August 29, 1895] 



NA TORE 



419 



The Assistant Clerk to the Geological Society, Mr. F. E. 

 Brown, died suddenly on Sunday, August 4. The Society loses 

 in him an invaluable official, who was ever rigid in the exact 

 performance of all his duties, and combined with strict business- 

 like habits a courtesy and patience which endeared him to his 

 colleagues and to the Fpllows generally. 



The eleventh Congress of Americanists will be held in the 

 City of Mexico, on October 15-20. The meeting has for its 

 principal object the progress of ethnographical, linguistic, and 

 historical studies of the two Americas, especially with reference 

 to the period prior to the discovery of the New World. Among 

 the matters which w-ill be discussed at the forthcoming gather- 

 ing are the following : — The relations existing between different 

 American peoples before the discovery ; maps of the Atlantic 

 and Pacific Oceans in the sixteenth century ; medical natural 

 history of the Ancient Mexicans ; public instruction in Mexico 

 in early times, and from the conquest o£ Mexico, to. the middle of 

 the sixteenth century ; mines and metalhirgy before the conquest 

 of Mexico ; interpretation of the symbolic dances of the Azetics ; 

 diflerent forms of arrows and their use among the natives of 

 Central America ; recent researches with regard to the first 

 appearance of man in America; relationships between the 

 I^squimaux and other native races of North ..America ; pre- 

 historic man in Mexico ; the stone carvings in Central America ; 

 the pottery of Nicaragua and Costa Rica ; the chronological 

 classification of the monuments of Mexico and Central America ; 

 the human inhabitants of caves and grottos ; Indian hieroglyphics ; 

 names of animals in the native languages of Central America ; 

 the decipherment and comparison of the hieroglyphics of 

 ancient races of Mexico ; the use of hieroglyphic writing since 

 the conquest of Mexico, and the importance of its study in 

 connection with the Mexican and Mayan languages. The 

 President of the Congress is Sr. J. Baranda, and the Secretar)', 

 Sr. T. S. Santos, to whom all memoirs and other communications 

 should be addressed at the Bibliotheque Nationale, Mexico. 



Dl'RiNG the latter part of last week the area of high 

 barometric pressure that had prevailed over the greater part of 

 the British Islands gave way to small disturbances, which either 

 approached from the Atlantic, or were formed immediately over 

 this country, causing severe thunderstorms over England and 

 Ireland, while lightning was also visible in Scotland. In the 

 storm of Thursday night (22nd inst.) the lightning was 

 extremely brilliant in London, the (lashes during part of the 

 time being almost continuous. Considerable quantities of rain 

 fell in many localities, and in some of the English districts much 

 damage was done by hail. 



The problem solved by Edison's kinetoscope has been suc- 

 cessfully attacked along a different line by MM. A. and L. 

 I.umicrc. Tlie film which in the kinetoscope takes the impres- 

 sions of moving objects is passed before the eye with a con- 

 tinuous motion, and it is only illuminated for about a 70cioth of 

 a second at the instant at which each successive picture is fully 

 in view. Hence the total illumination is exceedingly feeble. 

 A very bright object is necessary ; the eye has to be brought 

 close to the moving film, and the number of impressions per 

 .second must be at least thirty in order to give continuity. 

 MM. I-umiere's " kinematograph," which is not subject to the.se 

 disadvantages, is described in the Revue Gdiierak des Sciences. 

 The principal features of this instrument arc a mechanism 

 whereby the film is at rest during illumination, and an arrange- 

 ment for projecting the images upon a screen, so as to be visible 

 to a large meeting. Under these circumstances, fifteen images 

 per second are all that is necessary. The film is at rest for 

 two-thirds of the time of passage of each image. During the 

 remaining third the film is grasped and pulled forward as far as I 

 NO. 1348, VOL. 52] 



the next image by a set of teeth attached to a frame whose 

 motion is governed by a cam worked by a revolving handle. 

 The same apparatus also serves as a camera for taking the 

 photographs, and for printing transparencies from the negative 

 film. For this purpose two films are passed over the rollers, 

 the negative and the film to be printed on, and exposure is 

 made for a very short time as each negative image is placed in 

 the field. An exhibition was given on July 1 1, at the offices of 

 the Revue Ginerale des Sciences., at which the evolutions of 

 cuirassiers, a house on fire, a factory, street scenes, and a dinner- 

 party were shown on the screen, and were much admired. 



A NU.MBER of observations referring to a shower of dust in 

 connection with snow in Indiana and Kentucky, are brought 

 together and discussed in the Monthly IVeat/ter Review. The 

 dust does not appear to have been the nuclei of snow flakes, but 

 was intermingled in the air with the snow, and fell during an 

 interval between two snow-storms. An examination of numerous 

 samples showed that the dust was made up largely of silt, mixed 

 with organic matter. A number of freshwater algie were dis- 

 tinguished, though they appear to have been dead and dried for 

 some time. There were also groups of diatoms, fiingi, animal 

 and plant hairs, fibres of grasses, shreds of woody tissue of some 

 shrub or tree, and many other objects in the samples examined. 

 Everything indicated that the material came from the bottom of 

 some dried-up lake, pond, or marsh, or some river-bottom. To 

 afford information upon the belief that this fine material is very 

 valuable as a fertiliser, an examination of the dust was made 

 from that point of view. The analyses showed that the material 

 is no better fertiliser than any other good surface soil. The dust 

 was almost identical with the .so-called " loess" formation, 

 which covers very extensive areas in Illinois, Indiana, 

 Nebraska, and other adjoining States ; its de|ith in some 

 places amounting to a hundred feet or more. This is interest- 

 ing, because there is a long-standing controversy as to the 

 origin of the loess formation of the North-west. Certain 

 portions of the loess formation of Asia are known to be wind 

 deposits, and there is very strong presumptive evidence, now 

 borne out by the examination of the samples of dust, that much 

 of the loess of the Western States is also a wind deposit. 

 Special interest is thus attached to the dust-storm referred to, on 

 account of the bearing of the observations on the question of 

 the formation of agricultural soils, and especially the loess, which 

 is the lightest and finest of all. This light soil is easily raised 

 and carried by the strong winds of the western plains of 

 America : instances have occurred in which six inches of surface 

 soil have been blown away from freshly cultivated fields in the 

 course of a single wind-storm. Prof. Cleveland Abbe is of the 

 opinion that the dust caught between the two layers of snow in 

 Indiana, probably did not differ materially from that which is 

 daily present in the atmosphere of that region, but its presence 

 on the top of a layer of snow rendered it ea.sy to gather the 

 du.st-fall without contamination with the soil already existing. 

 So this dust formation, or loess, when it has once settled upon 

 the ordinary soils, Ijecomes a new ingredient in their composition, 

 and is therefore well worth further study. 



A USEI-'UL bulletin, on the pasteurisation of milk and cream 

 for direct consumption, has been issued from the Agricultural 

 Experiment Station of the University of Wisconsin. It is 

 drawn up by Dr. II. L. Russell, the b.acteriologist attached to 

 the station, and contains much interesting matter. There can be 

 no doubt whatever that the pasteurisation of milk is a most im- 

 portant hygienic measure, destroying as it does an average of 

 about 997 per cent of the microbes present in milk, amongst 

 which are the diphtheria and typhoid microbes, as well as those 

 organisms associated with gastric and intestinal disturbances so 

 common in young infants during the sunnner. It is claimed 



