5U 



NATURE 



{April 2% 187S 



The Central Society of Agriculture of France took possession, 

 on March 13, of a splendid hotel which has been built for its 

 use and presented to it by M. Behague, one of its most active 

 members. This society is one of the oldest in Europe, having 

 been established more than a century ago, under the reign of 

 Louis XV. It has never been suppressed or interrupted in spite 

 of the several changes and revolutions the French Government 

 has undergone during that eventful period. 



The International Congress of Medical Sciences, which was 

 to be held at Amsterdam in September, 1878, has been postponed 

 to 1879, in order to avoid a coincidence with the Paris Interna- 

 tional Exhibition. 



M, BardouX, the French Minister of Public Instruction, 

 having established an observatory for astronomical and me- 

 teorological purposes at Besan^on, the genei-al council of the 

 Doubs department have voted a sum of 5,cxx) francs for 

 meteorological observations to be conducted in the building. 



The private view of Winkler's Lunar Landscape, which we 

 recently described, will be on Saturday and Monday next, at the 

 new premises of the Belgiin Gallery, 112, New Bond Street. 

 The picture will be lighted by artificial light, this having been 

 found to be most suitable to the nature of the subject. 



Kew Gardens were opened to the Public on Easter Monday 

 at 10 A.M., and will be opened at the same hour on future bank 

 holidays. Of the necessity of this step some idea maybe formed 

 from the following statement of the number of visitors on 

 Monday : — From 10 to I, 3,352; from I to 7, 42,833; total, 

 46,185. 



'■ Macmillan AND Co. are about to publish a little manual of 

 " Practical Chemistry, for the Use of Medical Students," &c., by 

 Mr. M. M. Pattison Muir, of Caius College, Cambridge. 



A TERRIBLE hurricane is reported to have occurred at Tahiti, 

 on February 7, in which 120 persons were killed, and much 

 property destroyed. 



Hitherto we have had no occasion to say anything concern- 

 ing the disturbances in the East, but during the past w^eek 

 there was a commotion at that now historical place St. Stefano, 

 which we cannot let pass without reference. Happily the com- 

 motion was only seismic and did no damage. It occurred 

 on Friday evening last and was strongly felt at Pera, while at 

 Ismid and Broussa damage is said to have been done. The sea 

 in the neighbourhood of the British fleet was so agitated that the 

 commander of a gunboat sent a request to Admiral Hornby to 

 give him previous notice on the next occasion of torpedo 

 practice. 



In connection with our recent note on chemical dictionaries 

 we notice the completion of the second volume of the German 

 " Handwbrterbuch der Chemie," ending with the article on 

 Electricity from the pen of Prof. Wiedemann, of Leipzig. 



At a recent meeting of the French Academy, M. Gaiffe 

 presented an apparatus with which one may determine imme- 

 diately, and by a simple reading, the electromotive force of any 

 electro-generator. It is based on Fechner's method of measur- 

 ing such forces, and the measures are read in volts. M. Gaiffe 

 employs a very resistant multiplier, and a small rheostat, by 

 means of which introducing resistances, greater or less, into the 

 circuit, the instrument may be adapted for very different 

 measures of electromotive force, the same divided scale, how- 

 ever, being always employed. On introducing such and such a 

 resistance you divide or multiply, in a proportion marked on the 

 contacts of the rheostat, the electromotive force indicated by the 

 galvanometric needle. Forces may thus be measured by the 

 instrument from ^ volt up to 150 volts. 



J. E. Peijsmann has just published, in Batavia, an account 

 of a scientific tour tluough the island of Amboina, one of the most 

 important spice islands in Malaysia. In addition to a variety of 

 valuable and novel observations, M. Peijsmann collected over 

 1,000 varieties of plants and 300 specimens of the fauna, which 

 are to be transmitted to the museums of the University of 

 Leyden. 



A NEW bridge across the Rhine is now in course of construc- 

 tion at Basel ; it will rest on five pillars. 



The Dutch Government intends to construct a canal from 

 Amsterdam through the so-called Geldern Valley to the Upper 

 Waal (the southern branch of the Rhine), and also additional 

 canals in the provinces of Drenthe and Overijssel. Both projects 

 are of great commercial importance with regard to navigation 

 on the Rhine and the comanunication by water between Germany 

 and Holland. 



Dr. Schomburgk, the director of the Botanic Garden, Ade- 

 laide, South Australia, has issued a very brief report relative to 

 the economical value of the various species of South Australian 

 " Eucalyptus," He shows that out of the large number of species 

 of Eucalyptus spread over Australia and Tasmania, only thirty 

 appear in the extra-tropical part of South Australia. The South 

 Australian species do not reach so great a height as those of the 

 east, north, and south, and only about ten species yield timber 

 that is much valued and used, though Dr. Schonibargk thinks 

 many more might be utilised. The most valuable timber in the 

 colony is stated to be the red gum {Eucalyptus rostrata, Schlecht). 

 It is the most durable of all the South Australian wood?, and is 

 mostly used for underground work, bridges, jetties, railway- 

 sleepers, and for shipbuilding ; moreover, it has the reputation 

 of being proof against the attacks of white ants. This tree 

 grows to a height of from loo feet to 130 feet. The next most 

 important speciej is the. white gum {Eucalyptus stuartiana, F. 

 Muell.), the blue gum {E. vincinalis. Las.), and the stringy 

 bark {E. obliqua, L'Herit,). Dr. Schomburgk points out that 

 the woods are not the only useful products of the Eucalypti. 

 From K. obliqua, E, leitcoxylon, and E. rostrata, acetic acid is 

 obtained; wood-spirit is also procured from the first two, essen- 

 tial oils are produced from the leaves of E. vincinalis, E. 

 stuartiana, and E. citriodora ; tar from woods of E. rostrata, 

 E. leucoxylon, and E. obliqua ; and from the barks of several 

 other species paper has been made. 



It is announced by M. Toselli, that through successive 

 improvements of his refrigerating apparatus, he can now 

 produce one kilogramme of ice in the space of two minutes. 



The announcement of the intended publication, in a short 

 time, by the Smithsonian Institution, of a complete catalogue 

 of the plants of North America, will be hailed with great satis- 

 faction by botanists. The region covered extends from Green- 

 land and the Arctic Ocean, on the north, to the boi-ders of 

 Mexico, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The species are 

 enumerated in their systematic sequence, with their synonyma. 

 The work will be published in two parts, the first, on the 

 polyptalae, constituting a volume of about 480 pages. It covers 

 the ground of volume i. of Torrey and Gray's " Flora of North 

 America." The title of the work will be " Bibliographical Index 

 of North American Botany," by Sereno Watson. 



The increase of volume of liquids through absorption of gases 

 has lately been investigated by Messrs. Mackenzie and Nichols, 

 in the Physical Laboratory of Berlin University. Experimenting 

 in the first instance with carbonic acid and water only, and 

 employing two different methods, they reach the same result, 

 viz., that the expansion is directly proportional to the quantity of 

 gas absorbed. They further examined the expansion of water 

 saturated with carbonic acid by heat, and got a curve having 



