May I, 1879] 



NATURE 



17 



and Present," by Edward Hutchinson. In the Chemical Section, 

 on Thursday evenings, at eight o'clock : May 8 and 15 — " The 

 History of Alizarine and Allied Colouring Matters, and their 

 Production from Coal Tar," by W. H. Perkin, F.R.S. In the 

 Indian Section, on Friday evenings, at eight o'clock : May 2— 

 "The Wild Silks of India, especially Tussah," by Thomas 

 Wardle; May 23— " The Harbour of Kurrachee," by W. J. 

 Trice. 



A SPECIMEN of the electro -magnetic engine invented by M. 

 Marcel Deprez is employed by the Academy of Aeronautical 

 Ascensions, 50, rue Rodier, Paris, for working a sewing- 

 inichine which is used for the construction of a balloon called 

 i:Electriciti. The weight of the motor is only 4 kilogramme?, 

 and four Bunsen elements of ordinary size are sufficient to give 

 ' 1 the needle the required velocity. 



From to-day postal cards will be sold in Paris at the price of 

 JO centimes each, for the transmission of messages by the 

 pueumatic tube which connects the several telegraphic stat'ons 

 i!i the French metropolis. 



In a memoir presented to the Academy of Sciences and 



terature of Lyons, we learn from the British Medical Journal, 



Dr. Henry H. Dor, a well-known oculist, contests the view 



held by Mr. Gladstone, and by Geiger and Magnus of Boston, 



that our ancestors were colour-blind, a view deduced from their 



\' ritings and from the different names which they have given to 



'.ours. Dr. Dor endeavours to demonstrate that now, as in 



le time of Homer, poets insist too little upon the indications 



f the colours, but much more upon their luminous intensity. 



Moreover, Dr. Dor says that persons who do not possess any 



knowledge of physics find much difficulty in distinguishing the 



c:ilours of the rainbow, and only see in it three or four colours, 



iu place of the seven classical colours of its composition. 



Further, it results even from the very study of the Assyrian and 



Egjptian monuments, that those nations had not only perceived, 



but imitated, the gj^ter part of the colours of which we are at 



present cognisant. 



The second annual meeting of the Midland Union of Natural 

 History Societies will be held in the council chamber of the 

 Town Hall, Leicester, on Tuesday, May 20, at half- past three 

 o'clock. The business of the meeting will be to receive the 

 report of the Council and the treasurer's accounts ; to fix the 

 iilace of the next annual meeting in 1 880 ; to consider any 

 suggestions that members may offer ; to discuss the work of the 

 Union during the coming year ; and to transact all necessary 

 business. The President will open the business with an address. 

 A conversazione will be held in the Leicester Town Museum 

 (entrance in Hastings Street) on Tuesday evening. May 20, the 

 arrangements for which are under the direction of the Leicester 

 Literary and Philosophical Society. There will be an exhibition 

 of objects of general scientific interest, microscopy, the various 

 departments of natural history, archxolog}', and art. On 

 Wednesday, May 21, there will be an excursion to Charnwood 

 i "ores'. 



I'ROM the Gardeners' Chronicle we learn that an Agricultural 

 nl Horticultural Society has been founded at Mentone, many 

 I'r.e members being English residents. 



The Electrician of April 26 contains a long letter from Prof. 

 !erk Maxwell on the correct definition of " Potential." 



Among Mr. Murray's list of announcements is " The River 

 ■ Golden Sands," a narrative of a journey through China to 

 irmah, by Capt. William Gill, R.E., and "A History of 

 Ancient Geography," by E. H. Bunbury. 



The American Naturalist for April contains a curious paper, 

 by Mr. Xenos Clarke, on "Animal Music, its Nature and 



Origin." Mr. W. O. Crosby has a paper on " Native Bitumens 

 and the Pitch Lake of Trinidad," and Mr. W. H. Holmes on 

 a Deposit of Obsidian in the Yellowstone Park. 



Gravitation experiments in liquids have recently been made 

 by Ilerr Schrottner in Vienna, with a view to determining vis- 

 cosity (as previously proposed by Pisati and De Heen). He took 

 as basis a formula of Stokes for the resistance of a ball moved 

 in a straight line in a liquid, and sought to determine the coeffi- 

 cients of friction iu absolute measure. The practicability of the 

 method was proved in a very viscous mixture of black pitch and 

 beech-tar, and in concentrated glycerine. For the latter, higher 

 values were obtained than by the transpiration-experiments 

 carried on at the same time. From the author's experiments 

 with glycerine, as also from Schieck's gravitation experiments 

 with water, it appeared that the coefficients of friction were 

 considerably greater whenever the velocities of fall exceeded a 

 certain amount. For liquids with little viscosity, as water, 

 small velocities of fall, such as met the conditions of experiment, 

 could only be obtained by giving the balls a surplus weight of a 

 few hundredths of a milligramme over the displaced mass of 

 liquid, in case experiments were not made with very large balls 

 and very considerable quantities of liquid. 



Roman remains have just been discovered at Oberbreisig, a 

 village near the Rhine, a few miles to the south of Bonn. A 

 rectangular building of unquestionably Roman origin has been 

 laid bare, the purpose of which, however, is very doubtful. The 

 excavations leading to this discovery are in connection with 

 others of greater extent which are being made in tlie neighbour- 

 hood, and which are principally directed to the investigation of 

 a Roman villa near Waldorf and a Roman road leading to 

 Sinzig. 



In' a recent memoir communicated to the Belgian Academy, 

 M. Lagrange offers some novel views on the formation of bodies 

 in the universe. He supposes that before any expenditure of 

 work the quantity of heat of the universe was nil, and that the 

 temperature was gradually raised above absolute zero at the 

 expense of work done by attraction. Hence the formation of 

 solid bodies must have preceded that of liquids and gases. 

 Through the gradual condensation of matter and consequent 

 enormous development of heat, the earth would attain, at least 

 in the parts near the surface, the state of fluidity necessary to 

 explanation of its form and geological characters. As the tem- 

 perature gradually rose with gradual agglomeration of matter, a 

 very dense atmosphere would form, with pressure diminishing 

 outwards, and in a more advanced phase, the temperature of 

 this, after reaching a maximum, would gradually diminish, causing 

 liquefaction or solidification of certain matters at first vaporous, 

 while other solid bodies might remain suspended in the atmo- 

 sphere. M. van der Mensbrugghe commends the author's views 

 as original and worthy of the attention of savants, but, with M. 

 Folic, he regards the initial absolute zero as inadmissible. In 

 reply to objections by M. Folic, the author promises shortly to 

 defend this hypothesis : — Space is occupied by two substances ; 

 one, attractive, which is matter properly so-called, or material 

 atoms ; the other, repulsive, which occupies the inter-atomic 

 space, and from which results, between any two atoms, a variable 

 repulsion exercised at the surface of the latter. 



We have received No. 11 (March, 1879) of the Bulletin of 

 the Brooklyn Entomological Society, of the existence of which 

 publication we w ere not previously aware. It consists of a half- 

 sheet 8vo, with one plate, illustrating a paper by C. F. Gissler 

 on Coleopterous larvce of the family Tenebrionidcs, which appears 

 to be carefully worked out and likely to prove of value, and the 

 figures (chiefly concerning the pygidia and antenna;) seem to be 

 well drawn. The other papers are on the genus CoUas, Samia 

 cynthia, and on some species of Thecla. The number of 



