AVril 9. [896] 



MATURE 



543 



Mayor of New York, on March 25, the choice was approved 

 by him ; and application will be made to the Legislature for 

 permission to use this site, which will no doubt be granted, as 

 the old reservoir is now disused. 



"The annual exhibitions of the New York Academy of 

 Sciences are now the scientific event of the year. The third 

 annual exhibition was held on March 26, at the American 

 Museum of Natural History. As a matter of course, the display 

 of radiographs and radiographic apparatus attracted the most 

 attention, and the lecture of the evening was by Prof, 

 Pupin on the X-rays. A large and interesting array of 

 exhibits was made in other departments. As space forbids 

 any systematic report, a few salient features include the follow- 

 ing : The new elements, argon and helium, were shown by 

 electrical illumination, and their spectra exhibited. The astro- 

 nomical exhibit included fine photographs of star clusters, and 

 spectra of stars, planets, &c. A photograph was shown of a 

 meteor trail at Arequipa, Peru, September 6, 1895. Improved 

 apparatus for investigations in astronomy, physics, and experi- 

 mental psychology included many novelties. A series of pic- 

 tures giving restoration of extinct mammals was pronounced by 

 palaeontologists the most complete and accurate ever made. The 

 exhibits in geology, mineralogy, and botany were numerous 

 and interesting. President John I. Stevenson made a brief 

 address, appealing to citizens of New York to move in the 

 matter of securing a permanent home for the Academy. 



" Mr. Bryan Lawrence, who died at New York, March 10,. 

 left a large number of bequests to various Roman Catholic chari- 

 ties, including several educational institutions. The larger edu- 

 cational bequests are 5000 dols. each to the American College at 

 Rome, Italy, the R.C. Seminary, Westchester County, N.Y., and 

 theAmerican University(R.C.)at Washington, D.C. — Brigadier- 

 General Thomas L. Casey, retired, for many years chief of 

 engineers of the United States Army, dropped dead in the new 

 congressional library building at Washington, March 25. He \ 

 was engaged in superintending the construction of the building, j 

 The Washington monument, 555 feet high, being the highest 

 structure in America, was completed by him some years ago, 

 after a long delay in the work previous to his connection with 

 it. General Casey was a P^ellow of the American Association 

 for the Advancement of Science. 



" A NOVEL series of experiments is in progress at 

 Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, to deter- 

 mine the nutritive and caloric value of food, and many 

 other questions relative to nutrition and other vital pro- 

 cesses. For this purpose a calorimeter is employed, consisting 

 of a copper-lined box, measuring inside 7 x 4 x 6^ feet, thus 

 giving 182 cubic feet of air, within which space a man is con- 

 fined for several days at a time. It is fitted with glass windows 

 of three thicknesses. Fifty litres of air per minute are pumped 

 in. Food is passed in three times a day through an air-tight 

 tube, and is carefully weighed, as are all the exudations and 

 excretions, and the quantity of heat is measured. A telephone 

 enables the subject to converse with the outer world. The ex- 

 periments are conducted Ijy Prof. Wm. O. Atwater, and the 

 expense is shared by the Department of Agriculture of the 

 United States, Wesleyan University, and the Storrs Experiment 

 Station at New Bethel. A careful record is kept of every action 

 of the subject — of his hours of sleep, minutes of exercise, re- 

 spiration, appetite, &c. To this end there are two watchers 

 and two assistants, a watcher, who is a professor in the university, 

 and an assistant being constantly present." 



At the Royal Institution, on Tuesday next, April 14, Prof. 

 James Sully will begin a course of three lectures on " Child- 

 Study and Education"; on Thursday, April 16, Prof. Dewar 

 NO. 1380, VOL. 53] 



will begin a course of three lectures on •' Recent Chemical 

 Progress" ; and on Saturday, April 18, Prof. W. B. Richmond, 

 R.A., will begin a course of three lectures on "The Vault of 

 the Sixtine Chapel." The Friday evening meetings will be 

 resumed on April 17, when Prof. G. Lippmann will deliver a 

 discourse on "Colour Photography." 



The next course of Cantor Lectures at the Society of Arts 

 will be delivered by Prof. Henry A. Miers, on Monday even- 

 ings, April 13 and 20, the subject being "Precious Stones." 

 The points to be dealt with are: (i) The properties which 

 make precious stones esteemed among minerals ; (2) the proper- 

 ties by which precious stones are recognised ; (3) the distinction 

 of stones which may be confused, as garnet and ruby, jacynth 

 and cinnamon-stone, zircon and lux sapphire, garnet and 

 olivine, tourmaline and diopside, &c. The lecture will close 

 with some remarks ort artificial stones. Mr. James Swinburne 

 will deliver a course of Cantor Lectures on "Applied Electro- 

 chemistry," on Monday evenings, April 27. May 4, 11, and 18. 

 Among the papers arranged for the meetings of the Society 

 after Easter are : April 22, " The Perfected Photochromoscope 

 and its Colour Photographs," by Mr. F. E. Ives ; April 29, 

 " Fruit Drying or Evaporation," by Mr. E. W. Badger. Papers 

 at subsequent meetings will be read by Captain Abney, on 

 " Orthochromatic Photography"; by Mr. Hudson Maxim, on 

 "High Explosives and Smokeless Powders"; and by Mr. E. 

 W. Moir, on "Tunnelling by Compressed Air." 



The French Association for the Advancement of Science held 

 its annual meeting at Tunis last week, about four hundred 

 members being present. The office-bearers of the Association 

 were received by the Bey on Wednesday, April i ; and the French 

 resident, M. Millet, welcomed the Congress on the following 

 day. The principal streets of Tunis were elaborately decorated 

 in honour of the occasion, and, as hotel accommodation was 

 limited, the Lycee Carnot was placed at the disposal of visitors. 

 The Association met at Algiers fifteen years ago, so the recent 

 meeting was the second one held on African soil. Next year's 

 meeting will take place at St. Etienne. 



On Thursday, March 26, Prof. Guido Cora, of Turin, 

 delivered a lecture on the "Gypsies" {Gli zingari), in the 

 Aula Magna of the CoUegio Romano in Rome, having been 

 invited by the Societk Palombella (founded for the higher 

 education of women). The lecture was attended by the Queen 

 of Italy, the Minister and the Under Secretary of State for 

 Public Instruction. Prof. Guido Cora gave a short but com- 

 plete history of the question, dealing also with many facts 

 about the origin, manner and habits of the gypsies in e%ery 

 part of the world. He referred in high terms to many British 

 scholars of the subject, and to the importance of the " Gypsy 

 Lore Society " of Edinburgh. 



The twenty-seventh annual meeting of the Norfolk and 

 Norwich Naturalists' Society was held in the Castle Museum 

 on Monday, March 30, the President (Mr. H. D. Geldart) 

 in the chair. Sir F. G. M. Boileau, Bart., was elected 

 President for the coming session. In his annual address, 

 Mr. Geldart discussed the subject of Arctic distribution ot 

 flowering plants, especially with reference to the influence of 

 the glacial epoch upon the flora of the British Isles. He con- 

 cluded his remarks by suggesting, as a simple and likely solu- 

 tion of the difliculties arising from the present distribution of 

 Arctic and Alpine floras, that before the commencement of the 

 glacial epoch, what is now commonly known as the "Scandi- 

 navian" flora, but which would be better called the "Arctic" 

 flora, was distributed from land then existing in the neighbour- 

 hood of the Pole ; that a part of this flora, being well established, 



