Nov. lo, 1887] 



NA TURE 



47 



ments. A brief reference was made to the progress of Univer- 

 sity College, as sliown by the following table of attendances in 

 the day classes since its foundation in 1882. 



These results are better shown graphically in Fig. 3. 



During the last few months no less than ;,^30,ooo has been 

 contributed to the Engineering Department alone, but the other 

 professorships are all provided for upon an equally sound basis, 

 and Prof. Hele Shaw thus concludes : — 



"Hence, side by side with teaching, directed — sometimes 

 perhaps only directed — to the practical purposes of life, we shall, 

 thanks to the liberal endowment of chairs of language, of 

 literature, and of art, always have the more liberal studies, and, 

 as their exponents, scholars of the highest culture. Thus every 

 individual professor thinking, as he ought to think, his subject 

 to be the most important of all (a feeling I must, in common 

 with the rest, confess to having myself), and so led to work for 

 its due recognition, the happy mean will doubtless be maintained 

 between mere idealism on the one hand, and mere routine on 

 the other. Vet one word more. There is another motto pro- 

 minent upon the College crest ( ' Fiat lux '), in the spirit of 

 which work will always be true to the highest ideal. Our 

 national life depends upon our national progress, and when we 

 cease to advance, decay will speedily follow. Just as surely 

 our College life, vigorous because growing, depends for its 

 vitality upon the reality of the effort we make to carry forward 

 the light of truth, and should never suffer because we strive to 

 keep in touch with the requirements of practical life. Scien- 

 tific investigation and philosophic research must have their 

 proper place and support, and if allowed fair scope for develop- 

 ment, will exercise the needful influence, and one that will be 

 of untold value upon such narrowing tendencies as there may be 

 in our various schemes of technical education." 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 



American Journal of Science, October. — The relations between 

 wind velocity and pressure, by H. Allen Hazen. A compara- 

 tive study is made of the experiments carried out by Borda, 

 Hagen, Piobert, Didion, Morin, and more recently at Washing- 

 ton, showing the great necessity there is for further research 

 before absolutely trustworthy results can be obtained. Experi- 

 ments are much needed, especially with larger plates than 2 feet 

 square, with bodies of other forms than those hitherto employed 

 and with high velocities by a straight-line motion. — Is there a 

 Huronian Group? (continued), by R D. Irving. After establish- 

 ing the existence of a true Huronian Group, the author proceeds 

 to define its character, showing that many formations even in the 

 Lakes Superior and Huron regions, have been wrongly referred 

 to this type. The presence is clearly demonstrated of two 

 entirely distinct and mutually discordant series in the Marquette, 

 Penokee, and Menominee districts. In all these regions there 

 are great discordances between a lower set of gneisses and other 

 crystalline schists, intruded by granite, and an upper set of 

 detrital rocks carrying iron. The so-called Animike series is 

 then considered, and referred with the older Penokee formations 

 to the Huronian system. — Oxygen in the sun ; contributions 

 from the Physical Laboratory of Harvard University, by John 

 Trowbridge and C. C. Ilutchins. The experiments here 

 described have been carried out in order to test the soundness of 

 the conclusion generally drawn from Dr. Henry Draper's dis- 

 covery of bright spaces in the solar spectrum apparently coin- 

 cident with the bright lines of the spectrum of oxygen. This 

 conclusion is shown to be at least premature, and in the 

 numerous photographs taken of the solar spectrum by them the 

 authors have failed to discover any line that could with certainty 

 be pronounced brighter than its neighbours. The bright bands 

 of Dr. H. Draper's spectrum are found to be occupied by 

 numer ais dark lines of various degrees of intensity ; but the 

 hypothesis of Prof. J. C. Draper that these are the true repre- 

 sentatives of the oxygen lines is rendered untenable by the lack 

 of any systematic connection between the two. — Bismutosphairite 

 from Willimantic and Portland, Connecticut, by H. L. 



Wells. An analysis of two specimens of basic bismuth 

 carbonate shows them to Vjc apparently identical with Weis- 

 bach's bismutosphoerite, the composition of which had been 

 considered somewhat doubtful. — Note on some remarkable 

 crystals of pyroxene from Orange County, New York, by 

 George H. Williams. The lower back part of some of these 

 specimens is exactly like the lower front quarter, but in a reversed 

 po^^ition, so that the lower half is a twin as represented by Von 

 Rath, while the upper half is apparently simple and of the usual 

 habit. — The flow of solids, or liquefaction by pressure, by 

 William Hallock. The experiments here described point at the 

 conclusion that pressure alone cannot truly liquefy a solid — that is, 

 diminish its rigidity ; consequently neither can chemical or 

 mineralogical changes be produced by pressure alone without 

 a rise of temperature. — Analysis of some natural borates and 

 borosilicates, by J. Edward Whitfield. The serie-; of analyses 

 here described have been undertaken to verify, if possible, the 

 given formuliE, and correct errors caused by defective analytical 

 methods of estimating the boric acid of natural borates. The 

 percentages of boric acid as here determined by direct analysis 

 do not differ greatly from the results of Stromeyer's and Mari- 

 gnac's methods. — The Texas section of the American Cretaceous, 

 by Robert T. Hill. In this paper the author studies the true 

 character of the deep marine Cretaceous strata already determined 

 by him in Texas, at the same time explaining some new features 

 of it, which throw much light on the various American chalk 

 systems.- — Notice of new fossil mammals, by O. C. Marsh. 

 Descriptions are given of some new species of Bison aliicornis, 

 Aceratheriuni acutum, Brontops robtislus, Menops varians, 

 Titanops elatus, and Allops serotinus, recently received at the 

 Yale Museum from the West. 



Rivista Scientifico-Industriale, September 15. — On the pres- 

 sure of mixtures of gases and vapours, and on Dalton's law, by 

 Prof. G. Guglielmo and V. Musina. Regnault, while admitting 

 that Dalton's law on the tensions of vapours in gases is not 

 strictly verified, and that the maximum tensions are less in gases 

 than in vacuum, concluded thit the law was theoretically exact, 

 and would even be verified in practice in a receptacle whose 

 walls were formed of the liquid generating the vapour. The 

 experiments here described have been carried out for the purpose 

 of testing the accuracy of this view, with the result that the 

 attraction of the walls for the vapour is far from sufficing to 

 explain the discrepancies of the Daltonian law. Consequently 

 this law is not even theoretically correct, at least so far as can 

 be concluded from these researches, which, however, will require 

 to be repeated with apparatus insuring greater precision than 

 those here employed. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, October 31. — M. Janssen in the 

 chair. — ObserA'ations of the minor planets made with the great 

 meridian of the Paris Observatory during the second quarter of 

 the year 1887, by M. Mouchez. The right ascension and Polar 

 distance, with correction of the ephemerides, are given for Belisane, 

 Athor, Asterope, Nausicaa, Vesta, Antiope, Amphitrite, Polana, 

 Bellona, Hecuba, and Arethusa. — On the Observatory of Nice, 

 by M. Faye. In connection with the Geodetic Conference just 

 concluded at Nice, the author announced that the magnificent 

 Observatory of that place, due to the munificence of M. Bischoffs- 

 heim, is now completely finished. This institution, he added, 

 is entirely at the service of the astronomers of all nations who 

 may wish to avail themselves of its exceptional advantages in the 

 prosecution of their researches. — New fluorescences \yith well- 

 defined spectral rays, by M. Lecoq de Boisbaudran. The results 

 are described of spectral researches made with gallina and 

 samarine (Ga^Os -I- ^^ Sm-.Oj) moderately calcined ; the same 

 very highly calcined ; gallina and the earth Za^Og ; gallina and 

 the earth ZyS^Os ; and alumina with a small portion of the 

 oxide of praseodyme (Pr.,03) highly calcined.— Observations of 

 the new planet, Peters (270), made at the Observatory of Algiers 

 with the o-5om. telescope, by MM. Rambaud and Sy. The 

 observations cover the period from October 14 to October 17.— 

 Observations of the new planet, Knorre (271), made at the same 

 Observatory by the same astronomers during the period from 

 October 20 to October 24. — Magnetic declinations and inclina- 

 tions observed in Tunis by the Hydrographic Mission of 1884- 

 86, communicated by M. Bouquet de la Grye. The results of 

 these observations are tabulated for twenty-one places, whose 

 latitudes and longitudes are also accurately determined.— On the 



