294 



KNOWLEDGE. 



[December 1, 1897. 



is a kind of coal, the ashes of which contain a considerable 

 quantity of the new element helium. The other is called 

 cerite. and consists of the new element argon. These two 

 new elements have never before been found in minerals in 

 a pure state, but only in chemical combinaticn with other 

 elements. ■ » ■ — 



M. Cailletet has presented to the Paris Academy of 

 Sciences a memoir on apparatus for measuring the alti- 

 tudes of balloons, and a means of verifying the results. 

 An aneroid barometer is employed, and photographs are 

 taken at two-minute intervals of the earth and of the 

 aneroid, and it is asserted that the true height can be 

 easily calculated. — -.-. — 



M. Berthelot has recently published a memoir describing 

 some mirrors of Gallo-Eoman origin, dating from the 

 third or fourth century, in which the reflecting surface is 

 lead, which appears to have been applied in the molten 

 state to the glass. , , , 



The International Congress of Zoology is to meet in 

 Cambridge on August 23rd, 1898. An executive com- 

 mittee has been appointed, composed as follows : — 

 President : Sir John Lubbock, Bart. ; Vice-Presidents : 

 The Yice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, Dr. 

 W. T. Blandford, Sir W. H. Flower, the President of 

 the Linn.'can Society, Prof. Eay Lankester, Prof. A. 

 Newton, Dr. P. L. Sclater, the President of the Entomo- 

 logical Society, Sir William Turner, and Lord Walsingham ; 

 Treasurers : Prof. S. -J. Hickson and Dr. P. L. Sclater ; 

 Secretaries : Prof. F. Jeffrey Bell, Mr. G. C. Bourne, and 

 Mr. A. Sedgwick ; Ordinary Members : Dr. H. Gadow, 

 Mr. F. D. Gcdman, Lieut. -Col. Godwin-Austen, Sir G. F. 

 Ham'pson, Dr. S. F. Harmer, Prof. Howes, the Hon. W. 

 Rothschild, Mr. H. Saunders, Prof. Seeley, Dr. D. Sharp, 

 Mr. A. E. Shipley, Prof. C. Stewart, and Dr. H. Woodward. 

 The official address of the Congress is, by Ihe courtesy of 

 the Zoological Society, 3, Hanover Square, London, W. 



An invention which seems likely to render telegraphic 

 communication as direct and private as is telephonic has 

 been displayed to a select company in Berlin. It has been 

 called " Telescripter " and takes the form of an electric 

 typewriter. The apparatus can be electrically connected 

 by means of a call-bell with any other similar apparatus, 

 and the message, which is typed off through the keyboard 

 at one end, will be reproduced in plain letters and 

 numerals on a plate at the other end. The " Telescripter " 

 will do for writing what the telephone effects for speech, 

 and the publicity and complexity of ordinary telegraphic 

 business will be done away with. 

 — .-♦H — 



Messrs. Newton & Co. have on their list some very 

 interesting series of magic-lantern slides. Amongst these 

 may be mentioned a series of English, Spanish, and Dutch 

 birds and nests, photographed from life by Mr. R. B. Lodge. 

 The photographs of a buff-backed heron on a branch of a 

 tree, and of a grey shrike on a shrub, are very clever ; 

 whilst those of a night heron's nest and eggs, and of a 

 young spoonbill, are both interesting and artistic. We 

 understand that Mr. Lodge went to Spain and Holland on 

 purpose to obtain these photographs, and he has certainly 

 been very successful. . . . 



We would direct our readers' attention to the following 

 letter from Mr. Chas. Louis Hett, of Springfield, Brigg : 



A short t-iine ago 1 lieard a bird-call which I did not recognize, 

 beyond remembering that I had read of it a few days jiroviouslv. I 

 searched the volume without success, and the identity of the bird 

 remained undecided. It then occurred to me tliat aii alphabetical 

 list of recorded bird-calls would prevent the recurrence of a similar 

 experience. Acting on this idea, I have now collected from the 



Avorks of Messrs. Beekstein, Dixon, Kearny, Morris, Eobinson, Swann, 

 and Dr. Emerson, the calls of two hundred birds, or rather more than 

 half of tliofe which are accepted as British. I am very desirous that 

 my list should be as complete and perfect as possible, and shall greatly 

 esteem any co-operation which you can give me, either in checking 

 calls already recorded, or supplying those of other birds, more par- 

 ticularly of any bird or birds which you may have had favourable 



opportimities of observing I have frequently retained 



two or more spellings of a single call. This appears to be unavoidable, 

 as our language is not phonetic, and many bird-calls may be spelt in 

 different ways with equal approximation to correctness. I have also 

 retained some very free renderings of calls which approximate to 

 English sentences. Although the " call-bird " portion is complete as 

 far as I have the materials, I have as yet only had the first page set 

 up. If my appeal for co-operation meets with the response for which 

 I hope, I shall at once finish the compilation, and see it through the 

 press. — CnAs. Louis Hett. 



As Mr. Hett remarks, bird-calls may be spelt in English 

 in different ways. This fact, and the similarity of many 

 call notes, renders it impossible in most cases to identify 

 a bird unknown to the observer merely by its note. We 

 do not think Mr. Hett can possibly collect every spelling 

 of every note, since almost everyone spells a call note 

 differently. However, the work will, no doubt, be of 

 some value as a means of identifying birds, if used in 

 conjunction with other data. We do not think that Mr. 

 Hett has gone to the best authorities for his information. 



Dr. A. A. Kanthack, the emment bacteriologist, of St. 

 .John's College, has been elected to the Professorship of 

 Pathology, in the place of the late Prof. C. S. Roy. 



The medals of the Royal Society have been distributed 

 as follows ; the Coiihij, to Prof. Albert von Kiilliker ; the 

 Dai-ij, to Dr. J. H. Gladstone ; the Biiclianan, to Sir John 

 Simon. The Boijal medals have been awarded to Prof. 

 Andrew Russell Forsyth and Lieut. -General Sir Richard 

 Strachey. — '^ — 



At one time it was supposed that a delicate membranous 

 envelope, known as Ascherson's membrane, held the fat 

 globules of milk, and the theory was advanced that the 

 violent concussions induced by churning caused the rupture 

 of these delicate bladders and set each microscopic particle 

 of butter free, thus facilitating the running together of the 

 oily contents. Fresh evidence, however, militated against 

 the belief in this envelope, and the theory gained ground 

 that the globules of fat were merely suspended in the milk 

 in a naked condition, and that when they become aggregated 

 into large granules in the process of churning, they run 

 together in much the same way as globules of quicksilver 

 on contact with one another. Storch, a competent Danish 

 investigator, has recently brought forward evidence which 

 invests the membrane theory with a new lease of life. The 

 chief evidence which he adduces is that of staining the 

 membranous envelope by means of a solution of picro- 

 carmine, so that under microscopic examination the 

 globules, colourless in themselves, were seen to be sur- 

 rounded by a narrow faint-red border. The average 

 thickness of the membrane is calculatad to be about one- 

 twentieth of the diameter of the globule, each globule 

 consisting, as a whole, of 72-5 per cent, of pure fat and 



27-5 per cent, of albuminous membrane. 

 — ►-♦-, — 

 Dr. Aitken, in his presidential address to the Edinburgh 

 Botanical Society, in which he described an experiment 

 during the summer at the Botanical Garden as a means 

 of testing the value of nitroijiir as supplied by the 

 patentees in Germany, says that the substance from 

 which so much had been expected was without any 

 appreciable inliuence upon the growth of beans in pots in 

 a cold frame in the garden. 



* See KNOWLEDaB, September, 1897, p. 201. 



