66 



:NATURE 



\May 15, 1879 



and wish you would get me rightly at work at the start." " Very 

 well," said the willing master, " there is plenty to be done right 

 here ; let us begin on these fishes." Turning to a can of fishes 

 from Arizona in spirits, he opened the cover, pulled up his 

 sleeve, and brought forth two or three dripping examples. They 

 were well preserved, but the smell— well, the less said about that 

 the better; it was very " ancient " and somewhat "fish like." 

 "There, see what more you can get out of that can, and I'll 

 show you what to do next." The young man pau-ed in dismay 

 and tugged very gently at his kid glove. Fiaally, in deprecating 

 tones he asked : " Doctor, is it necessary, in order to become a 

 naturalist, that I plunge my hands in that alcohol?" "Of 

 course — no other way to study objects of natural history properly, 

 except in the field." " Well," was the reply, very decided, 

 albeit somewhat rueful, " I— I think I'll go back to Long 

 Branch." And go back he did. 



Dr. Hopkinson gave important evidence before the Electric 

 Lighting Committee last Friday. As a result of his experiments, 

 he found that on an average about 87 per cent, of the mecha- 

 nical energy bestowed on the machine was converted into heat, 

 but about S° P^"^ cent, of the electricity obtained from the 

 mechanical energy was lost in the heating of the machine and 

 wires. The scientific considerations, he stated, had largely been 

 touched in a satisfactory manner. Mr. Shoolbred, of the firm 

 of Shoolbred and Co., Tottenham Court Road, gave satisfactory 

 evidence of the working of the light in his establishment. He 

 was burning twenty candles, which had replaced 230 gas burners. 

 The cost to him was yjs. yl. per night in winter, and 9^. \Q>d. in 

 summer. 



The American papers state that Mr. Edison is still engaged 

 in his experiments with reference to the electric light, and hopes 

 yet to overcome all difficulties, and to make the light available 

 for public UfC. He intends to institute a comparative trial on 

 carbon lamps between his own machine and those of Wallace 

 and Gramme ; he does not say how many carbon lamps he can 

 light with his machine. He is confident that he can work his 

 system for stree; and house-lighting with comparatively little loss 

 by exhaustion of the current, by means of a cable, from a central 

 station, the cable composed of as many strands of wire, say one- 

 sixteenth inch diameter, as there are houses in the street to be 

 lighted. The latest papers say that Mr. Edison has perfected 

 his dynamo-electric machine, and with that he maintains he has 

 solved the problem of the economical generation of electricity 

 and the sub-division of the light. A trial of his system is stated 

 to have worked perfectly, producing more lights and less heat 

 with less expenditure of power than any machine hitherto 

 constructed. 



The Meudon Aerostatic Service officers are constructing a 

 directing balloon with screw moved by a steam-engine. They 

 have desisted from their original scheme, which was to attach the 

 screw to the equator of the balloon, and have acknowledged 

 reluctantly the necessity of adopting the principles used by M. 

 Henry Giffiird, in his celebrated 1852 hippodrome experiment 

 with a steam directing aerostat. 



According to official statistics 22,851 wild animals and 

 127,29s serpents were destroyed in India during 1877; while 

 16,777 persons died from the bites of serpents, and 2,918 were 

 killed by tigers, leopards, wolves, and other wild animals. 



Akhbar, the most influential French paper in Algeria, is de- 

 voting many interesting articles to the construction of the Trans- 

 Saharan railway from Laghouat to Timbuktu through Touat. 

 The preliminary surveys have been executed from the Algiers- 

 Oran line to Laghouat. 



The last number of the Russian Physical and Chemical Society's 

 Journal (vol. xi. fa^e. 3) contains the annual reports of the So- 

 ciety, and papers on the temperatures of boiling of saturated 



hydrocarbons of normal structure, by M. J. Goldstein ; on benzoic 

 compounds, by M. P. Goloubeff; on aromatic compounds, by 

 M. E. Wroblevsky ; and on the transmission of a galvanic 

 current in water when the platiua electrodes are of various 

 sizes, by M. Slouginoff. 



In a recently-published inaugural dissertation on the electro- 

 motive forces which occur in free water jets {Ann. der Phys., 

 No. 4), Herr Elster arrives at these conclusions : — I. A liquid 

 motion /fr se produces no electromotive force. (This is against 

 Edlund's view). 2. Capillary electric currents are simply pro- 

 duced by friction of the particles of the moved liquid ; in the 

 case of non-wetting liquids, by their friction on the particles of 

 the solid wall, and in the case of wetting liquids, by friction on the 

 particles of a layer of the liquid condensed on the surface of the 

 solid, this layer behaving to the less dense as a heterogeneous 

 substance. 3. The capillary electric currents discovered by 

 Quincke are identical with the friction-currents which occur in 

 the rubber of an electric machine, and which were first observed 

 by ZoUner. Numerous experiments in support of the-e conclu- 

 sions are described. 



News has been received from Japan that two very rich seams 

 of coal have just been discovered in the celebrated Takashima 

 mines. It is estimated that they will produce fully a million 

 tons of coal. It is also reported that active measures are being 

 taken for throwing open to foreign commerce the ports of 

 Tsuruga and Shimonoseki. 



The first of [two illustrated volumes, on the Manufacture of 

 Sulphuric Acid and Alkalis, by Prof. Lunge, of Zurich, will be 

 published in a few days by Mr. Van Voorst, who has also just 

 ready for publication a supplement to C. Greville Williams's 

 " Handbook of Chemical Manipulation." 



The fourth public annual meeting of the Sunday Society w ill 

 beheld in Freemasons' Tavern on Saturday, at 4 p.m. From 

 their just published Report we see that the Society is mal ing 

 marked progress in the objects which they have in view. 



The supplement to the Colonies and India for May 10 contains 

 a long address given to the Colonial Institute by Prof. Owen on 

 the Extinct Animals of the Colonies of Great Britain. J 



We have received a most interesting and instructive lecture on 

 Ornithology, by Dr. H. B. Hewetson, of Leeds ; its title is 

 "Nature Cared for and Nature Uncared for, the Result upon 

 the Hearts of Men." He tries to show how much pure pleaMire 

 can be derived from the observation of living nature, and the 

 study not of the dead animal, but of "the life-sympathies and 

 instincts of the object in life." The lecture deserves a wide 

 circulation. The publishers are West, Newman, and Co., o£| 

 London. 



The additions to the Zoological Society's Gardens during thel 

 past week include [a Macaque Monkey {Macacus cynomol^u^yi 

 from India, presented by Mr. C. A. Thomson ; an Ocelot (/r/irl 

 pardalis) from America, presented by Mr. P. Leckie ; an Indianf 

 Kite {Milvus govinda) from East Asia, presented by Capt-, 

 Murray; a Common Chameleon {Chama:leon vulgaris) fron 

 North Africa, presented by Mr. A. Dodd ; a Diana Monley 

 (Cercopithecus diana), a Subcylindrical Hornbill {Buceros sub- 

 cylindricus) from West Africa, received in exchange ; a Mac^'iue 

 Monkey {Macacus cynomolgus) from India, five Peacock Phea- 

 sants (Polyplectron chinquis) from Burmah, deposited ; twelve 

 Common Teal (Qiiayucdula crecca), twelve Garganey Teal 

 {Querquedula circia), twelve Red-headed Pochards {ful.gnla 

 ferina), six Tufted Ducks (Fiiligula cristata), four Shovellers 

 (Spatula clypeata), two Common Pintails (Da/da acitla), two 

 Common Widgeons {Marcca pcrulope), European, purchased;. 

 an Hybrid Markhoor (Capra megaccros), six Seven-bamled 

 Snakes (Tropidonotus leberis), born in the Gardens, 



