232 



NATURE 



{yan. 5, 1888 



occurred instantaneously. Hence it appears that the action of 

 the magnet is to lower the temperature of transition from the 

 passive to the active state. In attempting to determine the 

 <;ause of this singular phenomenon, it was found that when two 

 iron bars placed parallel to the lines of force in the magnetic 

 field were submerged in any liquid capable of attacking iron, 

 the ends of one bar and the central portions of the other being 

 alone allowed to come into actual contact with the liquid, the 

 bar with ends exposed became in relation to the other as zinc to 

 platinum, so that on connecting the bars by wires a permanent 

 current was found to flow. Hence it is supposed that, in case of 

 a single mass of iron, local currents will be set up between those 

 parts in which magnetic poles are induced and the intermediate 

 parts, and Messrs. Nichols and Franklin are of opinion that 

 these local currents are the cause of the curious behaviour of 

 passive iron in the magnetic field. 



A MEETING was held at Philadelphia on December 12 to 

 jcelebrate the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Thomas 

 Hopkins Gallaudet, the pioneer of the movement for the instruc- 

 tion of the deaf in America. A short biographical sketch of 

 Gallaudet was read, and one of his poems was recited 

 by four deaf girls in the sign-language. Prof. Graham Bell 

 delivered an address, which was interpreted into the sign- 

 language as rapidly as it was spoken, and, according to 

 Science, was greatly appreciated by the many deaf persons 

 in the audience. The two sons of Gallaudet, both of whom are 

 engaged in continuing the work of their father — one as the 

 President of the deaf-mute College at Washington, the other as 

 a pastor for the deaf — were present, and made remarks suitable 

 to the occasion. 



Messrs. Macmillan and Co. will publish immediately a 

 new Treatise on Algebra, by Mr. Charles Smith, of Sidney 

 Sussex College, Cambridge, whose previous text-books on 

 Conic Sections, on Solid Geometry, and on Elementary Al- 

 gebra have been very favourably received. The new bjok is 

 designed for the use of the higher classes of schools and the 

 junior students in the Univer.-ities. One important change is 

 made from the usual order adopted in English text-books on 

 algebra, in that some of the tests of the convergency of infinite 

 series are considered before such series are made any use of. A 

 knowledge of the elementary properties of determinants being 

 of great and increasing practical utility, Mr. Smith has intro- 

 duced a short discussion of their fundamental properties, founded 

 on the treatises of Dostor and Muir. No pains have been 

 spared to insure variety and interest in the examples, which 

 have been selected from numerous examination-papers and fro.n 

 the mathematical journals. 



Messrs. Macmillan and Co. have in the press a treatise 

 on Higher Arithmetic and Elementary Mensuration, by Mr. 

 P. Goyen, Inspector of Schools in New Zealand. Feeling 

 the defect in most text-boo'^s of arithmetic that the worked-out 

 types are all of the simplest character, while the exercises which 

 follow them abound in difficulties, Mr. Goyen has worked out 

 an immensely large number and variety of graduated types, and 

 taken great pains to adapt the exercises to them. In the men- 

 suration, wherever the geometrical proof of a rule is quite simple, 

 it is given. A chapter on surds is inserted, because a know- 

 ledge of surd operations is useful in mensuration, and is 

 required in many public examinations. 



A GOOD address on some sociological aspects of sanitation 

 was lately delivered before the Philosophical Society of Glasgow 

 by Dr. James B. Russell, President of the Society. This 

 address has now been published. It contains some excellent 

 remarks on the extent to which the State has a right to limit 

 individual freedom in the attempt to establish the conditions of 

 public health. 



The Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic 

 Society (No. 18), just received, contains the Malay text, with 

 an English translation, of " Raja Donan," a Malay fairy-tale. 

 This is one of a series of cheritras, taken down, word for word, 

 from the lips of Mir Hassan. Among the other contents of the 

 number are an essay (continued fro n No. 17) towards a biblio- 

 graphy of Siam, and an English, Sulu, and Malay vocabulary. 



The editorship of the well-known Brunswick scientific journal. 

 Globus, clianged with the new year, or, rather, with the com- 

 mencement of the fifty-third volume on December 19. Dr. Emil 

 Deckert takes the place of Dr. Richard Kiepert, and at the same 

 time an alteration is made in the sub-title. Where, formerly, 

 this read, '* itiit besonderer Berucksichtiguns^ der Anthropologie 

 und Ethnologic," it now reads " mit besonderer Beriicksichtigung 

 der Ethnologie, der Kultui-verhliltnisse, und des Weltkaudels," 

 and in an address to the reader the editor and publishers ex- 

 plain that the alteration represents a corresponding alterati .n in 

 the programme. As before, every effort will be made to supply 

 abundant information of a geographical and ethnological cha- 

 racter ; but as German national interests have largely developed 

 and extended in the last few years, in future a good deal more 

 attention will be devoted to questions connected, as we under- 

 stand it, with German possessions and German interests abroad. 

 The practical effects of thus enlarging the scope of the journal 

 are not apparent in the number before us, but it may be hoped 

 that Globus will not lose its character as a popular educator in 

 geography and the alliei subjects. Why a similar journal has 

 not been established in this country is a mystery. 



An American journal devoted to geology and the allied 

 sciences has just been started. It is called the American Geolo- 

 gist, and will for the present be published at Minneapolis^ 

 Minn. 



Mr. a. Sidney Olliff, of the Australian Museum, Sydney, 

 writes to the January number of the Entomologist z!noM\. giant Lepi- 

 dopterous larvae in Australia. The larva of Chalepteiyx collesi, a 

 large moth which was unusually abundant during the past summer 

 in the vicinity of Sydney, often, he says, attains the length of 

 7 inches, and is robust in proportion. This moth feeds on various 

 Eucalypti, and is of a rich satiny-brown colour ; each segment, 

 except the first, is furnished with eight yellow verrucose spots, 

 which emit long brown bristles ; the anal extremity, a yellow 

 band on the first segment, and two additional verrucose spots 

 on the second and third segments also give rise to bristles. The 

 cocoo.i, as well as the larva of this species, is armed with fine 

 and exceedingly sharp bristles, which, if carelessly handled, 

 readily penetrate the skin, causing considerable irritation. The 

 larva of the beautiful swift {Zeldypia stacyi) measures 8 inches 

 when full grown, and Mr. Olliff has seen several Cossus larvae 

 of similar dimensions. 



In the Entomologist for January, Mr. Alfred Bell offers some sug- 

 gestions about post-Glacial insects. So far as his experience goes, 

 insect remains are by no means common, and belong chiefly to 

 the Coleoptera. He gives thirty species, nearly all of which 

 belong to this division of the insect world. As Mr. Bell points 

 out, however, it does not follow that Lepidoptera were not 

 present during the post-Glacial period, since they occur in 

 beautiful preservation in deposits of much older date in England 

 and on the Continent. The nature of the post-Glacial soils was 

 not favourable to the preservation of soft-bodied animals. 

 " Hence," says Mr. Bell, '* if anyone knows of Lepidoptera 

 retained in a fossil state, it will be of real service to science if he 

 will say where they were found, and under what conditions. " 



In the January number of the Zoologist, Mr. Allan Ellison has 

 an interesting article on the autumnal migration of birds in 

 Ireland. He says that the migration movement of last autumn 



