were made to determine the 

 rate of the chronometer. The charts compiled are to be 

 reduced and published at Washington. 



NOTES. 

 We take the following from the Times : — At the meeting of 

 the Council of the Royal Society on Thursday last, the follow- 

 ing were nominated as council and officers for the year ensuing to 

 be proposed for election at the anniversary meeting of the Society, 

 which will be held on St. Andi-ew's Day, the 30th instant : — 

 President, William Spottiswoode, M.A., LL.D. ; Treasurer, 

 John Evans, F.G.S., V.P.S.A. ; Secretaries, Prof. George 

 Gabriel Stokes, M.A., D.C.L., LL.D., and Prof. Thomas 

 Henry Huxley, LL.D. ; Foreign Secretary, Prof. Alexander 

 William Williamson, Ph.D. Other Members of the Council — 

 Frederick A. Abel, C.B., V.P.C.S., William Bowman, 

 F.R.C.S., William Carruthers, F.L.S., Major-Gen. Henry 

 Clerk, R.A., William Crookes, V.P.C.S., Sir William Robert 

 Grove, M.A., Augustus G. Vernon Harcourt, F.C.S., Sir 

 Joseph Dalton Hooker, C.B., K.C.S.I., D.C.L., Vice-Admiral 

 Sir Astley Cooper Key, K.C.B,, Lieut.-Gen. Sir Henry 

 Lefroy, C.B., Lord Lindsay, P.R.A.S., Sir John Lubbock, 

 V.P.L.S, Lord Rayleigh, M.A., Charles William Siemens, 

 D.C.L., John Simon, C.B., D.C.L., Prof. Allen Thomson, 

 M.D., F.R.S.E. It will be remarked that Sir Joseph Hooker 

 has carried out his intention of retiring from the presidency. 



Prof. Wijrtz delivered his Faraday Lecture on Tuesday 

 evening at the Royal Institution, and was entertained at dinner 

 last night at Willis's Rooms. We hope next week to give a full 

 account of the proceedings on both occasions. 



Prof. Gyld£n, Director of the Stockholm Observatory, has 

 received the Cothenius Medal of the German Leopold- Caroline 

 Society of Science, for his important researches in astronomy. 



We understand that, at a meeting of the Professors of 

 Queen's College, Cork, it was resolved to erect a memorial to 

 the late Prof. Harkness, in the form of a stained glass window, 

 in the Examination Hall of the College. It is understood that 



the friends of the late professor in that city and elsewhere will 

 be invited to co-operate in raising the funds necessary for this 

 purpose. 



Dr. O. Finsch, the well-known Bremen naturalist, is about 

 to start on a scientific tour to the Polynesian Seas ; the expenses 

 of the tour will be defrayed by the Berlin Humboldt Institution, 

 and Dr. Finsch travels at the special request of the Berlin 

 Academy of Sciences. 



Our Paris correspondent writes that the Werdermann electric 

 light has attracted much attention there, and will very shortly 

 be tried at the office of the Temps. The Jablochkoff light is 

 still in operation at the Avenue de I'Opera, but will be stopped 

 at the end of this month, unless a new arrangement as to cost 

 can be come to. Indeed, our correspondent informs us, unless 

 the present price of this light is considerably modified, it is not 

 likely to keep its place. 



Among the latest news about the progress of electric lighting! 

 is an account of an interview with Mr. Edison, given in the Neuf\ 

 York Sun. His Electric Light Company proposes to light the 

 public buildings and private residences of New York with I 

 electric lights. The electricity would be made by twenty orj 

 more engines, stationed in different parts of the city. Each; 

 station would have an engine and several electric generating j 

 agencies. He thinks that the engines will be powerful enough j 

 to furnish light to all houses within a circle of half a mile.j 

 He passes the wires right through the gas-pipes, and bringsj 

 them into the houses. "All that will be necessary will-I 

 be to remove the gas burners, and substitute electric burners. 

 The light can be regulated by a screw the same as gas. He I 

 does not pretend that it will give a much better light than . 

 gas, but it will be whiter and steadier than any known light j j 

 nor does he know now that it will be cheaper than gas. 

 To the question as to whether he could measure the amount of \ 

 electricity used, Mr. Edison said he had made no attempt] 

 to discover a meter. " I know that it can be measured, but it; 

 may take some to find out how. I propose that a man pay sc 

 much for so many burners whether he uses them or not. If \ 

 find that this works an injustice why I shall try to get up a meterj 

 but I fear it will be very hard to do it." Mr. Edison says,j 

 according to the Sun, that ' ' electric generating machines could 

 be placed upon steamboats and locomotives, and the boats and 

 cars lighted by the action of the engines, but the instant that the 

 machinery stopped the lights would go out." Country towi 

 with the use of the electric generating machines, could be lighte 

 by water power. Any power could be used provided it was stror 

 enough to turn the shaft of the machine with the necessary rapidit 

 In an article on the subject of Electric Lighting in yesterday's 

 Times an account is given of an exhibition of a new electric 

 light by the Electro-Dynamic Light Company of New York on 

 the 29th ult. It is described as a very simple affair, consisting 

 of a small pencil of carbon a little larger than an ordinary 

 pin, connected by wires with an electric machine, and 

 inclosed in a hermetically sealed glass globe, which is filled 

 with pure nitrogen gas. The pencil of carbon is heated by the 

 electric current to a temperature of from 30,000° to 50,000° 

 Fahrenheit. In an atmosphere with which it cannot chemically 

 combine the carbon is practically indestructible, and the light is 

 therefore produced without any consumption of material. In 

 the experiments made five lights were placed in different parts of 

 the darkened room, and all were connected by wires with a small 

 electric machine. In an adjoining room a simple key was placed 

 in one of the three ordinary keyholes in one of the walls and 

 turned a little. Two of the burners attached to a hanging chan- 

 delier in the centre of the room immediately glowed faintly, and 

 as the key was turned still further around the glow increased 

 until a brilliant and perfectly steady white light was obtained. 



