Sei'Thmber 26, 1S95] 



NA rURE 



52; 



•cessful essays will be published in the Socieiy's annual volume, 

 and fifty copies of the paper will be supplied tcj their writers free 

 •of charge. Particulars as to the latest dates for sending papers, 

 and all other necessary information, may lie obtained from the 

 Honorary Secretaries, at the house of the Royal Society of Xew 

 South Wales, S, Klizab;th-street, Sydney. 



The Manchester Trades Council has recently passed a 

 resolution strongly in favour of the Report of the Select Com- 

 mittee of the House of Commons on Weights and Measures, in 

 which the Council expresses the hope that no efforts will be 

 spared to make the Committee's recommendations law. As can 

 be readily understood, the New Decimal Association is much 

 ■encouraged by the attitude taken in so important a commercial 

 centre as Manchester, and it is to be hoped that at no distant 

 <late their efforts will be crowned with success, and that the 

 present cumbrous system will be for ever abandoned. 



The metric system of weights and measures is to be 

 obligatory in the United States of Me.xico from September 16, 

 1S96. This system has been in use in the Government depart- 

 ments of Mexico for some time past, but a decree recently passed 

 makes it the sole legal sj'stem throughout the Republic, and will 

 make an end of the various old Spanish measures hitherto in 

 vogue in ordinary business transactions. 



Ur. van Rijckevorsel and Ilerr van Bemmelen are 

 engaged on a research which has for its object to determine the 

 influence of elevation above sea-level on the magnetic elements. 

 Kor this purpose an accurate magnetic survey must be made of 

 some moderately high mountain, of non-magnetic material and 

 sufficiently far removed from magnetic masses. The Righi 

 seems to fulfil these conditions most satisfactorily ; but in order 

 10 decide the matter, Herrn. van Rijckevorsel and van Bemmelen 

 selected thirty stations, distributed on the low ground round the 

 Righi in three concentric circles with the mountain as centre. 

 The magnetic elements have been determined at these stations, 

 but the calculations are not yet completed. If these indicate no 

 traces of disturbance, due to the Righi or its surroundings, the 

 survey of the mountain will be proceeded with. 



The latest number of the Records of the Ceological Survey of 

 India contains a translation of a paper by Dr. F. Kurtz, on the 

 Lower (iondwana beds of .Argentina (from Revista del Miis. de 

 la Plata). In this is recorded an important discovery of plant- 

 remains in shales at Bajo de Velis. These fossils are well- 

 preserved, and while lieing quite different from the Argentine 

 plant-remains already found, show a close affinity to the plants 

 "f the K.aharbari beds of the Lower Gondwanas of India, as 

 well as to those of the Ekka-Kiinberley beds of South Africa, 

 ilie Newcastle and Baccus-Marsh beds of Australia, and the 

 Mersey l)eds of Tasmania. The previously-known plant-bearing 

 beds of Argentina consisted of two series — one containing a 

 Kha-'tic flora, resembling that of the Stormberg (Up|jer Ivaroo) 

 I'eds of South .Africa, the Hawkesbury beds of -Vustralia, and 

 llie R.ijmahal (Upper Gondwana) series of India ; the other 

 containing a flora of Lower Carboniferous character. The 

 newly-discovered flora must be intermediate in age between these 

 two— that is to say, it cannot be older than Upper Carboniferous, 

 nor younger than Triassic ; and with it must go the flora of the 

 important coal-bearing Upper Gomlwana beds of India. These 

 b.ive alre.ady been assigned to the Upper Carboniferous (at lowest) 

 I'y .Messrs. .Medlicotl and Blanford, and the Indian Survey, 

 and the new discoveries in Argentina give a satisfactory con- 

 firmation of their views. 



We note the jniblication of the first Bulletin des Observations 

 AIMorohgi,/ius, 1894, by the Observator)- of St. Louis, St. 

 Heliers, Jersey, containing monthly means from direct observa- 

 NO. 1352, VOL. 52] 



tions and from self-recording instruments. The Director of this 

 new Observatory is the Rev. M. Dechevrens, who has already 

 done good work at Zi-ka-wei, near Shanghai, and by the 

 investigation of the typhoons of the China Seas, in connection 

 with the Shanghai Meteorological .Society. The St. Louis 

 Observatory is provided with a tower about 150 feet high, for 

 the special study of vertical wind currents and atmospheric 

 electricity. 



The Acclimatisation Society of Moscow must be credited 

 with more than ordinary originality and ingenuity in its efforts 

 to improve the system of bee-keeping in vogue among the 

 Russian peasants. .Antiquated and unremunerative methods of 

 hive management are still in general use in Russia ; and, in order 

 to diffuse a knowledge of the more rational methods of modern 

 a))iarisls, the .Society last year organised a travelling bee-keeping 

 exhibition upon a novel and, as it proved, most successful plan. 

 A barge, 70 metres long and 8 metres broad, was procured and 

 fitted up with a museum, a garden with trees and flower-beds, 

 hives of all kinds, old and new, and a number of hives with 

 living bees ; there were also dwelling-rooms for the travelling 

 staff. The museum contained examples of bee-keeping appli- 

 ances and products, together with a set of preparations illus- 

 trating the structure and life-history of bees and their natural 

 enemies. The staff in charge of the exhibition consisted of a 

 practical bee-keeper, two entomologists, and ten men-servants 

 for the vessel. The floating exhibition was towed down the 

 river out of Moscow by twenty horses, ten on each bank ; and 

 six towns and about twenty villages were visited between the 

 old capital and the town Kaluga. The travelling was done 

 during the night. During the day, from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., a 

 halt was made at some town or village ; the objects in the 

 museum were explained to visitors by the staff, and the methods 

 of working the model hives were demonstrated to the bee-keep- 

 ing country folk. The exhibition has worked with great success. 

 The great expense which this interesting .-ind instnictive exhi- 

 bition demanded was most willingly defrayed by llerr F. 

 Motschalkin, who is himself an enthusiastic bee-keeper. 



A NEW determination of the lowest temperature at which a 

 hot body becomes visible is published by Sgr. P. I'ettinelli, in 

 the Niiovo Cimcnio. He heated a cast-iron cylinder 30 cm. 

 long and 14 cm. broad in a wrought-iron jacket over a Bunsen 

 burner to aitemperature of 460° C., as indicated by an air ther- 

 mometer, and then observed its flat end in a dark room from a 

 point 60 cm. above it. When it had cooled to about 415°, the 

 red heat vanished and gave way to an indefinite hazy glow. 

 This glow completely disappeared at 404°, and repeated obser- 

 vations gave an error of only 3°. Highly emissive substances, 

 such as the " mantles " made by .-Vuer and others for incan- 

 descent gas lighting, became visible at the same temperature ; but 

 reflecting surfaces had to be heated 20° higher before they 

 appeared to the eye, and gla.ss still more. These low tempera- 

 ture rays were found to traverse glass and water like ordinary 

 light rays, but they suffer a comparatively greater absorption. 

 Different eyes differ slightly in their cap,acity of seeing them, the 

 maximum divergence being about 6°. But then the extent of 

 surface must be the same. Sgr. I'ettinelli found that if he 

 screened off all but I /40th of the surface, the body had to be 

 heated 6° higher than before to become visible ; if i/200th, 20° 

 higher ; and if i/8ooth only was exposed to view, the minimum 

 temperature of visibility was 460°. Hence he rightly concludes 

 that the contradictory results obtained by previous experimenters 

 are due to differences in the areas of the hot bodies investigated. 



The Irish elk (Megaecros hibeniiciis) has hitherto had a some- 

 what isolated position as the only species of its genus known to 

 naturali-sts up to the present. A new claimant to the' same 

 generic title has, however, been recently unearthed in Germany, 



