io6 



NATURE 



[May 23, 187S 



tendencies of modern chemical research. General and physical 

 chemistry occupy 160 pages, inorganic chemistry 140, organic 

 chemistry 650, analytical chemistry 100, technical chemistry 170, 

 chemical geology 40, and mineralogy 60. Over 1,000 authors 

 are referred to in the course of the work. It is a strange circum- 

 stance that German should be the almost exclusive medium for 

 the publication of exhaustive and elaborate annual reports of the 

 progress made in each branch of natural science. 



Prof. Kolbe, of Leipzig, has just added another to the 

 numerous German text-books of inorganic chemistry, and justi* 

 fies its appearance by the opinion that the existing works, with 

 the exception of the translation of Roscoe's Chemistry, contain 

 far too much material for elementary treatises. A vigorous war- 

 fare is waged against the now so prevalent use of Latin and 

 Greek names among German chemists, a custom certainly 

 from a foreign standpoint not to be regretted, bringing as 

 it does the scientific nomenclature more in unison with that 

 of England, France, and Italy. We notice also that Prof. 

 V. Richter, of Breslau, has just issued a second edition 

 of his Text-book of In(M:ganic Chemistry, and that Prof. 

 Wislicenus is engaged on a new and modernised edition of Reg- 

 nauli's Chemistry, the ninth edition of this classical little work 

 which has appeared in Germany. 



A SECOND edition of Prof. Klenke's well-known work on the 

 adulteration of food is now being published at Leipzig (Weber). 

 The author has chosen the dictionary form for this edition, and 

 the title is now " lUustrirtes Lexikon der Verfiilschungen der 

 Nahrungsmittel und Getranke." 



The last part published of the Silzungsberichle der Miinchener 

 Academie fur 1877 contains an interesting report by Herr Her- 

 mann Schlagintweit-Sakiinliinski upon the ethnographical ma- 

 terial in the large collections made by the brothers Schlagintweit 

 on their celebrated travels, and gives a detailed account of its 

 distribution at the royal " Burg " at Niirnberg. 



The publication of the eighth edition of Ed. v. Hartmann's 

 " Philosophie des Unbewussten " is now announced. It is a long 

 time since a purely philosophical work has run through eight 

 editions. 



The experiment of using superheated water for locomotives 

 has been successfully tried on the tramway connecting Reveil and 

 Marly-le-Roi, in France. The engines are chained with water 

 heated to 180° C, which is allowed to vaporize as fast as 

 required ; and by doing away entirely with furnaces in the 

 locomotives, the dangers of explosion, as well as the causes of 

 terror to passing horses, are easily avoided. A locomotive, 

 propelled in this manner, and attached to two carriages, ascen- 

 ded a gradient of 5^ in the hundred at the rate of sixteen miles 

 an hour. 



M. L. A. FoRSMANN shows, in a recent communication to 

 the Swedish Academy, that solenoids are able to produce the 

 same unipolar induction currents as magnets, and that the same 

 laws rule in both cases. 



An immense deposit of guano has recently been discovered in 

 the Wershchowskij grotto near Oizowo, in the Russian govern- 

 ment of Kjelze. Chemical analysis proved the quality of the 

 guano to be in no way. inferior to that of Peru. It is stated 

 that Prussian agriculturists have already sent agents to Oizowo 

 to purchase large quantities of this guano. 



In the April session of the Deutsche geologische Gesellschaft 

 Prof. Beyrich exhibited two specimens of Ammonites iphicerus, 

 one of which came from Lichtenfels, in Bavaria, and the other 

 from Mombassa, in South Africa. On account of their close 

 similarity he assigned to the Jura formations of Mombassa the 

 same age as that of the Bavarian deposits. The specimens 

 attracted especial interest on account of the complete preserva- 



tion in both cases of the aptychus, the origin and use of whicli 

 still remain an unsolved problem. Herr Romer presented a 

 specimen of Archjeocyathus from the strata in the Sierra Nevada 

 immediately above the archaic deposits. It is the first fossiP 

 found in these formations, and places them probably in the olcf 

 Silurian. Papers were likewise presented by Herr Ladebeck oir 

 the regularity in the deformation of markasite crystals, and by 

 Herr K. Lossen on the albite gneiss of Schweppenhausen. 



Some experiments have lately been made by M. Grehant with, 

 regard to endosmose of gases through lungs separated from an. 

 animal. He finds in the phenomenon two distinct phases ; in the 

 first, the lungs swell till they even touch the walls of the bell- 

 jar in which they are contained, while a manomoter shows there 

 is considerable increase of pressure. Then comes a second 

 phase, in which the lung returns to its original volume and the 

 pressure diminishes. From observations on the living animali, 

 however, M. Grehant concludes that in this case the phenomenon 

 is very flight indeed. 



Prof. Kirchhoff has presented to the Berlin Academy a 

 series of considerations on the movement of the electric current 

 in submarine cables, based on Helmholtz's Avell-known equationa 

 for the components of the intensity of a current, and tha 

 electrostatic moment dependent on the capacity for dielectric 

 polarisation. The conclusions deduced are, that the rapidity of 

 propagation of the electric waves increases with the conductivity 

 of the gutta-percha covering, while the breadth of the undula^- 

 tions decreases in the same ratio. 



A GERMAN translation of Father Secchi's work, " On the 

 Astronomy of the Fixed Stars," will shortly be published by F.. 

 A. BrockhauR, of Leipzig. It will form the thirty-fourth 

 volume of the International Scientific Library. 



In No. 8 of the Jjurnal oiiht Russian Chemical Society are two 

 papers, by M. Lermontoff, on t he employment of two galvanometers 

 provided each with a Topler's apparatus for reducing the oscil- 

 lations of a magnet, and on the methods employed by M. Brauer 

 for the construction and verification of balances of prec'sion* 

 This latter paper is a detailed description of the methods devised 

 by the skilful optician of the Pulkova Observatory for manufac» 

 turing and adjusting the prisms of balances, special apparatus 

 having been devised by him and constructed for these purposes. 

 The verifying apparatus discovers any deviation from the straight 

 line on which the prisms should be placed, if it exceeds 30", and 

 the equality of the length of the arms of the balance is verified 

 with a precision of 0*0000125 of their length. We are all the 

 more pleased to see the appearance of ;uch a description, as the 

 methods used by constructors of precise scientific apparatus ar2 

 generally unknown. We notice also in the same number a note, 

 by M. Borgmann, on Maxwell's theory on the tensions in the 

 magnetic field; and a note, by M. Geschus, on the various 

 theories proposed for explaining the radiometer. 



A. Arzrxjni communicates, in arecentt number of Groth's 

 Zeiischrift Jiir Crystallographie, a number of interesting results 

 from a study of the crystalline properties of various organic 

 bodies. Triphenyl-benzene is found to possess the property of 

 double refraction in a degree surpassing that of any other crys- 

 talline body yet known. In substituted compounds he shows 

 also that the introduction of the nitro-group invariably causes a 

 much slighter change in crystallographic properties than when 

 hydrogen is substituted by bromine or iodine. 



The Phylloxera, which has been in Spain and Portugal for 

 some time, is now reported to have got as far as Greece. 



The additions to the Zoological Society's Gardens during th* 

 past week include a Syrian Fennec Fox (^Cams fcmelicus) froia 



