396 



NATURE 



[August 23, 1888 



We have already called attention (p. 359) to the address 

 delivered by M. Janssen on July 23, at the French Academy of 

 Sciences, on the late Jules Henri Debray. M. Debray was 

 born at Amiens in 1827, and entered the Normal School in 

 1847. There he became the collaborator of the illustrious 

 Sainte-Claire Deville, with whom his name will always be 

 intimately associated. As M. Janssen said, it is by his re- 

 searches on dissociation, in which he developed M. Deville's 

 ideas, that M. Debray will be chiefly remembered. lie suc- 

 ceeded M. Deville at the Paris Faculty of Sciences, and at the 

 Normal School. M. Debray was also assayer to the " Garan- 

 tie " of Paris, Vice-President of the Society for the Encourage- 

 ment of National Industry, and a member of the Higher Council 

 of Public Instruction and of the Consulting Committee of Arts 

 and Manufactures. He was considered one of the most active 

 and distinguished members of the Academy of Sciences. After 

 a short illness he died on July 19. 



We regret to record the death of Mr. William H. Baily, 

 Acting Palaeontologist of the Geological Survey of Ireland. He 

 was born at Bristol in 1819. In 1844, having held for some 

 years an appointment in the Bristol Museum, Mr. Baily was 

 attached by the late Sir Henry de la Beche to the Geological 

 Survey of England. He acted first as a draughtsman, and 

 afterwards as assistant naturalist under Edward Forbes and 

 subsequently under Prof. Huxley. In 1857, Mr. Baily was 

 transferred to the Irish branch of the Geological Survey as Palae- 

 ontologist, and this office he held until his death. He was also 

 Demonstrator in Palaeontology to the Royal College of Science, 

 Dublin. Mr. Baily often contributed to the Proceedings of the 

 Royal Irish Academy, of the Linnean and Geological Societies 

 of London, of the Royal Geological Society of Dublin, and of 

 various kindred Societies in Europe and the United States. His 

 most important work was his " Characteristic British Fossils," 

 which was incomplete at the time of his death. 



Mr. Seth Green, whose death from paralysis of the brain 

 is announced from New York, made a great reputation in con- 

 nection with fish culture in the United States. Me died at the 

 age of seventy-one. Mr. Green was appointed in 1868 one of 

 the Fish Commissioners of New York, and soon afterwards was 

 made Superintendent of Fisheries in that State. He was 

 decorated with two gold medals by the Societe d'Acclimatation 

 of Paris. Mr. Green was the author of "Trout Culture," 1870, 

 and "Fish Hatching and Fish Catching," 1879. 



Neutral chloride of platinum has been obtained in fine per- 

 manent crystals of the composition PtCl 4 . 4H0O by M. Engel 

 {Bulletin de la Soc. Chim.). The universally-employed chloride 

 of platinum is, as is well known, in reality a chloroplatinate, 

 PtCl 4 . 2HCI . 6H 2 ; and the neutral chloride cannot be 

 obtained from it by merely raising its temperature, which causes 

 it to part with a portion of its chlorine in addition to the hydro- 

 chloric acid, leaving the lower chloride, PtCl 2 . Some time ago, 

 however, a neutral salt was prepared by Norton, who assigned 

 to it the formula PtCl 4 . 5H 2 0. Norton's method of preparation 

 consisted in the addition of silver nitrate to the ordinary com- 

 mercial chloride of platinum in the proportion of two molecules 

 of the former to one of the latter. The composition of the pre- 

 cipitate appears never to have been thoroughly cleared up, but 

 the filtered liquid was found to deposit crystals of the neutral 

 chloride. As the whole subject appeared involved in a certain 

 amount of doubt, Engel has repeated Norton's work, and finds 

 that the neutral chloride is obtained under these conditions, but 

 that the crystals contain only four molecules of water of crystal- 

 lization. The reaction, moreover, is shown to proceed in the 

 following manner : — 



PtCl 4 . 2HCI + 2AgN03 = 2AgCl + PtCl 4 + 2HNO3. 

 The best mode of preparing the neutral chloride of platinum, 

 according to Engel, consists' in dissolving in a solution of the 



chloroplatinate the necessary quantity of oxide of platinum, pre- 

 pared by Fremy's method, in order to neutralize the excess of 

 hydrochloric acid. The filtered liquid, on evaporation, then 

 deposits beautiful crystals of PtCl ( . 4H 2 0, permanent in the 

 air, and not tat all deliquescent like the chloroplatinate. The 

 composition of these crystals was determined both by weighing 

 the metallic platinum left on calcination of a known weight, and 

 by estimation of the chlorine by fusion of the crystals with car- 

 bonate of potash and precipitation with silver nitrate. The 

 water was, of course, given by difference. In spite of the sta- 

 bility of the chloroplatinate, it is a somewhat curious fact that 

 the powdered crystals of the neutral chloride do not take up 

 hydrochloric acid gas at ordinary temperatures. At about 50° C, 

 however, the chloride partially liquefies under the influence of a 

 dry current of the gas, forming the chloroplatinate. As might 

 be expected from its non-deliquescence, the new chloride, is very 

 much less soluble in water than is the ordinary chloroplatinate. 



The Portuguese Government has given notice that from. 

 August I meteorological signals will be established at six 

 semaphore stations along its coast, between the River Douro 

 and Cape St. Vincent, and shown to passing vessels requiring, 

 information as to the state of the weather in the Bay of Biscay, 

 at Gibraltar, and at Madeira. Each notice will indicate the time 

 to which the information refers, the locality to which it has- 

 reference, and the direction and force of the wind, together 

 with any other particulars which the Lisbon Observatory may 

 consider it expedient to give. The signals will usually be made 

 by flags, of the International Code of Signals, or by semaphore, 

 when colours of flags would not be easily distinguished. This 

 useful information is at present only to be obtained from very 

 few countries. 



In the new number of the Journal of the Anthropological 

 Institute there is an interesting note, by Mr. Basil Hall Chamber- 

 lain, on the Japanese "go-hei," or paper offerings to the Shinto 

 gods. It has been thought by some European travellers that 

 the Japanese, prompted by equal frugality and irreverence, offer 

 paper to their gods because it is the cheapest article at hand. 

 Mr. Chamberlain suggests a more reasonable explanation. 

 Though paper is now used in the ceremonies of the Shinto re- 

 ligion, this was not so in days preceding the eighth century of 

 the Christian era. The offerings then were made of two kinds 

 of cloth — a white kind made of the paper-mulberry (Brousso- 

 netia papyrifera), and a blue kind made of hemp. Such cloth 

 was the most precious article in the possession of a population to- 

 whom luxury and art were unknown. Later on, when Chinese 

 civilization had brought a variety of manufactures in its train,, 

 hempen cloth ceased to be regarded as a treasure worthy of the 

 divine acceptance ; and, frugality perhaps helping, and partly 

 also in accordance with that law of progress from the actual to- 

 the symbolical which characterizes all religions, paper began to 

 be used instead. Mr. Chamberlain is unable to determine the 

 date of the change, Shinto having suffered such an eclipse from, 

 the eighth to the seventeenth century that little regarding its 

 mediaeval history has been preserved. During all that time, 

 Buddhism reigned supreme. Speaking of the general character 

 of Shinto as a national religion, Mr. Chamberlain says that 

 even native commentators, over anxious as they are to magnify 

 everything Japanese at the expense of everything foreign, ac- 

 knowledge that it has no moral system, no body of views of any 

 kind save worship of the gods who were the ancestors of the- 

 Imperial House. For this reason Shinto collapsed utterly at 

 the touch of Buddhism, and it fails to support itself now, when 

 an attempt is being made to revive it for political purposes. It 

 has nothing in it that appeals to the religions instincts of the 

 people. 



Messrs. George Philip and Son announce that they have 

 made arrangements for the publication in December next of 



