632 



NATURE 



\Oct. 10, 1878 



" The Sphagnacere, or Peat Mosses of Europe and North 

 America," by R. Braithwaite, M.D., F.L.S., &c,, iUtistrated 

 with 29 plates; "Pollen," byM.P. Edgeworth, F.L.S. F.R.S., 

 second edition, revised and . corrected, illustrated with 438 

 figures; "The Ferns of North America," by Prof, D. C. 

 Eaton, of Yale College, illustrated with numerous coloured 

 plates by James H. Emerton, to be completed in 20 parts, pub- 

 lished at intervals of about two months ; " Flowers, their 

 Origin, Shapes, Perfumes, and Colours," by J. E. Taylor, 

 F.L.S. , F.G.S., second edition; "Health Primers," edited by 

 J. Langdon Down, M.D., F.R.C.P., Henry Power, M.B., 

 F.R.C.S. ; J. Mortimer-Granville, M.D., F.G.S., F.S.S. ; and 

 John Tweedy, F.R.C.S. Under this title will he. issued a series 

 of shilling primers on subjects connected with the preservation 

 of health, written and edited by eminent medical authorities. 

 The following volumes will be issued in Octobers— " Premature 

 Death, its Promotion and Prevention ; " "Alcohol, its Use and 

 Abuse ; " " Personal Appearances in Health, and Disease (illus- 

 trated);" " Exercise and Training " (illustrated) i. "The House 

 and its Surroundings ; " " The Skin and its. Troubles " (illus- 

 trated) ; "Baths and Bathing.". .Others will follow at short 

 intervals. , . 



The national ///^" for the distribution of the Paris Exhibition 

 awards will take place, as stated, on October 22. The whole 

 of th6 Versailles Park will be lighted by electricity. 



%.JlTS, connection with the .meeting of the Library Association 

 last week at Oxford, we would recommend to our readers' 

 attention a most interesting and really amusing little brochure by 

 Mr. H. B. Wheatley, entitled " VVhat is an; Index? A few 

 Notes on Indexes and Indexers." Mr. Wheatley gives many 

 amusing instances of how not to do it, and his pamphlet will l?e 

 found useful not only to indexers, but to all who in any \vay 

 have to do with the a,rrangement of wTitten or printed matter. 

 It is published by Sotheran and Co. The Library Association 

 has already assumed vigorous proportions, and in spite of its 

 much talk seems likely to do real service to existing libraries 

 and to the promotion of new ones. 



The great work of connecting the triangulation of Algeria 

 with the geodetic net-work of Europe, through Spain, is pro- 

 gressing favourably. The Spanish staff officers under General 

 Ibanez have established their post on Sierra Nevada and Mount 

 Tetica, and tlie French near Nemours, and Ben Sabra, near 

 Oran. M. Perrier, member of the Bureau des Longitudes, 

 and director of the French Survey, will very shortly proceed 

 to Algiers to take the last readings from the French side. 



Of all the accidents to which submerged submarine cables are 

 liable, one would suppose that that by fire would be the very 

 last that would occiu-. Nevertheless, such an accident has 

 happened to the Forth cable belonging to the Post Office. 

 Lately all four wires were found earthy. The fault showed 

 itself by test to be close to the shore. It was found below high, 

 water mark at the foot of the cliff. Some boys during low 

 water had been making a fire with the shavings and ^rubbish 

 found on the beach, immediately over the cable, melting the 

 compound and gutta percha of the core, and leaving the copper 

 wires bare and in contact with the outside sheathing. 



The municipality of Prague, advised by the Hygienic Council 

 of that city, have just issued an edict prohibiting ladies from 

 wearing dresses with long trains in the public streets, on account 

 of the" dust which the appendices raise being detrimental to 

 public health. The municipality of Leipzig published a similar 

 edict some time ago. These measures are easily explained by the 

 habit assumed by many representatives of the fair sex of letting 

 their trains drag through dust (and worse) for the sake of pro- 

 ducing an effect which we presume milliners consider important 

 from the point of view of sexual selection. 



The Meteorological Central Office of Vienna reports upon an 

 aurora borealis of immense extent on September 25. It appears 

 that the phenomenon was visible for several nights in the whole 

 of Scandinavia and Northern Russia. It covered the larger 

 portion of the northern sky, and appeared in a yellowish red 

 light, with frequent undulations of bright and intensely yellow 

 rays. 



We are glad to see that Prof. Geikie has added to the useful- 

 ness of his "Elementaiy Lessons in Physical Geography" by 

 preparing a series of questions. These have recently been 

 issued by Macmillan and Co. 



The Paris Temps publishes daily the charts of the Central 

 Bureau of French Meteorology. The experiment was tried by 

 the Opinion Nationale two years ago, but was discontinued. 



Prof. Lebour has prepared a convenient and complete cata- 

 logue of the Huttou collection of fossil plants, which are 

 specially valuable as illustrating the carboniferous flora of some of 

 the horizon in the Newcastle coal-field. The system followed is, 

 with few exceptions, that of Schimper, The catalogue has 

 been drawn up by order of the Cqun(;il.pf the North of England 

 Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers. 



The Cologne Gazette announces that on Saturday night two 

 slight shocks of earthquakes were remarked at Buir and in the 

 siurrounding district. The first occurred about 10 o'clock, and 

 the second about an hour later. There was a slight shock of 

 earthquake at Parma during the night of the 2nd inst. 



The Annual Exhibition of the Photographic Society was 

 opened yesterday. 



There will be a meeting of anthropologists combined with an 

 anthropological exhibition at Moscow during the summer of 

 1879.' - ■ ■• 



Th^ appearance of phylloxera in some vineyards near Bonn, 

 on the Rhine, has been officially announced. 



" Tables for Use in the Verification of Standards of Weight 

 and Measure," by Dr. O. J. Broch, Standards Commission, 

 Christiania, is the title of a valuable paper recently translated 

 under the directions of the Standards Department, Board of 

 Trade. It embraces tables of specific gravity, coefficients of 

 expansion, elastic force of aqueous vapour, and the weight of 

 water. 



Mr. L. S. Benson, New York, of w notoriety, has submitted 

 to English mathematicians his demonstration (this time in ink) 

 of a discrepancy between the analytical and geometrical proofs 

 of a property of the parabola, viz., that the area of any segment 

 is exactly two-thirds of the rectangle on abscissa and ordinate. 



The Dutch Government, encouraged by the excellent results 

 obtained, in a commercial point of view, through the construc- 

 tion of the Y-Muiden Canal, which connects Amsterdam 

 directly with the German Ocean, has now the intention to 

 construct a similar canal to connect Amsterdam with 

 Gorinchem, and to render the Waal and the Rhine navigable 

 for sea-going vessels, so that even larger vessels could in 

 future sail as far as Amheim, and s'Hertogenbosch. Of course 

 Rotterdam, Dortrecht, Moordijk, and Flushing would also 

 benefit by the completion of the intended new works. 



The New York Daily Graphic furnishes some particulars of 

 interest respecting the Nez Perces, a tribe of Indian.«, the 

 greater portion of which was captured by the United States' 

 troops about a year ago and ; confined in an encampment near 

 Fort Lpavenworth, on the Missouri. Their chief, it appears, 

 carries in his hand a looking-glass which "is used to direct 

 military manoeuvres in battle by means of reflected rays of light. 

 Their various significations, however, have never yet been 

 found out by the white man . . ... The orders are apparently 



