94 



NATURE 



[November 28, 189- 



The following announcements are made in the Johns Hopkins 

 University Circular (No. 121) : — Sir Archibald Geikie has 

 accepted the invitation of the President and Board of Trustees 

 of the Johns Hopkins University to inaugurate the George 

 Huntington Williams Memorial Lectureship, and has selected 

 October, 1896, as the time for delivering his lectures. — Prof. 

 Cleveland Abbe, of the United States Weather Bureau, will, 

 during January next, give four lectures upon Climatology in its 

 relations to Physiography. — Mr. G. K. Gilbert, of the U.S. 

 Geological Survey, will begin a course of lectures upon 

 Physiographic Geology the second week in January, and will 

 lecture four times weekly until about the end of February. — 

 Mr. Bailey Willis, of the U.S. Geological Survey, will com- 

 mence his lectures upon Stratigraphic and Structural Geology, 

 as soon as Mr. Gilbert has completed his course, and will lecture 

 twice weekly until the middle of May. — Dr. R. M. Bagg 

 has been appointed assistant in Geology. 



Sir John Gorst, in a speech delivered last Thursday 

 at the annual meeting of the London Society for the Ex- 

 tension of University Teaching, remarked that "though they 

 were all anxious that the scientific education of the country 

 should be fully developed, it would be a great mistake if that 

 development were to take place at the expense of the literary 

 side of education. A proper liberal education is fairly balanced 

 on all sides, and no system which extends one branch of educa- 

 tion at the expense of others can be productive of anything in 

 the long run but mischief." Just so. We have always urged that 

 science should receive as large a share of attention as literature 

 in our colleges and universities ; but no one can say that it does. 

 Some of Sir John Gorst's hearers took his remarks to indicate a 

 reaction against the increased facilities now being offered for 

 instruction in science ; but if the remarks zxt taken literally, they 

 mean that scientific education should be fostered, and placed 

 upon the same footing as the humanities. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 



American Meteorological Jonrnai, November. — Relations of 

 the Weather Bureau to the science and industry of the country, 

 by Prof W. L. Moore, Chief of the W,eather Bureau. It is 

 satisfactory to find that the change of Chief will not affect the 

 scientific activity of the U. S. Weather Office, as many people 

 supposed. Prof. Moore quotes the Act of Congress of October i, 

 1890, which prescribes the duties of the Chief, from which it is 

 seen that the main object of the Bureau is to give warning of the 

 approach of storms, and therefore that the proper line of investi- 

 gation should be relative to their mechanism. Systematic 

 exploration of the upper air, with a continuation of the studies 

 of terrestrial magnetic forces, begim by Prof Bigelow, will be the 

 line of investigation prosecuted during the next two years. 

 With regard to estimating the probability or severity of frost. 

 Prof. Moore thinks that sufficient weight has not yet been given 

 to the dryness or wetness of the soil, and he calls for special 

 attention to this point. — The meteorological observatory on 

 Monte Cimone, Italy, by A. L. Rotch. Monte Cimone is the 

 culminating point of the Northern Apennines, attaining a height 

 of 7100 feet above the sea, and it is the only summit station in 

 Italy, the observatories of Vesuvius and Etna being both 

 situated on the flanks of these volcanoes. Both the summit 

 and base stations are provided with self-recording instruments, 

 and are dependent upon the Central Meteorological Office at 

 Rome, with which there is telegraphic communication. — 

 Physiological effects of high altitudes, by A. L. Rotch. The 

 author points out the importance of the effect of the rarefaction 

 of the air on the human system, which is, as yet, but imperfectly 

 understood, and refers to his own experiences at great heights 

 in the Alps and Andes. 



Wiedemann's Annalen der Physik und Chemie, No. 10. — 

 The practical use of Wheatstone's bridge, by F. Kohlrausch. 

 The meter bridge is greatly improved and made more sensitive 

 by introducing two resistances, 4*5 times the resistance of the 

 wire, at one or both ends of it. The wire may also be rolled on 

 a roller of marble or wood boiled in paraffin, with a flat spiral 

 groove. With an enlarged scale reading to thousandths the 

 author claims to have attained a limit of error of i in 25,000. — 

 Density measurements of extremely dilute solutions, by the 

 same author. These were made, as before, by weighmg a glass 

 sphere immersed in the liquid. But as the sphere used was | 



NO. I 36 I, VOL. 53] 



heavier in this case, the cocoon fibre suspending it had to be 

 replaced by a fine wire of dull platinum. The accuracy was 

 then carried to the seventh decimal place, the only limit being 

 the accuracy of temperature measurements. — Luminescence of 

 solids and solid solutions, by E. Wiedemann and G. C. Schmidt. 

 This is a continuation of previous researches on photo-lumines- 

 cence and cathodo-luminescence, or the phosphorescence pro- 

 duced by the impact of light and cathode rays respectively on 

 certain bodies, such as sulphates. A list of the most brilliantly 

 luminescent substances is given, including " solid solutions," in 

 van 't Hoffs sense, of MnS04 in other sulphates. The kind of 

 luminescence of the latter depends only little upon the concen- 

 tration, but much upon the kind of solvent. The lower the 

 temperature the brighter the light. But the sulphates of copper, 

 iron, and nickel extinguish it altogether, even in small quan- 

 tities. The spectrum of the rays emitted is in every case a con- 

 tinuous spectrum consisting of one band. — On the absorption of 

 cathode rays, by P. Lenard. The ratio between the absorptive 

 power and the density is the same for all media, whatever their 

 state of aggregation, provided the cathode rays are of the same 

 kind. — Cathode rays and continuous discharges in gases, by 

 O. Lehmann. This paper deals with the question of the actual 

 nature of gas discharges. — The cooling effects of aii currents, by 

 A. Oberbeck. These are measured by finding what velocity of 

 air is required to prevent the glowing of a platinum wire con- 

 veying a current. It is proposed to use this as a .sensitive 

 anemometer. — Anomalous dispersion curves, by A. Pfliiger. 

 Cyanine and Hofmann's violet have refractive indices below i 

 for rays between F and G, and fuchsine, magdala red, and 

 malachite green all show an increase of refrangibility with 

 increase of wave-length in certain portions of the spectrum. 



Bulletin de la Soci^te des Nattiralistes de Moscou, 1894, Nos. 

 3 and 4. — On the Ostracodes fauna of the neighbourhoods of 

 Mo.scow, by A. Croneberg (in German). Twenty-three species 

 are described, of which Cyclocypris pygmcea and Erpetocypris 

 teregrina are new (with plates). — On the slates of Megalo-Aialo, 

 near Balaklava, by D. P. Stremoukhoff (Russian, summed up 

 in French). The presence of a number of Amonites, character- 

 istic of the Bath and Kelloway strata, settles their age.^ — The 

 birds of the government of Moscow, by Th. Lorenz, A 

 list (in French) continued from a previous number. — The 

 development of the tarsus in Pelobatusfuscus, by M. Chomiakoff 

 (in German). — Two new Aphides from South Russia (Stomaphis 

 Graffii&ndSt. macrohyncha), byN. Cholodkovsky (in German) 

 The microscopical structure of the electrical organ of the 

 torpedo, by N. Iwanzoff, a large detailed work (in German), 

 with plates in both numbers. — Yearly report of the Society. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 

 Physical Society, November 22. — Special meeting. — 

 Captain W. de W. Abney, President, in the chair. — The 

 following resolution, with reference to the articles of association, 

 was passed. In Article 33, to strike out the words "by the 

 payment of ^10 in one sum," and in place of this to insert the 

 words " the composition fee shall be, for every member who shall 

 not have paid ten annual subscriptions, fifteen times the amount 

 of the annual subscription payable by such member, and for 

 any member who shall have already paid ten or more annual 

 subscriptions, ten times the amount of the annual subscription 

 payable by such member." — The ordinary meeting then took 

 place. ^ — Dr. G. Johnstone Stoney exhibited a print of Profs. 

 Runge and Paschen's photograph of the spectrum of the gas 

 obtained from clevite, together with a diagram illustrating the 

 manner in which these observers have arranged all the lines 

 obtained in two sets, each set containing three series of 

 lines. Dr. Stoney also drew attention to the resemblance 

 between each of these sets of three series of lines and the 

 similar triple series obtained in the case of the metals of 

 Mendelejeff's first group. The lines of the different series in the 

 case of the gas obtained from cleveite have certain definite 

 peculiarities which permit of their identification and selection. 

 The two gases, to the presence of which the two sets of lines, 

 are presumably due, can be partly separated by diffusion through 

 a plug of asbestos. Prof. Ramsay's observation that by suitably 

 altering the pressure of the gas the predominance of the lines in 

 either of the two sets can be increased is, however, against the 



