6o 



NATURE 



\Nov. 21, 1878 



singing of the West they think that colour and motion may be 

 made to produce emotions like good music, and therefore may 

 very likely be employed as adjuncts in the enter tAinments of the 

 future intended to work on the emotions. 



At a meeting of the Medical Society at University College, 

 Gower Street, on December 3, at 8 p.m., an address on "The 

 Use of Physiology to Medical Students," will be delivered by 

 Dr. Michael Foster, F.R.S. 



At the monthly meeting of the Linnean Society of New South 

 Wales, on September 30, the committee appointed to consider 

 Baron Miklucho-Maclay's suggestion for the establishment of a 

 zoological station at Sydney, presented their report affirming the 

 desirability of forming such an institution. The Hon, W. 

 Macleay having very liberally offered to afford facilities for a 

 temporary zoological station in the vicinity of his residence, and 

 promising the use of his museum, library, and microscopes to 

 students of natural history, the Society adopted the report, and 

 it was agi-eed to commence operations at once. 



From a promising new American fortnightly journal. Science 

 Nezos, edited by Messrs. W. C. Wyckoff and E. Ingersoll, 

 we learn that Prof. S. P. Langley, director of the Alleghany 

 Observatory, has just started on a voyage to Europe, being com- 

 missioned by the United States Coast Survey to make observa- 

 tions to serve as a standard of comparison in determining the 

 requisites for astronomical stations in American territory. The 

 inquiry will have particular reference to the effects of different 

 elevations and atmospheric conditions upon the fitness of various 

 localities for the practical work of astronomy. Prof. Langley 

 goes direct to Paris and thence to Italy ; the trip will include an 

 ascent of Mount Etna. In addition to the routine work of the 

 Alleghany Observatory, Prof. Langley has been busily engaged 

 in completi ng a direct experimental comparison between the 

 heat of the sun and the highest heats attainable in the arts. 

 The results indicate that the sun's intrinsic heat is almost beyond 

 comparison greater than that of any blast furnace, and far 

 larger than was reckoned by the French physicists. Prof. 

 Langley has also nearly finished a memoir embodying great 

 numbers of measurements and drawings at the extreme lower 

 end of the solar spectrum, particularly the A group. These are 

 parts of a research supported by the Rumford fund, requiring 

 also a new study of the distribution of energy in the spectrum, 

 as shown by the thermopile : Prof. Edison's tasimeter will pro- 

 bably be tested in the course of the work, using the Rutherfurd 

 gratings to supply the spectra. A great improvement, Prof. 

 Langley hopes, has recently been made by him in the accessories 

 of the diffraction spectroscope, by means of which the use of 

 collimators of extraordinary length will become practicable. 



Mr. C. E. Allan -writes that he has constructed a rough 

 pencil microphone, using cinders instead of carbon. This con- 

 struction was not sensible to small sounds, but speech was trans- 

 mitted very clearly. The pressure at the points of contact was 

 increased by winding wire round the cinder pencil, and by this 

 means the jarring sound of the cinders was almost totally re- 

 moved, so that songs, the notes of an organ, and the ordinary 

 tones of the voice were distinctly transmitted. 



The annual exhibition of the Haggerston Entomological 

 Society takes place at 10, Brownlow Street, Dalston, to-day 

 and to-morrow, at six p.m. This exhibition is always well 

 worth a visit. 



A CORRESPONDENT in the Times states that Mr. Edison, in 

 reply to a telegram, avers that, according to his system, the 

 altering of one light does not in the slightest degree affect others 

 in the same circuit. He can adjust the brilliancy of each light at 

 pleasure, it is stated, so that thus electrical lighting would be as 

 steady and as much under control as gas itself. " Whatever 

 method he uses, Mr, Edison appears confident of the success of 

 his system." Mr. Sawyer, being interviewed by a New York 



reporter on the subject of his lamp, said he did not claim the 

 incandescence of carbon in a sealed receiver as an idea of his 

 own, but had utilised it in the development of other ideas. He 

 claimed a form of conductor which would radiate the heat pro- 

 duced by the incandescence in such a way that the globe would 

 be heated only at the point where the light was. He had also 

 patented a process for charging the receiver with pure nitrogen 

 gas and entirely displacing the atmospheric air. He had 

 patented a means of so closing the receiver that no atmo- 

 spheric air could find its way into the interior. The nitrogen, 

 he claimed, would last for ever. Besides, there was a substance 

 in the bag at the bottom of the lamp which would absorb 

 oxygen and carbonic acid gas. These, he said, were hb im- 

 provements. One lamp had been in use two or three hours 

 daily for three months, until a sudden jarring of a door broke 

 it. There had never been any flaking or change in the carbons 

 used. The only change the carbon underwent was its purifica- 

 tion. Bef ore being lit it was a dead black ; after being incan- 

 descent for a time it took on the silver gray colour character- 

 istic of pure carbon. The sub- division of the light, as pro- 

 duced by Mr. Sawyer's system, consists of branch wires leading 

 from the two main wires of the engine. Each of these branches 

 is calculated to supply a number of lamps. The extension of the 

 main wires necessitates an increased heaviness of the wire for 

 each mile. In lighting New York a radius of only half a mile 

 from each supply station will be actually necessary. 



The Liverpool Corporation are taking steps to utilise the 

 electric light as a public illuminating medium as soon as it is 

 utilisable. They intend to apply to Parliament next session for 

 powers to this purpose, have appointed a committee to watch 

 over the subject, and have despatched their engineer to the Con- 

 tinent to examane into the use of the light in Paris and else- 

 where. 



A Daily News correspondent writing from Naples on the 13th 

 inst. states that the stream of lava from Vesuvius was slowly ex- 

 tending from the cone towards the Atrio del Cavallo, the ravine 

 or valley which separates Vesuvius from Somma. The stream 

 extended almost the whole way into the Atrio del Cavallo, and 

 divided into no less than three large streams. These were in- 

 creasing in size and extent, and the slight shower of lava had 

 also increased, but it was not sufficient to be observable from 

 Naples. 



An earthquake took place at Sierra Leone on the morning of 

 October II, shaking every house in the colony, and causing great 

 alarm to the inhabitants, but fortunately no damage of any 

 moment was done. There were three successive shocks felt, tra- 

 velling inland to a distance of about sixty miles, and the end of 

 each is said by some to have resembled three very heavy peals of 

 thunder following quickly upon each other. The natives in the 

 interior were so terrified that in many cases they deserted then: 

 villages. An earthquake of a similar character occurred about 

 fifteen years ago, 



A M, Bailey, of Paris, has invented an electric spark pen 

 which possesses some points of interest. If a sheet of thin paper 

 is attached to a plate of copper or zinc, it is stated that an en- 

 graving may be made with extraordinary facility by means of 

 this pen. If one of the poles of a Ruhmkorff machine is attached 

 to the plate and the other to the upper end of the pen, the 

 current will run through, and in " drawing the paper is per- 

 forated. When the drawing is finished, ink is laid on with an 

 ordinary roller, and the greasy fluid penetrates through the holes. 

 The plate is then plunged in water, which detaches the paper, 

 and it is ready for immersion in the acid.. The advantage 

 claimed for this method is that the artist does all parts of his 

 work and has no more trouble than if he were working with an 

 ordinary pencil. He can even work in a dark room without any 

 other light than the glare from the induction spark. 



