636 



NATURE 



\OcL 10, 1878 



physics, chemistry, geolojy and mining, coal mining, biology, 

 en<^ineering, classical literature and history, modern literature 

 and history, modern languages, oriental languages, and textile 

 industries, and evening classes in all the above except experi- 

 mental physics. 



In reference to the question of help for lectures to the scien- 

 tific societies of English public schools, a correspondent sends a 

 Harrow list as a suggestion to other schools. He believes that 

 all the hon. members who are masters shown in the list have de- 

 livered addresses to the society ; the.rule always was to invite the 

 most eminent among the strangers who gave lectures to become 

 hon. members. Hence several well-known names connected 

 with literature or science are among the latter. 



The Working Men's College, which was founded by the late 

 Frederick Maurice, in 1 854 (and which naturally sustained a heavy 

 loss by his lamented death in 1872), with a praiseworthy desire to 

 extend its usefulness, has arranged for a series of general and 

 popular lectures., which are intended to be perfectly free, not 

 only to Students of the College, but also to the general public. 

 With this view the Council has managed to secure the aid of 

 such men as Professors Corfield and Lowne, Dr. Casson and 

 Mr. Frederick Harrison, all of whom take part in these lectures 

 between this and Christmas, This attempt to render the public 

 uses of the College much more prominent than heretofore will 

 not, as it 5i.ppears, in any way interfere with its ordinary and 

 recogiused , functions, and will not in »ny degree impede its 

 class teaching, which has always been of the highest character. 

 Various courses of scientific lectures by Mr. D unman and 

 Mr. Owen are annoimced. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 

 Journal of the Cincinnati Society of Natural History, July. 

 Vol. !., No. 2. — This number gives earnest that good work is 

 meant by the members. Its contents are chiefly interesting to 

 palaeontologists, who will find in it a list of lower silurian fossils 

 of the Cincinnati group, by Messrs. J. Mickleborough and A. G. 

 Wetherby, together with descriptions of many new forms found 

 in these strata, by Messrs. Ulrich and Miller. 



Reale Istituto Lovibardo di Scienze i Lettere, Rendiconti, vol. xi. 

 fasc. xiii. — We note the following papers in this number : — 

 Causes and circumstances influencing hereditary transmission in 

 animals (continued) ; Participation of the nervous system in 

 the phenomenon of fecundation, by Signor Lemoigna, — Anres- 

 thesia and anesthetics in mediaeval surgery, by Prof. Corradi. — 

 Influence of water on the spinning of the cod . of the silk- 

 worm, and on the quantity and quality of the silk, by Prof. 

 Gabba and S. Textor. — On some facts relating to saccharifi- 

 cation of amides in the digestive process, by Dr. Solera. 



Journal of the Franklin Iftstitute, Angast. — This . number 

 opens with a discussion, by Mr. Isherwood, of some, instructive 

 experiments on the expansion of steam in the steam-engine. — A 

 new method of grinding glass specula is described by Prof, 

 Elihu Tiiomson, the principle of it being the fact that when 

 two e(jual discs of glass or other material . are ground together, 

 one above the other, the under one always becomes convex,, while 

 the upper one becomes concave, and by making the strokes of 

 the upper disc wide and sweeping, this change of form may be 

 greatly accelerated, -^Dr. Morton gives an account of the singing 

 telephone as made at the Stevens Institute of Technology, — A 

 new method of reduction for diffraction spectra observations is 

 communicated by Dr.. Rosenberg. — The problem of perforated 

 pipes, as applied to "sprinklers" (a pipe system lately 

 introduced into cotton-mills for preventing the spread of 

 fires), is investigated by Mr.. Frizell. 



-:,: SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 

 Paris 

 Academy of Sciences, September 30, — M. Fizeau in the 

 chair. — The following papers were read: — Formation of an 

 astronomical museum at the Observatory of Paris, by M, 

 Mcuchez. This is to include portraits of astronomers and 

 savants, a collection of medals, drawings and photographs of 

 celestial objects and phenomena, ancient instruments, &c, — Ex- 

 perimental facts showing that abundant sudoral secretions are 

 not necessarily connected with excessive activity of cutaneous 

 circulation, by M, Vulpian, In a dying cat, e.g., when the 

 heart's action is ,much weakened, and the digital parts are 

 bloodless, the sweat exudes freely from these parts, — Re- 

 marks en the phonograph and the telephone, by M. Bcuillaud, 



— Determination of the exact number of irreducible co-variants 

 of the binary cubo-biquadratic system, by Prof. Sylvester. — 

 Industrial utilisation of solar heat, by M. Mouchot. This de- 

 scribes experiments made during the Exhibition. Inter alia, he set 

 in action, on September 2, a solar receiver with mirror having an 

 aperture of about twenty square metres. It had, at the focuy, 

 an iron boiler weighing, with accessories, 200 kilogrammes, 

 and having a capacity of loo litres (30 for the steam chamber 

 and 70 for the liquid). In half-an-hour the 70 litres were 

 raised to boiling, and the manometer soon registered 6 atm. 

 pressure. On September 22, with slightly veiled sun, he got 

 6*2 atm., and worked, under a pressure of 3 atm., a Tangye 

 pump raising 1, 500 to i,8cxd litres of water hourly to the height 

 of 2 m. With a clear sky on the 29th ult. 7 atm, was reached, 

 — Discovery of a small planet at the observatory of Ann- Arbor, 

 by Mr, Watson. — On intra-mercurial planets, by M. Gaillot. — 

 On molecular attraction in its relations to the temperature of 

 bodies, by M. Levy. To know all the isothermal and all the 

 adiabatic lines of a body, and so to be able to study it com- 

 pletely, it is necessary and sufficient to know ttuo of its iso- 

 thermal lines and only one of its adiabatic lines, — On 

 losses of charge produced in the outflow of a liquid 

 when the section of the flow undergoes a sudden in- 

 crease, by M, Boussinesq. — On the rotary power of quartz and 

 its variation with the temperature, by M, Joubert, The angular 

 coefficient of the curve of variation increases at first pretty 

 rapidly up to 300°- From this to 840° (the boiling point of 

 cadmium) it is nearly constant and the curve nearly a straight 

 line with point of inflexion about 500°, Beyond 840° and up to 

 1,500°, the rotatory power increases only with extreme slowness. 

 With a quartz of 46*172 mm., giving a rotation of i,coo° 

 at zero, the increase from 300° to 900° is twelve minutes per 

 degree. With a quartz of only 1 1 mm. the increase would still 

 be three minutes per degree. Thus quartz makes an extremely 

 sensitive thermometer, with the- essential condition of com- 

 parability. — Phonic wheel for regularisation of the .synchronism 

 of motions, by M. Lacour. An iron-toothed wheel turns with 

 its teeth very near an electro -magnet which is caused to exert 

 periodic attraction by means of a vibrating diapason.-^On the 

 presence of isopropylic, normal butylic, and secondary amylic 

 alcohols in the oils and alcohols of potatoes, by M, Rabuteau. 



CONTENTS Pagb 



The Electric Akc AMONG THE Gas Sharks 609 



The Medical Faculties . . , , , 610 



Miller's Chbmistry 614 



GdR Book Shelf :— 



Dunmaii's " Glossary of -Biologic^, Anatomioal, ^d Phyaological 



Forms" (,14 



Meehan's "Native Flowers and Ferns of the United States" . . 615 

 Porter's "Magnetism and Electricity for Schools and Science 



Classes." gjj 



" La Revue Magnetique " ,, gjj 



Letters to the Editor :— 



The Zoological Record, — E. C Rye 615 



Intra-Mercurial Planets.— Prof. James C. Watson 616 



Sun-spots and Weather.-rProf. Balfour Stewart, F.R,S. , . 616 



Cyclones and the Winter Gales of Europe.— S. A. Hill . , ,* , 616 



Magnetic Storm, May 14, 1878.— Rev. S. J. Perry, F.R.S.. , . 617 



Winds and Currents in the Pacific.—rS. J. Whitmee 617 



Blackburn's Double Pendulum. — Dr. Hubert Airy 617 



Circulating Decimal Fractions. — Thomas Muir 617 



An Old Map of Africa.— Commander C. F. Goodrich , , , . 617 



Earth Pillars. — ^J. Edmund Clark 617 



White Swallows. — David Robertson, Jun 618 



Secondary Lunar Rainbow. — R. Walker 618 



Bone Caves in Styria 618 



Our Astronomical Column:— 



The Satellites of Mars 6i8 



The Satumian Satellite, Titan 619 



Wingless Insects of the Falkland Islands. By H. N. 



MOSELEY, F.R.S 619 



Sun AND Earth 619 



Occurrence of Fossiliferous Tertiary Rocks on tup Grand 



Bank and George's Bank. By A. E. Verrill 620 



The Balloon Experiments AT Woolwich 620 



The Weather Case, or Farmers' Weather Indicator. By 



GtntraX K-LKKRT ].U.YERiVVtih Illustration) 621 



Are the "Elements" Elementary? II. By M. M. Pattison 



Muir . . 625 



The Late Sir Richard Griffith, Bart. By Prof. Edward Hull, 



F.R.S 6i7 



Robert Harkness, F.R.S 628 



Manganese Nodules in Loch Fyne. By J. Y Bixhanan . . . 62S 



State Aid to Science 629 



The Tournament of Incubators 629 



Notes . ', 630 



Cyon's' Researches on the Ear. By Prof. Alex. Crum Brown, 



F.R.S, {,lVitk Illustrations) 633 



University amd Educational Intelligkncb 635 



Scientific Serials 636 



Societies ARD Academies ........ 63S 



