July Z\, 1879] 



NATURE 



327 



Literature ; Section XV. Few people really know anything of 

 the various considerations that are involved in selecting and main- 

 taining a " pure " and sufficient water-supply, and the spread of 

 some of the knowledge that has been obtained may help to re- 

 move many of the prejudices against improvements, and may 

 show that low water-rates are perhaps not the only points that 

 ratepayers should regard. Sections X. and XI. especially refer 

 to matters of general interest too often overlooked. It is hoped 

 that a permanent museum, to be located somewhere in London, 

 may result from this exhibition. All communications for the 

 Committee should be made to Mr. A. T. Atchison, 34, Great 

 George Street, S.W., and applications for space and for in- 

 formation respecting the exhibition should be made to Mr. W. 

 H. Jones, Manager, Alexandra Palace, N. 



The new (German) Geological Society of Metz has just pub- 

 lished its first Jahresberuht (for 1878). Apart from the usual 

 report of proceedings at the meetings, the publication contain- 

 an interesting paper by Capt. Schultzen on the old Roman 

 aqueduct from Gorze to Metz. 



The death from apoplexy is announced of M. Louis Favre, 

 the contractor for the St. Gothard Tunnel. He was 53 years of 

 age, and had engaged in nine years to construct a tunnel nearly 

 IS kilometres long through beds of granite, gneiss, and serpen- 

 tine. Notwithstanding difficulties of all kinds, the work had 

 been carried on interruptedly for six years, the estimate being 

 so careful that there was no excess of outlay, and M. Favre 

 expected in two years to complete the work. 



We have received from Jlr. E. Paterson, of Bedford Court, 

 Covent Garden, parts i. and ii. of an unusually well got up illus- 

 trated Catalogue of Electrical Apparatus manufactured by him. 

 Not only is the Catalogue itself exceedingly full and drawn up 

 with much intelligence, but in the second part some really useful 

 practical information is given on the principles and fixing of 

 electric signals, which, we daresay, will be welcome to many. 

 We are sure many of our readers will find Mr. Paterson's Cata- 

 logue of considerable service. 



The Americans have stolen a march upon us in sanitary 

 matters, as tliey have done in so many other things. In March 

 of this year an Act passed the U.S. Congress organising a Board 

 of Health to look after all matters relating to the jjublic health, 

 and to advise Congress what steps should be taken for the pro- 

 motion of so all-important a matter. We have just received the 

 first iiumber of the weekly National Board of Health Bulletin, 

 published by this body, who have 50,000 dollars appropriated to 

 them for salaries and expenses. Besides mortality statistics the 

 Bulletin contains a number of rules and regulations with respect 

 to the sanitary condition of ships. 



M. CouLON, conservator of the Industrial Museum of Rouen, 

 has discovered a new system for transforming sound into light, 

 which phenomenon has been the subject of a lecture at the Salle 

 des Capucines by M. Frank Geraldy with the Gower telephone. 

 Two Geissler tubes are put in quick rotation on an axis. The 

 Ruhmkorf coil of the first is worked by an ordinary interruptor 

 and gives the deviation of a luminous cross. The interruptor of 

 the second is replaced by a telephone. The figure presented by 

 the second tube projects on the first one, which is coloured by 

 uranoxide glass and exhibits the most rapid changes according to 

 the height of the note delivered in the telephone-trumpet. The 

 sensibility of the changes are startling and most interesting. An 

 exhaustive lecture by M. Coulon will be given at Rouen in a few 

 days, and the apparatus exhibited at the Palais de I'lndustrie. 



Dr. Moesta has discovered the remains of an oak forest at a 

 depth of 7 feet or 8 feet, near Rotenburg. The number of well- 

 preserved trunks is enormous ; one of them is 18 mitres long 



and I metre and a half in diameter. This bog oak will be used 

 for carving. 



The twenty-fourth meeting of German and Austrian Api- 

 culturists will be held at Prague on September 7- 11, and will be 

 accompanied by an international exhibition of living bees, and 

 all products and apparatus connected with bee-culture. 



The second Congress of Austrian wine-growers will be held 

 at Vienna on September 22-25, and will be accompanied by an 

 exhibition of all products, apparatus, and implements connected 

 ^^ith viticulture. 



At Roveredo a statue has been erected to the eminent philo- 

 sopher and statesman, Antonio di Rosmini-Sarbati (born 1797, 

 died 1855). The work was executed by a Florentine sculptor, 

 and the material is Carrara marble. The statue is said to be an 

 excellent likeness. 



Phylloxera is unfortunately making rapid progress in 

 Savoy. Since July i no less than forty-two different vineyards 

 in the cantons of Chambery, Montmelard, Yenne, and Rochette 

 have been attacked by the pernicious insect ; the head-centre of 

 the infection seems to be at Chambery and at Montmelard. 



Herr Karl Russ, the eminent German ornithologist, is 

 writing a new work on foreign domestic birds, in three volumes. 

 Two are completed and part of the third has recently appeared. 

 Herr Karl RUmpler, of Hanover, is the publisher. 



The Central School Depot pxiblishes a clearly written and 

 instructive'penny tract— "A Few Interesting Facts about Light, 

 simply Told, for Young People," by the Rev. F. J. C. Fenton. 

 Mr. Fenton discards all technical terms, and conveys a wonderfiU 

 amount of accurate elementary information in a few pages. , 



A Japan paper fays that there is a prospect of a new coal 

 mine being worked in Ishigari, in the island of Yezo, the re- 

 sources of which are only now beginning to be gradually deve- 

 loped. Some foreign experts in the employ of the Kaitakushi, 

 or Colonisation Department, which is doing good work in Yezo, 

 have tested specimens of coal and found them to be of good 

 quality and suitable for purposes of steam navigation. As the 

 locality where the coal exists is at some distance from the coast, 

 it is proposed to construct a railway from it to the sea-board, 

 and a survey of the country for that purpose is now being pro- 

 ceeded with. 



From a recent investigation of the electric arc by Professors 

 Thomson and Houston (yotirn. of Frank. Inst.) it appears that 

 the relations between arc resistance and current strength and 

 between current strength and illuminating power, are expressed 

 by the following laws :— (i) In arcs of equal lengths the resist- 

 ances are inversely proportional to the current strengths ; (2) The 

 illuminating power of an arc is approximately proportional to 

 the current traversing it ; (3) In arcs of equal length the total 

 energy given out is proportional to the current strength. 



Intelligence has been received from Ceylon that the ex- 

 amination of supposed pearl-oyster banks on the east coast has 

 not resulted in the discovery of any deposits worth fishing. The 

 oysters found, though of the pearl kind, contained no pearls. It 

 is supposed that they had been washed by currents from deep-sea 

 banks in the Bay of Bengal. 



Under date of April 30, a correspondent of the North Chim 

 Herald at Wladivostock, in Russian Manchuria, writes that, 

 althougli the mountain tops were still covered with snow, the 

 winter had at length come to an end, the ice in the harbour 

 having on that day broken up and floated out to sea. The 

 winter began in October and has been the severest known for 

 many years. The bay was entirely covered with ice from two to 

 ! three feet thick. Wladivostock is said to be improving, though 

 ' slowly, and there are signs of an attempt at road-making. 



