April 19, ia88] 



NATURE 



595 



classical studies must be maintained in our schools and 

 Universities, and personally interested chiefly in this aspect of the 

 subject, Mr. Ainiold frankly recognized the great place that must 

 necessarily belong to science in any true system of education. 



We print elsewhere a letter from Emin Pasha. Other letters 

 from him have lately appeared in the Times and the Scotsman. 

 His province is evidently once more in working order, and Emin 

 is at peace with his neighbours. The letters took eight months 

 to reach this country, so we need not be alarmed by the fact that no 

 word has come of Mr. Stanley's arrival. Emin tells us that the 

 country through « hich Mr. Stanley had to pass is of the most 

 difticult character, full of swamps, and with rivers rendered im- 

 passable by vegetation ; so that the expedition could not reach 

 the Albert Nyanza before November. 



So many new garden plants are annually described in various 

 English and foreign periodicals that some are apt to escape the 

 notice of botanists and horticulturists. From i860 to 1886 a 

 list was regularly published in the Gardener's Year-Book and 

 Almanac ; and during the months of January to May 1887 

 inclusive \.\iQ Journal of Horticulture gave the names of plants up 

 to October 1886. No later list has appeared. Now it has been 

 decided that a list shall henceforth be given as one of the regular 

 issues of the Kew Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information, and 

 the first of the promised series is presented in the April number. 

 It includes the new garden plants and alterations of names 

 recorded between October i, 1886, and December 31, 1887. To 

 these have been added the names of authors, which did not 

 appear in frmer lists. The list will be of great service to 

 horticulturists. 



On April 8 a beautiful display of the aurora borealis was 

 observed at Throndtjem. The weather was fine, and there was 

 no wind. 



On March 12, at about 2 a.m,, a fjaint shock of earthquake, 

 accompanied by subterranean rumbling, was felt at Drammen, 

 in Norway. It went from east to west. 



A SEVERE earthquake occurred at Lintthal (Canton Glanis) 

 on April 2, at 9.10 a.m. At Elm the oscillations were so strong 

 that the walls of the houses were cracked. 



On the evening of Wednesday, the nth inst., shocks of earth- 

 quake were felt in various parts of North Wales. At the large 

 Baptist Chapel, Llangollen, while service was proceeding, a 

 shock was distinctly felt, and the walls and ground were seen to 

 shake. Shocks were also experienced at many of the residences 

 in the valley, where the crockery and windows quivered in their 

 places. A farmer residing at the Craig said his farmstead shook 

 so much that he expected it to fall. The shocks were also 

 noticed at Corwen, Bala, and Dolgelly, 



Some months ago a Conference was held in Manchester with 

 the object of promoting the interests of the silk industries of the 

 United Kingdom. Various papers were read, and it was 

 ultimately resolved that an Association, to be called the Silk 

 Association of Great Britain and Ireland, should be formed. 

 The objects of the Association are to promote and maintain the 

 silk industry of Great Britain and Ireland in all its branches ; 

 to encourage the production of raw silk in India and our 

 colonies ; to collect and disseminate amongst its members use- 

 ful information and statistics connected with or affecting manu- 

 facture and commerce in silk ; and to promote technical, 

 commercial, and linguistic education, and any necessary Parlia- 

 mentary legislation ; and generally to assist in the expansion and 

 development of the trade. The Association was " inaugurated " 

 at Manchester on March 22, and will hold a general meeting in 

 I^ondon in June. 



It is announced from Lyons that M. de Chardonnet has 

 succeeded in getting by chemical processes a matter having all the 

 appearance of silk. He adds to an etherized solution of nitrated 

 cellulose (the base of gun cotton) a solution of perchloride of 

 iron, and to this mixture a little of a solution of tannic acid in 

 alcohol. The whole is poured, after filtration, into a vertical 

 reservoir having a horizontal sharp nozzle (with fine passage) at 

 its base, debouching in a vessel of water acidulated with nitric 

 acid. The issuin,' fluid vein at once becomes consistent, and 

 can be drawn off by a uniform movement. It is dried by 

 pas age through a dry air space, and then wound. It is of gray 

 or black aspect; but by means of colouring matter put in the 

 etherized solution the colour may be varied «</ //V5. It is further 

 described as supple, transparent, cylindrical or flattened ; of silky 

 appearance and touch ; the rupturing weight is 25 kilogrammes 

 per square millimetre. The fibre burns without the flame being 

 propagated ; it is unattackable by acids and alkalies of mean con- 

 centration, by cold or hot water, alcohol, or ether ; but it is 

 dissolved in etherized alcohol and acetic ether. 



An attempt was made last year to cultivate the cotton-tree in 

 European Russia, in the neighbourhood of Taganrog, on the 

 Don. We learn that the attempt proved successful, the tem- 

 perature of the Lower Don being not inferior to that of the 

 valleys south of the forty-first degree of latitude, where the 

 Cotton-tree is cultivated in Turkey. 



The Board of Trade Journal for April contains a paper in 

 which there are some interesting facts about sponge-fisheries. It 

 seems that an industry in artificial sponges is in process of 

 creation. M. Oscar Schmidt, Professor at the University of 

 Gratz, in Styi-ia, has invented a method by which pieces of living 

 sponge are broken off and planted in a favourable spot. From 

 very small cuttings of this kind, Prof. Schmidt has obtained 

 large sponges in the course of three years, and at a very small 

 expense. One of his experiments gave the result that the culti- 

 vation of 4000 sponges had not cost more than 225 francs, 

 including the interest for three years on the capital expended. 

 The Austro-Hungarian Government has been so much struck 

 with the importance of these experiments, that it has officially 

 authorized the protection of this new industry on the coast of 

 Dalmatia. 



According to Allen's Indian Mail, arrangements are now 

 being made by the Meteorological Department of India for the 

 prompt publication of a regular series of cyclone reports, so as 

 to admit of their issue from two to three months after the date 

 of the storm to which they refer. Hitherto, accounts of cyclones 

 have not been published for a year or two after their occurrence. 



The American Meteorological yournal for March contains the 

 first of a series of articles by Mr. A. L. Rotch on the organiza- 

 tion of the Meteorological Services of Europe, ba~ed upon a 

 similar series by Dr. Hellmann, about ten years ago, with the 

 addition of subsequent changes. The first country dealt with is 

 Germany. Of the other articles maybe specially mentioned one 

 by Mr. W. M, Davis, on a proposed classification of the winds, 

 according to their physical causes and conditions. The cha- 

 racteristics employed are : (i) the source of energy that excites 

 motion (earth, sun, &c.) ; (2) the contrasted temperatures 

 (equator, poles, &c.); (3) the period of occurrence; (4) the 

 kind of wind (cyclonic, sea-breezes, &c. ). By this means, 

 although no claim to novelty is made, except as to the arrange- 

 ment of the data, the author proposes to bring together what is 

 known into a convenient shape, and so to separate the unsorted 

 material for further critical examination. Prof. H. A. azen 

 continues the controversy between Dr. Hann and himself as to 

 the behaviour of pressure and tempei-ature in high and low 

 barometric areas, at elevated stations ; his theory being that 



