330 



NATURE 



[Fed. 21, 1878 



support the Institution will offer to students of Russian archaeo- 

 logy. He also announced that the Russian Government had 

 permitted the publication of a special organ of the Institution 

 the first part of which would shortly appear, and would contain 

 valuable details dating from the time of Alexander I. 



A NEW Society of Ethnography, Archaeology, and History 

 is to be founded at the University of Kazan. 



The Annual Archaeological Congress of France will take 

 place this year at Mans and Laval, beginning at the former place 

 on May no and closing at the latter on May 28. 



An interesting course of lectures has been inaugurated in con- 

 nection with the new museum of ethnography at Paris, which 

 is well adapted to heighten the value of these extensive collec- 

 tions. Nearly every afternoon is appropriated to a discourse by 

 some well-known savan on topics illustrated in the museum. 

 Among the subjects for the remainder of the month we notice 

 "The Industrial Products of Central Asia," by M. de Ujfalvy ; 

 "The Ancient Mexicans," by Dr. Ilamy ; " The Lambaquis of 

 Brazil," by M. Wiener; "Feathers, and their Employment 

 among Savage Tribes," by M. Milne-Edwards ; " Peruvian 

 Ceramic," by M. Wiener; "Exploration of the Sahara," by 

 Commander Roudaire ; " The Useful Plants of Equatorial 

 America," by M. Andre, &c. Like most of the lectures in 

 Paris, these are free to the public. 



The woiks for establishing the monster captive balloon at the 

 Tuileries have begun in the court of the old palace. The 

 Municipal Council of Paris voted the demolition of the ruins at 

 its last sitting. It is proposed by the Corporation that the 

 demolition be completed for the opening of the Paris 

 Exhibition. 



News from Berlin states that Signor Martinelli has staited 

 from Athens for Olympia in order to take the casts of the sculp- 

 tures recently excavated, particularly of the Apollo of the western 

 front of the building and of the Hermes of Praxiteles. The 

 exhibition of the Olympian casts at Berlin will be deferred until 

 Signor Martinelli has finished his work. All the other casts are 

 now complete at the Campo Santo, near the Berlin Dome. The 

 second volume of the " Ausgrabungen von 01>mpia," with 

 thiity-five photographic plates, is in course of publication. 



Sir John Lubbock's Ancient Monuments' Bill passed the 

 second reading on Tuesday. We hope that it will this session 

 pass successfully through the final stage. 



Mr. W. Ackroyd writes to us with reference to the mechanism 

 of the ear and the bearing it may have on the structuie and use 

 of the telephone. In man the drum is inclined to the axis of 

 the external ear passage at about an angle of 46°, and may be 

 less or more in other animals. Mr. Ackroyd thinks that here we 

 are taught that the best disposition of a membrane designed to 

 receive aerial impulses is that of a less or greater angle to the 

 resonating cavity in which it is placed, the value of this angle 

 probably depending upon the depth and form, &c., of such 

 cavity, points only to be ascertained by experiment. In com- 

 municating these ideas the other day to Mr. Wilson, of the 

 Physical Laboratory, South Kensington, he stated that Mr. 

 Newth, of the Chemical Laboratory, had found that his tele- 

 phone worked best when he spoke into it in a slanting direction. 

 Mr. Ackroyd thinks that telephonists will receive many valuable 

 ideas from the study of the comparative morphology of the 

 external auditory apparatus as Bell did by studying the action 

 of the human tympanic membrane. 



We learn from the Annual Report of the Russian Hydro- 

 graphical Department, just appeared, that during the year 1876 

 the officers of the department took soundings in the Baltic Sea 

 and along the Finnish shores for 1,100 miles, in the Gulf of 

 Bothnia for 2,130 miles, in Lake Onega for 870 miles, and in 

 the Black Sea for 2,170 miles. 



The Central Physical Observatory at St. Petersburg has issued 

 its report for 1876, containing meteorological observations made 

 during that year at ninety-eight stations, according to the inter- 

 national regulations. An appendix gives the results of the hourly 

 observations made at Moscow during the last fourteen years. 



We are glad to announce the opening at St. Petersburg of a 

 new hygienic society. It is divided into five sections : Biology ; 

 Statistics and Epidemiology ; Hygiene of towns, manufactures, 

 and public buildings ; Hygiene of schools ; and Hygiene of 

 food. Prof. Zdekauer is president of the Society, and among 

 the members are some of the most prominent names in the St. 

 Pet^sburg University and Academy of Sciences. 



Since January 5 a new AllgeiiieiHc Technikerzeidmghdi?, been 

 appearing at Leipzig (Schafer) every week. It is a well-written 

 serial and contains frequent reports of the latest progress of the 

 natural sciences from a practical point of view. 



The German Emperor has presented a most valuable col- 

 lection of arms and weapons to the Ethnographical Department 

 of the Royal Museum of Berlin. The collection was made by 

 Herr Erdmann, the German Consul at Samarang (Java), and 

 consists of weapons from Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes, 

 Flores, Amboina, and other islands of the great Archipelago. 



Earthquakes are reported from the Lower Danube on 

 January 31 at 4.30 A.M. It is also announced that the cities of 

 Lima and Guayaquil, in South America, have suffered terribly 

 from recent shocks. 



For the first time since 1840 Lisbon has been viJted by snow. 

 Besides 1840 the years 1837 and 1839 were characterised by this 

 phenomenon. 



In studying the vibrations of solid bodies, M. Dubois has 

 recently got some interesting effects by use of water raixed with 

 vermilion. If this be put on the branches of a tuning-fork 

 which is vibrated, striae are produced, the vermilion settling in 

 the grooves of the liquid, and giving a figure. Operating first 

 with tuning-forks, then with sounding-tubes and vibrating- 

 plates, M. Dubois arrived at these two laws : — I. Two sounds 

 produced by different instruments give the same separation of 

 stria;, if these sounds are of the same pitch. 2. Two sounds of 

 different pitch give striae inversely proportional to the numbers of 

 vibrations of the sounds. In the case of the pipes (which were 

 open), a small band of paper carrying the liquid charged with 

 vermilion was fixed with wax at the open part. The vibration 

 of the air immediately produced striix;. The blast being adapted 

 to give a grave fundamental sound, a certain set of equidistant 

 divisions was produced ; then on blowing to sound the octave, 

 these divisions remained, but a second set of intermedia'.e lines 

 appeared. 



At p. 113, vol. xvi. of Nature we drew attention to the 

 gratuitous distribution of a little pamphlet entitled "Notes for 

 Observations of Injurious Insects." This was issued under the 

 auspices of a few well-known entomologists with a view of 

 obtaining any information, however varied, on the habits of the 

 insects and the conditions of the crops most conducive to their 

 increase. It will be remembered that the late Mr. Andrew 

 Murray took a lively interest in the question of the destruction 

 of the crops by insect pests, and read a paper on the subject 

 before the Society of Arts, so that the returns which have been 

 received in answer to the above-mentioned pamphlet and which 

 are now embodied in the form of a report will be specially inter- 

 esting to entomologists and valuable to cultivators. It is satis- 

 factory to find that some well-known pests were not so abundant 

 in some districts last year as they were in the preceding year ; 

 thus we are told that near Isleworth but little injury was noticed 

 amongst the onions from the fly, Antkomyia ceparum, though in 

 1S76 it was very def tructive, which indeed was the case generally 



