; 



May 17, 1888] 



NATURE 



63 



_ ackson, Mr. Hutchinson, and Mr. Brailey have been invited to 

 attend as delegates to represent the subscribers, and it is hoped 

 that many others may be able to attend, and by their presence 

 do honour to Prof. Donders. 



The meeting of the National Academy of Sciences, lately 

 held at Washington, seems to have been remarkably successful. 

 According to Science, the most important papers read at the 

 meeting were, the orbits of aerolites, by Prof. H. A. Newton ; 

 preliminary notice of the object, methods,, and results of a 

 systematic study of the action of definitely related chemical 

 compounds upon animals, by Profs. Wolcott Gibbs and Hobart 

 Amory Hare ; and report of progress in spectrum photography, 

 and note on the spectrum of carbon and its existence in the sun, 

 by Prof. II. A. Rowland. Prof. Newton, in his paper, sub- 

 mitted the two following propositions : — (i) The meteorites 

 which we have in our collections, and which have been seen to 

 fall, were originally (as a class, and with a very small number of 

 exceptions) moving about the sun in orbits that had inclinations 

 to the ecliptic of less than 90 ; that is, their motions in the solar 

 system were direct and not retrograde. (2) The reason why we 

 have only this class of stones in our collections is not a reason 

 wholly, or even mainly, dependent on the habits of men; nor 

 on the times when men are out of doors ; nor on the places 

 where men live ; nor on any other principle of selection acting 

 at or after the arrival of the stones at the ground. Either the 

 stones which are moving across the earth's orbit in the solar 

 system move in general in direct orbits, or else, for some reason, 

 the stones which have retrograde orbits do not in general come 

 through the air to the ground in solid form. 



Two gold medals were presented at this meeting : the 

 Lawrence Smith gold medal to Prof. Newton for his study of 

 meteors ; the Henry Draper gold medal to Prof. E. C. Pickering 

 for researches in stellar photography. On the evening on which 

 these presentations were made the following obituary memoirs 

 were read : on the late Prof. Henry Draper, of New York, by 

 Prof. G. F. Barker, of the University of Pennsylvania ; on 

 Prof. Watson, of the University of Michigan, by Prof. Comstock ; 

 on Capt. J. B. Eady, by Mr. W. Sellers, of Philadelphia. 



We are glad to see that the National Association for the 

 Promotion of Technical Education is hard at work, and that it 

 is likely to do excellent service to the cause it supports. In 

 reply to circulars sent out in August and September 1887 a good 

 deal of information has been provided from various industrial 

 centres, which it is hoped may form the basis of a fairly com- 

 plete report as to what is being done for technical education in 

 the United Kingdom at the present time. Meetings have been 

 held in a good many towns, and in some cases branches or cor- 

 responding Associations have been established. The Association 

 is also issuing a series of publications, each consisting of a page 

 or two, and presenting in a clear, popular style some important 

 aspect of the subject. Some of these papers are sold at sixpence, 

 others at a shilling, per hundred, and we may hope that large 

 numbers of them will be widely circulated. In a series of more 

 elaborate publications the Association has included the admirable 

 address delivered by Prof. Huxley at a meeting held in the Town 

 Hall, Manchester, on November 29 last. 



Colonel Turner's Report on the present state of the 

 borings in the Delta of the Nile has been received at the Royal 

 Society. The total result of the whole operations is to prove 

 that no rock exists at a depth of 345 feet at Zagazig ; at a depth 

 of 45 feet at Kasr-el-Nil ; at 84 feet at Kafr-Zayat ; or at 

 73 f eet at Tantah. 



The May number of the Kew Bulletin contains an interesting 

 paper, giving an account of the attempts that have been made to 

 introduce ipecacuanha into India, and the successful cultivation 



of the plant in the Straits Settlement. There are also valuable 

 papers on Brazilian gum arabic, Trinidad coffee, patchouli, 

 Cochin China vine, Madagascar ebony, and Shantung cabbage. 

 About a year ago the Botanical Department, Jamaica, began 

 to issue Bulletins. Six numbers have been sent to us, and each 

 of them contains some contribution or contributions worthy of 

 attention. The compilers very wisely keep local industrial needs 

 steadily in view. 



In a Report on the province of Florence, just laid before 

 Parliament, Mr. Colnaghi, British Consul-General, says that 

 meteorological stations, both public and private, are now estab- 

 lished at the following places in the province r — Florence (5), 

 Fiesole, Vallombrosa, Prato, Pistoia, Scandicci, Empoli, 

 Fiorenzuola, Caslaletti, and thermo-pluviometrical stations 

 at S. Miniato, Mercatale (in Rocca San Casciano), Pontas- 

 sieve, and Barberino di Mugello. Amongst the more im- 

 portant of these, he mentions the Observatory of the Royal 

 Museum of Physical Science, that attached .to the medical sec- 

 tion of the Reale Istituto di Studi Superiori, chiefly devoted 

 to the study of the varialions of the atmosphere, and the Osser- 

 vatorio Ximeniano, which is, at the same time, astronomical, 

 meteorological, and seismical, and is under the direction of the 

 Fathers of the Scuole Pie. For many years, he adds, experi- 

 ments have been made by Prof. F. Meucci, of the Observatory 

 of the Royal Museum of Physical Sciences, for the purpose of 

 ascertaining the correlation of meteorological phenomena with 

 the productiveness of the soil, and a series of Reports have been 

 published. In 1880 the Royal Tuscan Society of Horticulture 

 established, in its experimental garden at Florence, a Meteoro- 

 logical and Physical Observatory, by means of which the rela- 

 tion existing between the vegetation of plants and the meteoric 

 phenomena can be studied. The Royal Astronomical Observa- 

 tory of Florence is established at Arcetri, and is under the 

 direction of Prof. Tempel. 



Volume x. of the Repertorin.ni fib- Meteorologie, issued by 

 the Imperial Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg, and edited 

 by Dr. H. Wild, contains, among other interesting discussions, 

 one upon the anticyclones in Europe, by Dr. P. Brounow. 

 He has investigated by means of synoptic charts the barometrical 

 maxima which passed over Europe in the years 1876-79, with 

 especial reference to their movements and their causes — questions 

 which up to the present time have received but little 

 attention, although they are intimately connected with the 

 movements of cyclonic areas. The number of the maxima whose 

 paths are drawn on the charts, are most frequent in August, and 

 least so in July and March ; and, generally speaking, their motion 

 is towards east-south-east, while their motion towards the north- 

 westerly portion of the compass is very rare. Among the chief 

 results of his inquiry may be mentioned that the prevalent move- 

 ment of the maxima does not coincide with that of the barometric 

 minima, but deviates from it by an angle of 67!°. There appears 

 to be no important difference in the mean velocity of their motion 

 in different seasons, and although they move more slowly than 

 the depressions, the difference of velocity is not so great as is 

 generally assumed. Their origin is attributed to two principal 

 causes : (1) terrestrial radiation, and (2) the proximity of two or 

 m>re barometric minima. The work is accompanied by sixteen 

 charts, from which the author concludes that the maxima 

 advance generally in the direction in which the lowest temperature 

 exists, and that the lower the temperature sinks the quicker the 

 centre of the maximum advances, without reference to the season 

 of the year. 



An important addition to the chemistry of the element tel- 

 lurium is contributed by MM. Berthelot and Fabre to the May 

 number of the Annates tie Chiinie et tie Physique. They find 

 that this metalloid, one of the most remarkable links between the 



