856 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Weld, L. G. A Short Course in the Theory of 

 Determinants. Macmillan & Co. Pp. 238. 



Wickeraham, James. Tacoma, Wash. Is it 

 Mount Tacoma, or Rainier ? Pp. 34. 



World's Columbian Exposition. Department 

 of Engineering. Official Programme. Pp. 3;i. 



Wright. C. H., and Dewar, O., Editors. John- 

 Hon's Gardener's Dictionary. New revised edi- 

 tion. Part II. Macmillan & Co. Pp. 128. 40 

 cents. 



POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



Notes from the Madison Meeting of 

 the American Association. At the Madison 

 meeting of the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, the pressing neces- 

 sity for giving availability to the world's 

 wealth in scientific literature was discussed. 

 In the Botanical Section was suggested the 

 desirability of a bibliography for botany such 

 as that compiled for chemistry by Prof. H. 

 Carrington Bolton. It was further proposed 

 that the bibliographical volumes be supple- 

 mented by a serial index. In the Mechan- 

 ical Section Mr. C. Wellman Parkes, of Troy, 

 N. Y., outlined a weekly index to periodicals 

 which he promises to establish in New York 

 with the new year. During each quarter the 

 numbers will successively recapitulate all the 

 titles from the beginning of the quarter. 

 At the end of the sixth, ninth, and twelfth 

 months special numbers will recapitulate all 

 the titles from the beginning of the year. 

 The reclassifications needed for this index 

 are to be rendered easy by adopting a ma- 

 chine casting each title as a solid line of 

 type metal. 



Prof. Bolton's bibliography of chemistry 

 is published by the Smithsonian Institution. 

 At the recent Congress of Librarians in Chi- 

 cago it was stated that this institution may 

 publish other similar bibliographies for 

 which manuscripts may be prepared by 

 learned societies. As a good many of these 

 societies have moderate funds available for 

 the purpose, and as societies still more nu- 

 merous could arrange for gratuitous co-op- 

 eration, on the plan of the American Li- 

 brary Association with its index to period- 

 icals, the impulse to organization seems to 

 be all that is lacking in order to supply a 

 crying need of the times. 



Prof. Edward Hart, of Easton, Pa., ad- 

 verted to the importance of mechanical aids 



in analytical chemistry. Balances, he said, 

 are now made with short arms, and are in 

 consequence more rapid. They are provided 

 with agate knife edges to resist corrosion, 

 with aluminum beams for lightness, with 

 better weights, with improved beam and pan 

 arrests. The torsion balance, due to Dr. 

 Alfred Springer, of Cincinnati, enables a 

 heavier load to be weighed with greater sen- 

 sitiveness. The Gibb ring-burner much im- 

 proves the Bunsen lamp : it allows the upper 

 part of a crucible to be heated so that 

 liquids boiling at high temperatures may be 

 evaporated without spattering. 



Prof. T. M. Drown, of Lafayette College, 

 first used, in 1875 or 1876, the crucible with 

 perforated bottom which, reinvented in 1879 

 by Prof. F. A. Gooch, with the addition of 

 asbestos felt, is invaluable in certain analy- 

 ses. Filters of paper, when unsatisfactory, 

 can be replaced by Gibbs's sand filter, Mun- 

 roe's clay filter, and CarmichaePs siphon 

 filter. The chemist with recent years has 

 added two metals to the list from which his 

 vessels are drawn nickel and aluminum. 

 In the cheap and ready supply of reagents, 

 which a few years ago were troublesome to 

 make and costly of purchase, industry has 

 done an important service to research ; to- 

 day hydrogen dioxid, bromin, and potassium 

 permanganate are articles of commerce and 

 bear moderate prices. 



Prof. E. L. Nichols, of Cornell Univer- 

 sity, referring to the phenomena of" alternat- 

 ing currents, said that their complexity had 

 obliged the modern electrician to be both a 

 mathematician and a physicist. In much 

 the same way a generation ago the new and 

 difficult phenomena of cable telegraphy 

 served to train the men who stand as pio- 

 neers and chieftains in electrical science. 



Prof. W. H. Brewer, of New Haven, 

 Conn., speaking of stock-breeding, said that 

 as long ago as 1812 a thousand guineas had 

 been paid in England for a short-horn bull. 

 The Short-horn Herd-book, published in 1832, 

 and the Stud-book, yet earlier, had laid the 

 foundation for the science of heredity in 

 part by proving that cross-breeding induced 

 variability. Within the modern era the only 

 additions to domesticated animals have been 

 the canary and the ostrich. 



