452 



NA TURE 



[September 9, 1897 



Stephen H. Emmens. From a letter by Dr. Emmens in the 

 current number of the Chemical News, we understand he does 

 not claim to be a modern alchemist, but merely to be able to 

 obtain gold, or a substance which will pass muster for gold, j 

 from Mexican dollars. Four Mexican dollars were cut in halves ; 

 at the U.S. Assay Office, at the request of Dr. Emmens, and four 

 halves were assayed at the Office, with the result that no gold i 

 was found — at least, the amount was less than one part in ten 

 thousand. The remaining set of halves of the coins " was treated j 

 in the Argentaurum Laboratory, without the addition of gold in 

 any form, and the result was a relatively considerable produc- [ 

 tion of a metal which answered to all the usual tests of gold, j 

 and was subsequently purchased as gold by the U.S. Assay 

 Office." The weight of the gold obtained is not stated. Of 

 course, it is possible to make the gold found the basis of very un- 

 trustworthy statements, and that appears to have been done. I 

 Apparently, however, Dr. Emmens disclaims responsibility of [ 

 the newspaper reports, for what he now concludes is : — " Either 

 some of the silver or copper in the dollars had been changed 

 into gold or its simulacrum by my treatment ; or the gold 

 already existed in the dollars and was separated by my treat- 

 ment, though not by the treatment in vogue at the U.S. Assay 

 Office." Sir William Crookes has examined a specimen of 

 argentaurum in the spectrograph ; and he finds that it consists 

 of gold with a fair proportion of silver and a little copper. No 

 lines belonging to any other known element, and no unknown 

 lines, were detected. 



The deaths from lightning in this country are, happily, very 

 few, being only about i per million of the population per 

 annum. Sometimes no sign of injury can be seen upon the 

 victim, but in other cases marks are left upon the body, or clothes 

 are scorched, and more than one case has been recorded where 

 boots have been torn off the feet and nails driven out of the soles of 

 the boots. Seldom, however, does it happen that lightning leaves 

 such remarkable evidence of its transit as that disclosed at an 

 inquest recently held at Hulford House, near Guildford, and 

 reported in the Lancet. The evidence showed that on Wednes- 

 day, August 25, there had been a single flash of lightning and 

 a clap of thunder, and about half an hour afterwards Major 

 Jameson was found lying on his face in a field quite dead. 

 Around him, in a radius of several yards, were his clothes and 

 boots, which had been torn and scattered about in an extra- 

 ordinary manner. The lightning appears to have struck him 

 on the right side of the head, tearing his cap to pieces and burning 

 his hair off. It then passed inside his collar down the front of 

 his body and both legs into his boots, which were torn to pieces, 

 and then passed into the ground, making a hole about eighteen 

 inches in circumference and three inches deep. His collar was 

 torn to pieces, the front of his shirt was rent into ribbons, the 

 jacket and under-vest were literally torn to shreds, and the 

 Icnickerbockers he was wearing were stripped from him and 

 scattered on the ground. His stockings and gaiters were 

 similarly torn in pieces, and on the boots the lightning had 

 a' remarkable effect. They were burst open, some of the brass 

 •eyelet-holes were torn out, nails were forced out, and the soles 

 torn off. The skin had been torn off the chest, and the right 

 leg was torn and blackened ; blood was issuing from the mouth 

 and right ear. It is difficult to account for these appalling 

 •effects, or to explain why the electric discharge should produce 

 widely different results upon different occasions. 



Dr. G. Hellman, whose facsimile reproductions of old 

 meteorological works are well known in this country, con- 

 tributes to the Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft ftir Erdkunde zu 

 Berlin a short paper on the beginnings of observations of ter- 

 restrial magnetism. He traces the earliest observations of mag- 

 netic declination along two distinct lines : one due to the interest 

 NO. 1454, VOL. 56] 



excited amongst seamen by Columbus's discovery, on September 

 13, 1492, of the changes in the variation of the compass, and 

 another due to landsmen's efforts to construct an accurate port- 

 able sundial. A list of ten determinations of magnetic declina- 

 tion is given, beginning with Georg Hartmann at Rome about 

 1 5 10 (6°E.), and ending with Gerhard Mercator on the island of 

 Walcheren about 1546. The work of the remarkable Joao de 

 Castro seems by far the best : he gives decl. ']\° E. at Lisbon 

 in 1538. The first English observations are those of William 

 Borough, of Limehouse, published in his " Discourse of the 

 Variation of the Compass or Magnetical Needle," &c., in the 

 year 1581, now a very rare book. 



We have received from M. Durand-Gr^ville a paper entitled 

 "Les grains et le burster d'Australie," being an excerpt from 

 the Annales of the French Meteorological Office for 1895 (just 

 published). This is one of a series of valuable discussions on 

 violent squalls in various parts of the world, which it is the 

 aim of M. Durand-Greville to show are very similar in their 

 nature, although differing in their name and in their secondary 

 characteristics (temperature, humidity, &c.). He points out that 

 there are two different kinds of barometric depressions: (i) 

 where the variations of pressure, temperature, &c., are gradual ; 

 and (2) where these elements change abruptly along a radial 

 line running nearly to the southwards. In the rear of the 

 passage of this radial line from west to east an area of high 

 pressure and violent winds obtain. It is to this special feature 

 that M. Durand-Greville has paid particular attention, and his 

 views seem to be consistent with those adopted by investigators 

 in this country and in Germany, when dealing with secondary 

 and especially the so-called V-shaped depressions, which often 

 accompany or immediately follow a primary atmospherical 

 disturbance. 



Prof. Dr. Johan Hjort publishes in Natnren a more or 

 less popular rhtiimi of some of the recent physical and bio- 

 logical researches in the Norwegian Sea. The most important 

 work not published before consists of a discussion of two 

 extremely valuable sets of temperature and salinity observations 

 made between Norway and Iceland during March and April 

 1897. These serve to show the form and extent of the cold 

 streams from the east of Iceland at a time when it is rarely 

 possible to get any information, precisely the time when that 

 information is of the highest importance. 



M. E. A. Martel gives, in the Comptes rendus de la Soci^ti de 

 Geographie, a summary of his work in Speleology during 1896. 

 Six series of caverns were explored in France, two in the Island 

 of Majorca, and the famous Salitre grotto in Catalonia. The 

 Foiba de Pisino in Istria, visited in 1893, was re-examined, and 

 some remarkable observations made on the changes produced in 

 a subterranean lake by continued heavy rains. Under certain 

 conditions the hydrostatic pressure in the underground syphon 

 feeding the Foiba must amount to at least seven atmospheres,, 

 doubtless producing important mechanical and chemical 

 changes. 



Dr. Rudolf Zuber, professor of geology in the University 

 of Lemberg, has recently published a map of the petroleum 

 region of Galicia, with a paper, in the German language, on 

 the economical geology of the district. As he points out in the 

 introduction to his paper, the region is one of surpassing geo- 

 logical interest and difficulty, while the language offers a greater 

 barrier, both to travel and to a study of the literature, than is the 

 case in many regions much further afield. Dr. Zuber's paper is 

 therefore all the more welcome. It contains a classification of 

 the oil-bearing strata based upon local characteristics, which 

 amply serves the purposes of the local industry without 



