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'ov. 8, 1888] 



NA TURE 



39 



IK death is announced of Herr Johann Kriesch, Professor 

 >olo^y and Prorector of the Royal Joseph Polytechnic at 

 ipest. 



!E first wing of the Durham College of Science, Newcastle, 

 >pened by the Princess Louise en Monday. The plans for 

 lucture as a whole are very elaborate, and it is expected 

 he building, when completed, will be a great ornament to 

 Newcastle. The wing just opened is about a third of the 

 College, and has cost ;^23,ooo. The remainder will be built 

 when the necessary funds are raised. Many of those who 

 took part in the opening ceremony afterwards met at lun- 

 cheon. Mr. John Morley, responding for the House of 

 iiions, referred to the number of eminent men of science 

 in Parliament. Touching on the question how far 

 inent may be expected in future to sanction expenditure 

 le promotion of such objects as the Durham College of 

 ;ce has been founded to maintain, Mr. Morley said that the 

 e of Commons would be willing to sanction grants from 

 ublic purse for objects of this kind in proportion to one 

 , and that was to the evidence that could be brought before 

 that in localities an effort had been made to raise as 



lant funds as these localities could provide. 



! I. M. SURVEYING-SHIP EgeHa, under the command of Captain 



; Mdrich, R.N., has, during a r-cent sounding cruise and 



'1 for reported banks to the south of the Friendly Islands, 



ned two very deep soundings, of 4295 fathoms and 4430 



US (equal to 5 English miles) respectively; the latter in 



le 24° 37' S., longitude 175° 8' W. ; the other about 12 



to the southward. These depths are more than looo 



ms greater than any before obtained in the southern hemi- 



f, and are only surpassed, as far as is yet known, in three 



in the world — one ofT the northeast coast of Japan, of 



, fathoms, found by the United States s.s. Tttscarora ; one 



of 4475 fathoms, south of the Tadrone Islands, by the 



Challenger ; and one of 4561 fathoms, north of Porto Rico, by the 



United States ship Blake. Captain Aldrich's soundings were 



obtained with a Lucas sounding-machine and galvanized wire. 



The deeper one occupied three hours, and was obtained in a 



considerably confused sea, a specimen of the bottom being 



successfully recovered. Temperature of the bottom, 33°7 F. 



It appears from the Annual Report of the Societe des 

 Naturalistes de Moscou, which was read at its annual meeting 

 on October 15, that the Society now has 535 members. During 

 the past year the .Society sent out MM. Zarudnyi, Litvinoff, 

 Lorentz, Milutin, Kosmovsky, Golenkin, and Rostovtsefif for the 

 exploration of the Transcaspian region and the Caucasus, as 

 well as for zoological and botanical explorations in several pro- 

 vinces of Central Russia. Besides its Bulletin, the Society has 

 brought out a new instalooent of its Memoires. 



The courses of lectures at the Tomsk University were opened 

 on September 13. There are already sixty-nine students, all 

 Siberians. 



, Notwithstanding the considerable difficulties which have 

 been met with in the diggingof a canal to connect the Obi with the 

 Yenisei, and the want of money for the completion of the under 

 taking, the work of connecting the two great arteries of naviga- 

 tion in Siberia is still advancing. In the summer of the present 

 year a boat 56 feet long and 14 feet wide, taking 3^ feet of water, 

 was drawn from the Obi into the Yenisei with a load of 40 

 tons of flour. The two rivers are 630 miles apart. 



On October 17, 1887, Mr. William Colenso, F.R.S., read 

 before the Ilawke's Bay Philosophical Institute a "Jubilee 

 paper," entitled "Fifty Years Ago in New Zealand." This 

 paper has now been published. It contains, among other 

 interesting records, an excellent account of the introduction of 



the printing-press into New Zealand, and of the printing of the 

 New Testament in the Maori language in 1837. Recalling the 

 events of his life during his long residence in New Zealand, Mr. 

 Colenso refers to December 25, 1835, when he met Darwin in 

 the Bay of Islands, and spent with him " a happy long day." 



The atomic weight of tin has been redetermined by Prof. 

 Classen and Dr. Bongartz, of Aix-la-Chapelle. Four distinct 

 series of determinations have been made, including in all no 

 less than forty-seven separate estimations. The accuracy of the 

 work may be judged from the fact that the difference between 

 the highest and lowest values obtained is no m jre than o'4. The 

 first series consisted in oxidizing pure tin to stannic oxide, and 

 thus determining the ratio Sn : Oj. The purest commercial tin 

 was taken as the starting-point, and the.05 percent, of impurities 

 removed by the following process. It was first converted to 

 stannic chloride, SnCU, by the action of dry chlorine gas ; the 

 chloride was next fractionally distilled, and a portion eventually 

 obtained boiling constantly at 120° C. This was diluted with 

 water, and treated with solution of sodium sulphide until the 

 precipitate 1 sulphide of tin redissolved ; a quantity of caustic 

 soda solution was then added, and the liquid allowed to stand for 

 a few days. It was subsequently submitted to electrolysis in 

 weighed platinum dishes, upon the interior surface of which the 

 tin was deposited as a beautiful silver-white metal. The tin 

 obtained in this manner was exceedingly pure, and eminently 

 suitable for use in atomic weight deteruainations. Weighed 

 quantities of it were, in the first series of experiments, oxidized 

 with redistilled nitric acid ; the excess of acid was expelled upon 

 a water-bath, and the residual stannic oxide first gently ignited 

 over a small flame, and finally more strongly heated in a muffle 

 furnace. The mean atomic weight derived from eleven such 

 experiments is 11876, a value considerably higher than the 

 usually accepted one, 117 8, based upon Dumas's redetermination 

 in 1858. In the second series the ratio of Sn :Cl4 -V 2NII4CI 

 was estimated, as given by electrolysis of the double chloride of 

 tin and ammonium, SnCI^. 2NH4CI. Pure stannous chloride 

 prepared as above was readily converted into this double salt 

 which was obtained in fine crystals. Weighed quantities were 

 dissolved in solution of ammonium oxalate and submitted to 

 electrolysis, the tin being again deposited, washed, dried, and 

 weighed. Sixteen such estimations give the mean value i iSSl. 

 The third series were precisely analogous, the double chloride 

 of tin and potassium being employed ; the mean of ten determina- 

 tions aff'ords the number Ii8 8j. In the fourth series pure 

 tetrabrotnide of tin was electrolyzed in presence of ammonium 

 oxalate and oxalic acid, and the ratio Sn : l{r4 thus arrived at. 

 The mean result of ten experiments in this series is I1S73. 

 Finally, the mean value deduced from the whole forty-seven 

 experiments is 11877, or in round numbers 1188, oxygen being 

 taken at Stas's value, I5"96. If oxygen be i6, tin becomes- 

 slightly less than iiQ'i. This important metal may therefore be 

 added to the interesting list of those whose atomic weights are 

 probably whole numbers. 



Mr. G. V. Hudson notes in the current number of the 

 Entomologist that on March 7 he observed the largest 

 assemblnge of moths he has ever seen in New Zealand. They 

 were flying round an electric light suspended from the yard-arm 

 of the steamship Aorangi, at the wharf in Wellington Harbour. 

 He thinks that at a moderate computation there were over three 

 hundred specimens. He could not c.ipture any, owing t > the 

 great height of the light ; but they appeared to be chiefly 

 Mamestra coinposita and Porina signata. Mr. Hudson points 

 to this as a good instance of the efficiency of the electric light in 

 attracting insects. He has found that an ordinary lamp will not 

 attract more than a dozen or twenty specimens, even under the 

 most favourable circumstances. 



