48 



NATURE 



{Nov. 8, 1888 



state of finances was not unsatisfactory. The excess of assets 

 over liabilities was £'2\'] 65. ii</., and the expenditure on the 

 Journal during the year had been £"]<) 135. 9^/., being about the 

 average of late years. The elections to the Society during the 

 year had been six, of whom one was an Associate. The Council 

 had to regret the loss by death of one of their Corresponding 

 Members, Prof, vom Rath, of Bonn, of whom an obituary notice 

 by Prof. Lewis appeared in No. 37 of the Journal. Mr. Solomon 

 Birkett, one of the Associates, had also died, having been killed 

 by a railway train near Whitehaven. Three meetings had been 

 held since the last anniversary, two in London, and one in 

 Edinburgh. — The following is the list of officers and Council 

 elected for the coming session : — President : R. H. Scott, F.R.S. 

 Vice-Presidents: Rev. S. Haughton, F.R.S., and Dr. Hugo 

 Miiller, F.R.S. Council : Prof. J. W. Judd, F.R.S., Prof. E. 

 Kinch, Prof. W. Ivison Macadam, J. J. H. Teall, Prof A. H. 

 Church, T. M. Hall, J. Stuart Thomson, Major-General C. A. 

 MacMahon, Dr. C. A. Burghardt, H. A. Miers, R. H. Solly, 

 and Dr. J, M. Thomson. Treasurer : Prof, T. G. Bonney, F.R.S. 

 General Secretary : L. Fletcher. Foreign Secretary : T. Davies. 

 Auditors : B. Kitto and F. W. Rudler. — The President then 

 delivered an address which will be printed in the next number of 

 the Journal. — The following papers were read : — On large 

 porphyritic crystals of feldspar in certain basalts of the 

 Isle of Mull, by T. H. Holland, communicated by Prof 

 Judd, F.R.S. — Note on the crystalline forms of silicon and 

 carbon, by Prof. Judd, F.R.S. — On the supposed fall of a 

 meteorite stone at Chartres, Eure-et-Loire, in September 18 10, 

 by the President. — On percylite from a new locality, by the 

 President. — On various twins of calcite, by H. A. Miers. — A 

 description of a new polarizing microscope, by Allan Dick, 

 communicated by J. J. H. Teall. — Note on Colorado hydrophane, 

 by Prof. A. H. Church, F.R.S. 



Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, October 29.— M. Janssen in the 

 chair. — On the telluric spectrum at elevated stations, and 

 particularly on the spectrum of oxygen, by M. Janssen. We print 

 elsewhere (see " Our Astronomical Column " ) a brief account 

 of M. Janssen's conclusions. — Decomposition of the phases 

 of a continuous movement by means of successive photo- 

 graphic images taken on a tape or band of sensitized paper 

 while being unrolled, by M. Marey. In order to complete 

 the researches lately communicated to the Academy, the author 

 hare submits a strip of sensitized paper on which a series of 

 images has been fixed at the rate of twenty per second. The 

 process, as now perfected, will allow of successive images being 

 taken of a man or an animal in motion, without the necessity 

 of operating before a dark ground.— On the alleged subsid- 

 ence of the ground in the centre of France, between Lille and 

 Marseilles, by General Alexis de Tillo. The author traverses 

 the conclusions arrived at by M. Goulier in his communication 

 on this subject inserted in the Comptes rendus of August 20, 

 1888. — Survey of the Upper Javary, by Admiral de Teffe. A 

 short account is given of the expedition undertaken in 1874 by 

 Baron de Teffe and Don Gaillermo Black, to determine the 

 frontier between Brazil and Peru, where those States are 

 conterminous in the valley of the Javary, a headstream of the 

 Amazons. — On vapour-tensions, by M. Ch. Antoine. Some 

 new relations between tensions and temperatures are worked out 

 theoretically. — Photography applied to the study of electric dis- 

 charges, by M. E. L. Trouvelot. During a series of experiments 

 carried out for the purpose of studying the electric spark, the 

 author has been led to repeat the interesting researches made in 

 1884 by M. E. Ducretet, and published in the Comptes rendus 

 for December i of that year. — On the separation of cobalt and 

 nickel, by M. Baubigny. Here the separation is effected by the 

 method of the nitrites —On the chlorureted derivatives of 

 acetylacetic ether, by M. Genvresse. The monochlorureted 

 derivative of this ether was prepared by M. AUihn, and the 

 bichlorureted by M, Conrad. But doubts having been thrown 

 on the formulas determined by them, the author here resumes the 

 study of these compounds. — On the employment of the bichloride 

 of mercury as a therapeutic remedy and a prophylactic against 

 Asiatic cholera, by M. A. Yvert. During his recent residence 

 in Tonquin, the author successfully employed this preparation for 

 the cure of cholera in doses varying from 0"02 to 0*04 gr. in 

 twenty-four hours. Of forty-five patients so treated nine only 

 succumbed, or about 20 per 100, the normal rate in that region 

 as in Europe being 66 per 100. It was also administered to 



convalescents in districts where the epidemic had again broken 

 out and had already made one victim. None of those who took 

 this preventive medicine was attacked. — M. Raphael Dubois 

 contributes an account of some new researches on the action of 

 the chloride of ethylene on the cornea ; and M. C. J. A. Leroy 

 describes the normal form of the cornea of the human eye. 



BOOKS, PAMPHLETS, and SERIALS RECEIVED. 



Colour: C. T. Whitmell (Lewis, Cardiff).— Die Korallenriffe der Sinai- 

 halbinsel: J. Walther (Hirzel, Leipzig).— Table of Quarter-Squares : J. 

 Blater (Trubner).— On the Use of Certain Organic Acids : J. F. Knott 

 (Bale).— Fifty Years Ago in New Zealand : W. Colenso (Napier).— 

 Nouveaux M£moires de la Societe' Imp^riale des Naturalistes de Moscoii, 

 tome XV. liv. 3, 4, 5 (Moscou).— Alpine Winter in its Medical Aspects, 4th 

 edition : T. Wise (Churchill). — Animal Physiology : W. S. Furneaiix 

 (Longmans).— Graphic Pictures of Native Life in Distant Lands : H. Leute- 

 mann, translated by G. Philip, jun. (Philip).— The Unknown Horn of 

 Africa: F. L. James (Philip).— A Course of Elementary Mathematics, 

 2 parts : S. Ray (Lahiri, Calcutta).— The Zoo : Rev. J. G. Wood (S. P.C.K.). 

 — Practical Geometry for Science and Art Students, loth edition : J. Carroll 

 (Hums and Oates).— Recherches Experimentales et Thioriques sur les 

 EquihbresChimiques: H. le Chatelier(Dunod, Paris).— On the Pollination 

 of Phlomis Tuberosa, L , and the Perforation of Flowers : L. H. Pammel 

 (St. Louis) — Specimens of Eozoon canadense and their Geological and other 

 Relations: Sir J. W. Dawson (Montreal).— Observations upon the Mor- 

 phology of Galliis bankioa of India : R. W. Shufeldt. — Vaccination proved 

 Useless and Dangerous : A. R. Wallace (E. W. Allen) — Himmelund Erde, 

 I Jahrg. Heft, i (Berlin). — The Auk, October (Ne* York).— Quarterly 

 Journal of Microscopical Science, October (Churchill). —Contributions to our 

 Knowledge of the Meteorology of the Arctic Regions, Part v. (Eyre and 

 Spottiswoode).— Hourly Readings, 1885, P.art iv. (Eyre and Spotti.swoode). 

 —The Geological Magazine, November(rrubner).— Journal of the Chemical 

 Society, November (Gurney and Jackson). 



CONTENTS. PACE 



The Prevention of Smoke 25 



Some Recent Mathematical Books 26 



Our Book Shelf :— 



Jones: " Examples in Physics " 29 



Clarke: " The Constants of Nature " 29 



Letters to the Editor: — 



Gresham College. — E. D. Roberts ; Prof. E. Ray 



Lankester, F.R.S 30 



The Barbary Ape in Algeria. — Dr. P. L, Sclater, 



F.R.S 30 



Are there Negritos in Celebes? — Dr. A. B. Meyer . 30 



Altaic Granites. — Dr. A. Bialoveski 30 



Rankine's Investigation of Wave Velocity. — Prof. J. 



D. Everett, F.R.S 31 



Alpine Haze. — M. C. C 31 



The Animals' Institute. — John Atkinson 31 



N. M. Prjevalsky 31 



Smoke in Relation to Fogs in London. By the Hon. 



F. A. R. Russell 34 



Desiccated Human Remains ^6 



The Philippine Islands. By Dr. J. B. Steere .... 37 

 Barometric Oscillations. By Captain W. J. L. 

 Wharton, R.N., F.R.S. ; Captain Pelham Aldrich, 



R.N 38 



Notes 38 



Our Astronomical Column : — 



Observation of T^aint Minima of Variables 41 



Oxygen Lines in the Solar Spectrum 41 ■ 



New Minor Planets 41 



Comets Faye and Barnard 42 



Discovery of a New Comet 42 



Astronomical Phenomena for the Week 1888 



November 11-17 42 



Qeographical Notes 42 



On the Origin and the Causation of Vital Movement. 



II. (Illustrated.) By Dr. W. Kuhne 43 



The Astronomical Observatory of Pekin 46 



University and Educational Intelligence 47 



Societies and Academies 47 



Books, Pamphlets, and Serials Received 4S 



