i8o 



NATURE 



[June 23, il 



only a short time. The genus Monachus includes the present 

 species arid one'other found in the waters of the Mediterranean, 

 these seals being the only ones belonging to the Phocidie, or the 

 group without external ears,, which are found in subtropical 

 regions of the Atlantic. Referring to the death of a male orang 

 belonging to the Society, it is noted that tholigh it has more 

 than once been pronounced by high authority, to be anatomically 

 impossible for the orang to maintain an erect attitude without 

 touching some means of support, this animal was repeatedly 

 observed walking about his cage in an absolutely erect position 

 without having his hands in contact with any fixed object. 



Writing in the annual volume of the Sitzungsberichte der 

 physikalisch medicinischen Societiit in Erlangen, Prof. E. 

 Wiedemann and Dr. G. C. Schmidt give some noteworthy 

 observations on the electric properties of gases. In the first 

 of their papers the authors discuss the absorption of electric 

 oscillations by gases, and arrive at the somewhat remarkable 

 result that gases which are excited to incandescence by electric 

 discharges will absorb electric waves falling on them, even when 

 they would not do so if unexcited ; but the dark space surrounding 

 the kathode is only feebly absorbent of such oscillations, thus 

 behaving like a non-conductor. Prof. Wiedemann and Dr. 

 Schmidt also discuss the effects of Goldstein's rays ("kanal- 

 strahlen ") on electric oscillations, and find that the oscillations 

 emanating from a Lecher condenser are absorbed by gases 

 which have been excited by these rays. 



In a second paper, Prof. Wiedemann and Dr. Schmidt 

 discuss the view that the conduction of electricity through 

 rarefied gases is an electrolytic phenomenon. This view is 

 negatived by their present observations. In some cases, as 

 with chloride, bromide and iodide of mercury, no products of 

 electrolysis appeared at the electrodes ; in other cases, where 

 decomposition did take place, the amounts liberated were 

 found not to follow Faraday's Law. In a further communication 

 to the same journal. Dr. G. C. Schmidt discusses the relation 

 between fluorescence and photo-electric susceptibility ; the results 

 of these observations do not altogether favour the hypothesis of 

 Elster and Geitel as to a parallelism between the two phenomena. 



Some of the catalogues published by many photographic firms, 

 besides containing useful information on photographic lenses, 

 cameras, shutters, &c., are really works of art of no mean merit. 

 We have just received the fourth edition of Messrs. Newman and 

 Guardia's catalogue, which quite falls into this category if one 

 examines the series of illustrated specimens of the work done 

 with their so-called "N. and G." cameras. The beauty of these 

 reproductions will be fully appreciated by all who peruse this 

 book, the half-tone blocks having been produced by the Swan 

 Electric Engraving Company. — Messrs. Ross, Ltd., have also 

 forwarded to us their catalogues for' the present year, containing 

 a mine of information about lenses, cameras, i&c, of every 

 conceivable kind, and many other optical instruments which this 

 firm manufactures. 



In the Bollettmo della Societa Sismologica Italiana (vol. iii. 

 No. 8) a list of earthquakes observed in Greece during' the year 

 1897 (January-June) is given by S. A. Papavasiliou, in con- 

 tinuation of the catalogue compiled by the author before his 

 retirement from the observatory at Athens. The number of 

 shocks recorded during the six months is about 130. Other 

 papers are :— A new contour-map of the central crater of Etna, 

 by A. Ricco ; seismoscope with clock, by C. Guzzanti, de- 

 scribing an arrangement for starting mechanically a clock, 

 previously set at a known time ; seismology and palaeography, 

 by E. Oddone ; notices of earthquakes recorded in Italy (May 

 23-June II, 1897), by G. Agamennone, the most important 

 being the Ionian Sea earthquake of May 28-29, and earthquakes 

 of distant origin on May 23-24, 24-25, and June 3. 

 NO. 1495, VOL. 58] 



A NEW part (vol. ii. Isopoda, part ix. x.) of Prof. G. O. 

 Sars' monograph on the ',' Crustacea of Norway " has just been 

 issued by the Bergen Museum. The Munnopsidse are concluded 

 in this new part, which also contains descriptions of members of 

 the tribe of Oniscoida, four families of which are represented in 

 the fauna of Norway. 



The second volume of the Cape Photographic " Durch- 

 musterung," by Dr. David Gill, F.R.S , and Prof. J. C. 

 Kapteyn, has just been published as vol. iv. of the Jnna/s 0/ 

 the Cape Observatory. The arrangement of the stars in the 

 catalogue is precisely similar to that of vol. i., recently reviewed 

 in these columns (p. 513). The new volume contains the positions 

 of stars in the zones - 38° to - 52°. 



Mr. T. Chalkley Palmer has an interesting note in the 

 Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Phila- 

 delphia, on the peculiar movements of the diatom Eunotia major, 

 which he considers to be connected with an actual process of 

 assimilation or elimination of oxygen, and to be produced by 

 special pseudopode-like organs; these he calls "coleopodia," 

 and he believes them to be present also in other diatoms 

 belonging to the Fragilariese. 



The fourth German edition of Dr. A. Classen's work on 

 " Quantitative Chemical Analysis by Electrolysis " differs from 

 the previous editions in several respects, among which may be 

 mentioned the insertion of a section devoted to theory, and the 

 addition of descriptions of various measuring instruments and 

 electrolytic experiments. The revision was carried out with the 

 assistance of Dr. W. Lob ; and the authorised English transla- 

 tion of the revised and enlarged edition, prepared by Prof. W. 

 H. Herrick and Dr. B. B. Boltwood, has been published by 

 Messrs. J. Wiley and Sons (London : Chapman and Hall, Ltd.). 

 The book is a more complete, scientific and logically arranged 

 work than heretofore, and is altogether a useful manual on 

 electro-chemical analysis. The illustrated account of the Electro- 

 chemical Institute at Aachen, where Drs. Classen and Lob are 

 at work, should lead to the foundation and equipment of similar 

 institutions here for purposes of instruction and research in this 

 most important branch of science. It should not be left to 

 Germany to extend and apply the principles discovered by Davy 

 and Faraday. ' 



Reports of papers read before the Royal Society of Edin- 

 burgh regularly appear in the columns of Nature shortly after 

 the papers are read, so it is unnecessary to do more now than 

 briefly refer to the papers which appear in their complete form 

 in the Transactions of the Society for the sessions 1895-96, 

 1896-97. Among the subjects and authors of papers in the 

 volumes are the following : — Observations on the phonograph, 

 by Prof. J. G. M'Kendrick ; the strains produced in iron, steel, 

 and nickel tubes in the magnetic field, by Prof. C. G. Knott ; 

 the temperature variation of the magnetic permeability of mag- 

 netite, by Dr. E. H. Barton ; the weather, influenza, and 

 disease, by Dr. A. Lockhart Gillespie ; torsional oscillations of 

 wires, by Dr. W. Peddle ; the meteorology of Edinburgh (two 

 papers), by Mr. R. C. Mossman ; some nuclei of cloudy con- 

 densation, by Mr. John Aitken (in this paper Mr. Aitken shows, 

 by experiments on the effect of sunshine on the gases in the 

 atmosphere, that it is possible for cloudy condensation to take 

 place in the absence of dust) ; the fossil flora of the Yorkshire 

 coal-field, V)y Mr. Robert Kidston ; and the automatic linear 

 transformation of a quadric, by Dr. Thomas Muir. The Pro- 

 ceedings of the Society (vol. xxii.) contain several papers by 

 Lord Kelvin ; notes on specimens of rock from the Antarctic 

 Regions, by Sir Archibald Geikie ; observations of instrumental 

 disturbances at the Colaba Observatory during the Indian earth- 

 quake of June 12, by Mr. N. A. Moos ; the velocity of graded 

 actions, by Dr. James Walker, and other papers. 



