Jan. 4, 1877] 



NATURE 



209 



of a subject for essays, to be substituted for the ordinary subjects 

 set in schools. The subject is the Moral Education of the Lower 

 Animals, and is intended to train the observing powers of the 

 younfT, as well also to discover how far animals are capable of 

 moral training. 



At a recent meeting of the Belgian Academy, M. Dupont 

 announced the discovery of numeroiis vestiges of the age of 

 polished stone in the neighbourhoods of Hastiere-sur-Meuse. 

 No less than fifteen burial caverns were discovered in the locality. 

 Five of them have already yielded about fifty-five human skele- 

 tons and thirty-five sufficiently well-preserved skulls. Sixteen 

 dwelling-places of the people who inhabited at that period the 

 plateaux, are already explored, and have produced numerous 

 fiint weapons. These discoveries promise to throw much light 

 on the pre-historic ethnography of the country. 



The Pennsylvanian Company, which was formed some time 

 ago in order to convey the petroleum obtained in Pennsylvania 

 from the wells to the seaports on the" Atlantic, now intends to 

 construct a tube of 4 in. diameter and of some 300 miles in length, 

 connecting the wells with the sea. The practical possibility of 

 the plan is proved by works, which, for a distance of 250 miles, are 

 already in action and use. Baltimore was the first city with 

 which these new canals were connected. The oil is forced 

 through the pipes at a pressure of 900 lbs. on the square inch, 

 and at intervals of fifteen miles large steam pumps, of 10- 

 horse power, as-ist the motion of the stream. At Baltimore the 

 canal ends in enormous tanks, and these are in direct commu- 

 nication wiih the refining works. The cost of the new canal and 

 accessories is calculated at 1,250,000 dollars. 



In a note in the Bulletin of the Belgian Academy (vol. xlii., 

 No?. 9 and 10) Dr. Putzeys gives the results of his experiments 

 on new anaesthetics belonging to the alcoholic series, viz., the 

 bromides ol ethyl, propyl, and amyl. Inhaled by frogs, rabbits, 

 cats, and dogs, they were proved to possess the same properties as 

 chloroform. The interest of the result is increased by the cir- 

 cumstance that many compounds of bromine from the fat series 

 do not possess the same anaesthetic properties as the correspond- 

 ing compounds of chlorine. 



The July number of the hvestia of the Russian Geographical 

 Society gives an interesting report by Col. Bolsheff on that part 

 of the Pacific shores of Russian Mantchuria which lies between 

 the 45° and 52° north lat., a country the interior cf which re- 

 mained very little known until now. Almost the whole of the 

 land is covered with mountains, outliers of the Sikhotaalin, a 

 lidge reaching in its highest point 5,173 feet, and abruptly fall- 

 ing to the sea M'ith hills about 800 feet high. The high valleys, 

 which sometimes have a breadth of seven miles, seem to be well 

 suited for agricultural settlements. In the northern parts of the 

 country, lead, silver, iron, co^ per, and gold, were discovered, 

 this last seeming to occur in co.nsiderable abundance. The 

 population is very thin, numbering but 55^ souls, Chinese and 

 Tazes, who carry on agriculture, and Gilyaks and Tunguses, 

 living miserably by hunting and fishing. The settled Chinese 

 and Tazes are also engaged in the collection of sea-weeds and 

 sea-worms purchased in China, the Tazes being almost reduced 

 to slavery by the Chinese. Various collections, especially bota- 

 nical and entomological ones, were brought in by M. Bolsheff, 

 and will be deposited at the Russian Geographical Society. 



M. LiPi'iCH, of the Vienna Academy, has recently been 

 investigating the influence of the mean distance of ab- 

 sorbent particles upon absorption. As such an influence 

 must be especially prominent when the substances afford well- 

 defined absorption bands, and, with considerable density, show 

 no strong colours, he chose for his experiments the nitrate of 

 didymium oxide, which has these properties in high degree. A 



pretty concentrated aqueous solution of this salt in a vessel j cm. 

 thick was spectroscopically compared with a solution having 

 concentration only o'l, 0-05 ... of the first. The solutions 

 were in tubes of 10, 20 cm. . . . length severally. A Steinheil 

 spectroscope was used, and the liglit sources were two gas lamps 

 so regulated that both spectra showed the same brightness on 

 the parts that Avere free from absorption. Even with the con- 

 centration-ratio I : 10, there were marked differences in the 

 absorption bands. The very characteristic bands in yellow and 

 yellow-green were, for the more concentrated solution, consider- 

 ably broadened towards the red end of the spectrum, while the 

 sharp limit towards the violet was the same for both solutions. 

 The much narrower bands in the green showed quite a similar 

 behaviour. In the other parts ^differences were observed with 

 difficulty. Besides this difference in the breadth of the absorp- 

 tion bands, there were others in the distribution of the bright 

 parts. 



Prok. Bernardin, the indefatigable consctvateur of thu 

 Commercial and Industrial Museum at Melle, near Ghent, has 

 just published another of his useful lists under the title of 

 Classification de 250 of Fecules. The arrangement is on a 

 scientific system, the plants being classed under their natural 

 orders, commencing with the Cryptogams and proceeding vdth 

 the higher developed plants. The scientific name of the plant 

 is placed first under each order and is in italics so as easily to 

 catch the eye. The lists previously compiled by Prof, Bernardin 

 are Classification des I/uiles Vcgeiales, Nomenclature de ^t^o Fibres 

 Textiles, Classification deiip Alatiires Tannantes, Classification de 

 100 Caoutchoucs et Guitapcrchas, and Classification de 40 Savons 

 Vegetaux. These lists, when brought together, will prove ser- 

 viceable to all those interested in the application of plants. 



The phenomenon of fluorescence, according to M. Lalle- 

 mand {Journal de Physique) is much more general than has been 

 commonly supposed ; he knows of only two substances in which 

 it is nil, viz. , rock-salt and quartz. If it has not been remarked 

 in the majority of liquids, and even of transparent solids which 

 possess it, this is because all the spectral rays are capable of pro- 

 ducing it, and the fluorescence, instead of being produced wiih a 

 maximum of brightness and a proper colour at the surface of 

 incidence, is manifested throughout the mass of the body tra- 

 versed by the light and without a very pronounced proper colour. 

 M, Lallemand distinguishes two kinds of fluorescence — one 

 called isochromatic, or of equal colour, in which each simple ray 

 excites an identical vibratory movement ; this kind is produced 

 by all the luminous rays of the specttum in sulphide of carbon, 

 benzine, alcohol, ether, &c., and in water itself in a slight degree j 

 the other is that long observed in sulphate of quinine, and which 

 is therefore called quinic or hypochromatic fluorescence. Each 

 luminous ray here produces a fluorescence of less refrangibility, 

 with this peculiarity, that a simple light produces often a com- 

 plex fluorescence, containing rays of various refrangibilities, but 

 always inferior to that of the exciting ray. It is generally the 

 most refrangible and the chemical rays which develop quinic fluor- 

 escence of various intensities. A body may possess boih kind 

 of fluorescence at once, but the two parts of the spectra corre- 

 sponding to them may be very unequal. In glass and crystal, 

 e.g., the red, yellow, and green rays develope a weak isochro- 

 ma'ic fluorescence, the others produce quinic fluorescence, 



M. GiFFARD, the celebrated aeronaut, and inventor of the 

 injecteur, is constructing, at Forges-de-la-Seine, a small steam- 

 boat for service from Pont Royal to the Exhibition (1S78) Pier, 

 distance only three miles. The steamer will realise the extra- 

 ordinary velocity of forty-five miles per hour, and run the 

 distance in four or five minutes. The length of the steamer 

 willbe thirty metres, [and transverse section three and a half 

 metres. 



