i6 



NATURE 



\Nov. 2. 1876 



Cherniaffsky, who has been many years engaged in the study of 

 the fauna of the Black Sea, and now studies especially the in. 

 fluence of the media on organic forms, reported upon his nume- 

 rous collections of animals from various depths, and traced in 

 them the slow variations which animals of the same species 

 undergo at different depths, and the appearance of new species 

 with the increase of depth ; the labours of M. Cherniaffsky 

 promise to be of great interest when published in full. 



Colours of Animals.— At the last meeting of the St. 

 Petersburg Entomologists' Society, October 16, M. Porchin- 

 sky reported upon some results on the exploration of a scientific 

 party engaged last summer upon the exploration of the Caucasus. 

 The southern limit of the region explored was the Steppe of 

 Erivan, a plain covered with sand, with some patches of vari- 

 ously coloured clays appearing in the low hills. A remarkable 

 feature of the animal inhabitants of the Steppe, insects and 

 reptiles, and especially of the lizards, is the most perfect coinci- 

 dence of their colouring with the colouring of the Steppe. The 

 same thing was observed also in the Steppe of Elizabethpol. 

 Interesting collections of the fauna made by the party were 

 produced at the meeting. 



NOTES 



Dr. Carl Jelinek, the eminent and accomplished meteo- 

 rologist, died at Vienna on October 19, after a protracted 

 illness. 



The death is announced, on the i6th ult., of Dr. von 

 Waltershausen, Professsor of Mineralogy and Geology at 

 Gbttingen, where he was born in 1809. While young he tra- 

 velled much, especially in Sicily and Iceland, making large 

 mineralogical collections, which he presented to the university. 

 He is specially known for his researches in connection with 

 volcanic phenomena. During his later years he was engaged in 

 a large work on the topography and orography of Etna. 



Prof. H. J. S. Smith's valedictory address to the London 

 Mathematical Society, on the 9th inst., will touch upon various 

 points affecting the present state and prospects of pure mathe- 

 matics. 



The popular German poet and mineralogist. Prof von 

 Kobell, has just celebrated, in Munich, the fiftieth anniversary 

 of the day on which he was appointed extraordinary professor 

 of mineralogy in that city. 



Dr. Rontgen has been appointed extraordinary Professor of 

 Physics in Strasburg University. 



Dr. Carpenter, F.R.S., Secretary to the Gilchrist trust, has, 

 for the special benefit of the Primary Teachers of the Metro- 

 polis, arranged for a course of lectures to be given by Dr. 

 Richardson, F.R.S., at St. Thomas Charterhouse Schools, on 

 Human Physiology, and its application to daily life. The course 

 will be opened on Friday, November 3, by Dr. Carpenter, 

 delivering an address on a Sound Mind in a Sound Body. 



William Clarke Miller, B.A. Lond., vice-principal of 

 Huddersfield College, has been elected Registrar of the General 

 Medical Council of Education in the place of Dr. Erasmus 

 Hawkins, resigned. The new Registrar has been long known 

 as an able mathematician. 



It is stated by the Medical Press and Circular that the Gold- 

 smith's Company has voted a sum of 1,000/. to the Chemical 

 Society to aid in the formation of the fund to be devoted to the 

 promotion of original research in the science of chemistry. 



M. Waddington, the mtelHgent Minister of Public Instruc- 

 tion in France, has come to a most liberal decision on behalf of 

 the Paris Observatory. According to the standing financial rules 



used in France, no adjudicator of works executed in the public 

 interest is entitled to be paid except when his task has been 

 completed and received. As an exception, M. Leverrier is 

 authorised to pay in advance to the opticians and philosophical 

 instrument makers a sum amounting to one-third of the total 

 value. 



The Bischofsheim transit instrument, which has been so long 

 delayed by the red-tapeism of the Finance Department, is almost 

 finished, and observations will very shortly be inaugurated in the 

 new pavillion which has been built on an improved scheme for 

 its reception. 



M. Feil, the glass-worker of Paris, has just finished the cast- 

 ing of the crown-glass lens for the great Vienna refractor. The 

 diameter is 28 inches and the weight 112 pounds. It will be 

 sent immediately to Mr. Howard Grubb, of Dublin, who already 

 possesses the flint lens. 



The course of lectures at the Sorbonne for candidates for the 

 licence and pupils of the Normal Schools was opened a few days 

 since. In former years the lecturers were confined to merely 

 elementary subjects relating to mechanics, classics, astronomy, 

 differential and integral calculus. But this year M. Bonnet lec- 

 tures on the recent discoveries in high geometry, and M. Puiseux 

 on a subject which has been largely discussed by men of science 

 in England, the figure that the earth must have taken wing to 

 its fluidity. 



With exception of the schools of Paris, which rank among 

 the first in the world, most of the faculties of sciences and lettres 

 in France (says M. Grad in La Nattire) have only five pro- 

 fessors. Now there were a hundred and thirty-five at the 

 University of Berlin, seventy at the University of Konigsberg, 

 against three hundred and forty-eight in all the faculties of the 

 fifteen academical divisions of France in 1870. The faculty of 

 sciences and that of lettres of Strasburg, more favoured than 

 others, had then thirteen professors, against thirty-six in the 

 faculty of philosophy and sciences of the present University. 

 The University at present has a total of eighty professors distri- 

 buted among the five faculties of theology, law, medicine, {)hilo- 

 sophy, and natural and mathematical sciences. This year 

 Prussia devotes to the maintenance of its nine universities 

 6,577,397 marks, of which 4,820,841 marks are furnished from 

 the State Treasury. With regard to population, the expenditure 

 per head of inhabitants is 070 fr. in Alsace-Lorraine, o'i2 fr, 

 in France, 0*33 fr. in Prussia. 



A committee appointed by the Russian Government at the 

 St. Petersburg Medical Academy to investigate various proposed 

 antiseptics and disinfectants, have arrived at the following con- 

 clusions : — I. Carbolic acid is the most efficient means against 

 the development of ammoniacal gas, putrescence, and develop- 

 ment of lower organisms in organic matter under decoaiposition, 

 and it is therefore the best antiseptic, 2. Vitriol, salts of zinc, 

 and charcoal, are the best nieans for deodorising matter under 

 putrefaction. 3. The powders of Prof. Kittary, besides the pro- 

 perties they share in common with other carbolic disinfectants, 

 deserve attention because of the isolated state of phenol in them 

 and their contents of quick-lime, which absorbs moisture— the 

 principal condition of each kind of putrefaction — as also some 

 part of the gases. 6. Chloride of lime and permanganate of pot- 

 ash quickly destroys the lower organisms in putrid liquids. 7. 

 The disinfectants certainly retard the putrid processes in organic 

 bodies, but their influence is only temporary, as a means of puri- 

 fying air in dwellings their influence is very small if not totally 

 nil, because of the very small degree of concentration of their 

 ingredients that can be used without injuring the health of in- 

 habitants . 9. For uninhabited buildings the best disinfectants 

 are nitrous acid and chlorine. 



