June 23, 1898] 



NATURE 



[87 



on "Stone Implements of the Potomac-Chesapeake Tide-water 

 Provinces." The second prize was awarded to Dr. Franz Boas, 

 for his work on " The Social Organisation and Secret Societies 

 of the Kwakiutl Indians." Honourable mention was made of 

 work by Dr. Carl Lumholtz, Mr. Frank H. Cushing, and Mr. 

 Walter Hoffman, of America ; and Mr. Alfred P. Maudslay, 

 of London. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 



American Journal of Science, June.— A theory to explain 

 the stratification of the electric discharge in Geissler tubes, by 

 H. V. Gill, S.J- The phenomenon of stratification is a form 

 of Kundt's experiment in which the heaps of jwwder which 

 accumulate at the nodes are replaced by the strata of molecules 

 between which the discharge is taking place in a luminous 

 form. — Orthoclase as a gangue mineral in a fissure vein, by 

 Waldemar Lindgren. During the examination of Silver City 

 mining district, in southern Idaho, a vein was encountered con- 

 taining a gangue of unusual character, consisting of quartz and 

 orthoclase, the latter sometimes preponderating. It occurs as 

 large, irregular milk-white grains, intergrown with vein quartz. 

 This occurrence, together with various other forms, demon- 

 strates the aqueous origin of the mineral. The analysis indicates 

 typical adularia. The artificial production of orthoclase in the 

 wet way, by heating powdered muscovite with a solution of 

 potassium silicate, has a direct bearing upon its natural occur- 

 rence. The reason why orthoclase is not more frequently 

 found (m mineral veins lies possibly in the abundant presence 

 of carbon dioxide in thermal waters, which would rapidly 

 attack orthoclase and form more stable compounds, such as 

 muscovite or sericite. — Notes on rocks and minerals from 

 California, by H. W. Turner. The rocks discussed include a 

 peculiar quartz-amphibolite-diorite, a new amphibole-pyroxene 

 rock, a quartz-alunite rock, gold ores containing tellurium, 

 selenium, and nickel, and gravels containing zircons. — A psy- 

 chrometer applicable to the study of transpiration, by Robert G. 

 Leavitt. The psychrometer consists of four nickel-plated tubes 

 which can be kept at various temperatures by a mixture of hot 

 and cold water. The dew point is indicated immediately by 

 noting which of the tubes bears a deposit, and by varying the 

 temperatures within narrow limits it may be found within 

 0"i° C. The apparatus was employed to determine the effect 

 of light on the transpiration of plants, and a decided fall of 

 the dew point was noticed as accompanying a diminution of 

 light. — Comments on Bulletin No. 21, "Solar and terrestrial 

 magnetism in their relations to meteorology," by F. H. 

 Kigelow. The Bulletin attempts to overthrow two positions 

 held in terrestrial magnetism : (i) that the sun is not a magnetic 

 body because it is too hot, and (2) that the variations of the 

 terrestrial magnetic field can be accounted for by electric 

 currents in the cirrus cloud region. The earth is immersed 

 in an external magnetic field of such a direction and strength 

 as to make the inference necessary that its seat is in the sun. 

 Else it will be necessary to assert that the earth's changes are 

 sufficiently strong to disturb the sun's state, which is absurd. 



Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, May. — 

 Concise abstracts are given of nine papers read at the third 

 egular meeting of the Chicago Section of the Society, held on 

 April 9. At the afternoon meeting Prof. Michelson exhibited 

 the workings of his new harmonic analyser, a description of 

 which was published in the Philosophical Magazine for January 

 1898. — Prof. M. Bocher finishes his paper on the theorems of 

 oscillation of Sturm and Klein. In the present portion Prof. 

 Bocher proves two simple theorems of Sturm's, and uses these 

 to throw Sturm's theorem of oscillation into a slightly generalised 

 form ; he then proves Klein's theorem in a very general form. He 

 proposes, in a subsequent paper, to come back to some more 

 general cases which do not seem to present any serious diffi- 

 culty. — The construction of special regular reticulations on a 

 closed surface, by Prof. H. S. White, was read, in part, at the 

 January 1897 meeting of the Society, and in final form at the 

 recent April (30) meeting. The reticulations here discussed 

 are called regular for two reasons : the number of termini of 

 edges (r) assembled in one vertex is the same for all vertices ( V) 

 of the reticulation, and the number of edges (s) in the boundary 

 of a face {F) is the same for all faces. The writer remarks 

 that the regularity of these reticulations is not the same as that 

 defined by Dyck and Klein in function-theoretic investigations : 

 the two definitions overlap, but neither includes the other. 



NO. 1495, VOL. 58] 



The poiiUs discussed are (i) the mutual derivations of two dual 

 reticulations from each other (dual when r, s, V, F of the first 

 are equal respectively to s', r, F', V of the second, and when 

 each face of the one corresponds to a vertex of the other in 

 such a way that the succession of vertices about each face cor- 

 responds exactly to the succession of faces about the corre- 

 sponding vertex). (2) Two processes for multiplying the 

 number of vertices or faces ; and (3) the dissection of a Riemann 

 surface into a fundamental polygon. — Dr. L. E. Dickson, in 

 systems of simple groups derived from the orthogonal group, 

 continues previous work {Bulletin, February number).— A 



(Pu d^u 

 proof of the theorem -j-j = j~j follows, by Mr. J. K. 



Whittemore (read at the April meeting). This is short and 

 neat. — Miss Frances Hardcastle contributes an interesting 

 article entitled, " Some observations on the modern iheory 

 of point groups," in which she indicates some of the con- 

 verging lines of the German and Italian work. In her first 

 section she discusses some of the technical terms, and in the 

 second section she starts from the Riemann- Roch equations by 

 the suggestion of certain lines of inquiry which may prove useful 

 in the classification of algebraic curves. A useful bibliography is 

 appended. — A note on contact transformations is intended, by 

 Prof. E. O. Lovett, to correct some misapprehensions that a 

 reader of a note in the Zeitschrift filr Matheinatik und Physik 

 (vol. xxxvii., 1892) to a paper by Dr. Mehmke may carry 

 away. — Dr. Staude's "die Focaleigenschaften der Flachung 

 zweiter ordnung " is reviewed ; and Mr. J. E. Campbell, in a 

 note, admits the validity of an objection brought by Prof. E. O. 

 Lovett (in the November 1897 Bulletin) against a statement 

 in his paper {Proc. L.M.S., vol. xxviii. — incorrectly xxiii, in 

 the Bulletin — pp. 381-390), and expresses his meaning more 

 clearly. — "Notes" and "publications" close the number. 



Wiedemann's Annalen der Physik Mid Chemie, No. 5. — 

 Susceptibility of water and aqueous solutions, by H. du Bois. 

 Determinations of the niolecular susceptibilities of the salts of 

 some paramagnetic metals, such as the chlorides of Ce, Cu, Ni, 

 Fe, and Mn, go to confirm the rule observed by Jager and 

 Meyer that the atomic susceptibilities of the metals Ni, Co, Fe, 

 and Mn are in the ratios 2:4:5: 6. — Magnetic after-effect, 

 by C. Fromme. The " magnetic creeping" or after-effect 

 diminishes when the reduction of the field to zero takes place 

 rapidly. This may be explained by supposing that the mole- 

 cular magnets are thereby thrown into a more violent com- 

 motion, and are better able to attain stable positions. A similar 

 effect may be brought about by heat or mechanical stress. — 

 Magnetisation of hollow and solid iron rings, by F. Kirstadter. 

 To determine whether the outer parts of a rod or ring screened 

 the inner portions against magnetisation, the author split a ring 

 in two halves, and bored round holes so that on recombination 

 a hollow ring was formed. By boring the holes larger and larger 

 the surface of the ring was given various thicknesses. It was 

 found that the inner layers acquired the same magnetisation as 

 they would have done had they been exposed to the immediate 

 action of the magnetising field. — The function of the condenser 

 in an induction apparatus, by P. Dubois. There is a certain 

 maximum spark length obtainable in any given induction coil 

 circuit by means of a condenser. When the capacity of the con- 

 denser exceeds that maximum, the effect diminishes. For a 

 resistance of some 200 ohms in the circuit, the maximum useful 

 capacity for the condenser is 3 microfarads.— On the rays pro- 

 ceeding from thorium compounds and some other substances, by 

 G. C. Schmidt. These rays differ from uranium rays in not 

 being polarised by tourmaline, and from Rontgen rays in being 

 refracted. But like uranium and Rontgen rays, they impart a 

 temporary conductivity to air and other gases. — Potential 

 gradients at electrodes discharged by X-rays, by C. D. Child. 

 When the discharge passes between two plates with air between 

 rendered conducting by means of X-rays, the gradient is steeper 

 near the plates and less steep in the middle, as may be proved 

 by a Kelvin water-dropping electrometer. — Proof of the exist- 

 ence of the thin Zenker's plates in colour photographs taken by 

 Lippmann's method, by R. Neuhau.ss. The layers of metallic 

 silver to which, according to Zenker's theory, the colour effects 

 in Lippmann's photographs are due, have been actually seen 

 and photographed by the author under a microscope magnifying 

 4000 times in a cross section of a film taken by a very good 

 microtome and operator. The distance between the lamellce 

 for red light is, as postulated, eqiul to the wave-length of the 



