256 



NATURE If 



Sjfan. 16, 1879 



cause discontent with the present inadequate illuminating power 

 of gas in street-lamps. The expense is of course greater, but 

 we doubt if it would be so much as the cost of any satisfactory 

 system of electric lighting ; and perhaps, rather than ran the 

 risk of being relegated to the category of " lights of other days," 

 the companies may, by a little pressure, be made to see the 

 advisability of supplying better gas at even a cheaper rate than 

 the present. 



A NUMBER of friends and colleagues of the late Karl von 

 Littrow, director of the Vienna iObservatory, have ha:l a medal 

 struck in his memory, which may be obtained at a moderate cost 

 from the publishing firm of Ceroid and Co., Vienna. The face 

 of the medal bears a portrait of von Littrow, and the reverse a 

 view of the new Vienna Observatory. 



M. Delesse has been nominated a member of the Paris 

 Academy of Sciences, in the section of Mineralog)', in place of 

 the late Prof. Delafosse. 



M. Edmond Becquerel, who has been appointed vice- 

 president of the Academy of Sciences for 1879, will act as 

 president of the Academy in 1880, according to the constant 

 custom. The president for 1879 is M. Daubree, the celebrated 

 geologist, who was nominated vice-president last year. M. 

 Daubree has been nominated president of the Central Section 

 of the Geographical Society of Paris for 1879 ; M. Delesse, the 

 ne« ly-elected member of the Institute, one of the vice-presidents. 



1/ Our readers will regret to hear that Prof. Clifford's health is 

 still extremely delicate ; he sailed for IMadeira a few days ago, 

 accompanied by Mrs. Clifford, in the hope that the genial 

 clima'e would lead to improvement. We trust this hope will 

 be realised. 



The Managers of the Royal Institution of Great Britain have 

 decided that the next Actonian Prize shall be awarded to an 

 essay illustrative of the wisdom and beneficence of the Almighty ; 

 the subject being " The Structure and Functions of the Retina 

 in all Classes of Animals, viewed in relation with the Theory of 

 Evolution." The prize is 100 guineas, and will be awarded or 

 withheld as the managers shall think proper. Competitors for 

 the prize are requested to send their essays (with or without 

 their names being affixed) to the Royal Institution, addressed to 

 the Secretary, on or before October i, 1879. The adjudication 

 will be made by the managers in 1879. 



The widow of Faraday died last Monday week. 



It seems to be acknowledged that the readings taken by the 

 electrical instruments kept at Montsouris Ob;ervatoi7 are not 

 sufficient to give an accurate idea of the changes in the tension 

 of the air. During the present period, when almost every fall 

 of snow Mas observed during the night, the readings of the 

 !Montsouris Observatory gave ho sign of negative tension. We 

 are in a position to state that a self-registering apparatus would 

 have been kept in operation from the beginning of last year, if 

 it had not been required to send it to the Champ de Mars 

 Exhibition for the instruction of visitors. M. Marie Da\7 is 

 now engaged in putting into operation this apparatus. It 

 should be stated that in 1873 a scientific delegate having been 

 sent to England by M. Jules Simon, then Minister of Public 

 Instruction, suggested that the self-registering instruments to be 

 established in the French observatories, should be constructed 

 according to the pattern adopted at Kew Observatory, so that 

 comparisons should not be rendered impossible. The remark- 

 able conclusions recorded by Mr. Whipple last week are an 

 indication of the soundness of these suggestions. 



The winter has been so severe in France that the whole of 

 the land on January 1 1 was transformed into a solid mass of ice, 

 communication by rail, and even intelligence by m ire becoming 



very difficult in the elevated parts of the country. The most 

 extraordinary fall of snow recorded in the period was close to 

 Montargis, where it accumulated to a height of 2 metres on a 

 long narrow band of several kilometres long. In the meanwhile 

 the largest rivers of the land overflowed, owing to the great rains 

 which had been prevailing. The Seine reached an altitude of 

 6*2 1 metres at Pont Royal, the Loire was higher than on any year 

 on record at Nantes, where the inundation was a public calamity ; 

 the increase of the Garonne and Rhone was only stopped by 

 the freezing of the high lands. 



Among the papers to be read at the forthcoming meetings of 

 the Society of Arts are the following : — February 26, "Indian 

 Pottery at the Paris Exhibition," by George Birdvvood, M.D.> 

 C.S.I. ; March 5, "The Social Nec^sity for Popular and 

 Practical Teaching of Sanitary Science," by Joseph J. Pope, 

 M.R.C.S. ; March 12, "The Compensation of Time-keepers," 

 by Edward Rigg, M.A. ; March 19, " Economical Gardens for 

 Londoners," by W. Mattieu Williams, F.C.S. ; March 26, 

 " The Treatment'of Iron to^Prevent Corrosion" (a second com- 

 munication), by Prof. Barff, M.A. In the Chemical Section — 

 January 30, "Gas Illumination," by Dr. William Wallace, 

 F.R.S.E. In the Indian Section— January 21, "Quest and 

 Early European Settlement of India," by George Birdwood, 

 M.D., C.S.I. ; February 21, "The Trade of Central Asia," 

 by Trelawney Saunders. In the African Section— Febraary 

 4, "The Opening of the District to the North of Lake 

 Nyassa, with Notes of a Recent Expedition through that 

 country," by H. B. Cotterell ; March 18, "Some Remarks 

 upon an Old Map of Africa contained in Janson's Atla=, 

 published at Paris in 1612," by R. Ward; April I, "Thi 

 Contact of Civilisation and Barbarism in Africa, Past and 

 Present," by Edward Hutchinson. Cantor Lectures— First 

 Course, on "Mathematical Instruments," by Mr. W. Mattieu 

 Williams. The Second Course will be by Dr. W. II. Corfield, 

 M. A., on " Household Sanitary Arrangements ; " it will consist of 

 six lectures, to commence on February 17. The Third Course 

 will be by Mr. W. H. Preece, on "Recent Advances in Tele- 

 graphy." A course of two lectures will be given by Dr. B. W. 

 Richardson, M.A., LL.D., FR.S., on "Some Further Re- 

 searches in Putrefactive Changes," in continuation and comple- 

 tion of his course of Cantor Lectures given last session. 

 ■ A NEW application of the electric light has just been made by 

 some German River Steamboat Companies, Experiments made 

 on the steamers plying en the Weser and Elbe Rivers having 

 proved perfectly successful these steamers will henceforth be 

 illuminated by electricity. 



The captain of the steamboat Chillon, the Geneva coire- 

 spondent of the Times writes, which was caught in the storm 01 

 the morning of January 2, describes in a letter to the local papers 

 a scene which is not witnessed once in a generation. On Lake 

 Leman, between Rivaz and St. Gindolph, the two winds the 

 fohn and the Use, met twisting the water up into a column nearly 

 40 feet high and 10 yards in circumference. It was a veritable 

 waterspout, and, after retaining its position for several minutes, 

 took the form of a vapoury cloud and melted away. The 

 meeting of the fohn and the bise is more common on the 

 I,ake of Lucerne than that of Geneva ; but wherever it 

 happens it is terribly destructive, sweeping down the tallest 

 forest trees and wreckia^j every craft smaller than a steamer. 



A SLIGHT shock of earthquake was felt on Friday last at 3 A.M. 

 at Cologne and Eschweiler. From Buir two shocks are reported 

 —the one at 3.15 and the other at 7.43- The Neue Frcie Presse 

 announces a considerable shock of earthquake from Unterdran- 

 burg, which occurred on the iith inst., at 10.8 A.M. The 

 Central Observatory at Vienna reports a powerful shock at 

 loh. i8m. 15s. on the same day observed at Klagenfurt 



It 



