55^ 



NATURE 



[October 3, 1895 



insight iinto the diseases of the nervous sj'stem. The presenta- 

 tion was made by Sir James Paget, who also presented the 

 prizes to the students. Mr. G. D. Tollock advised the students 

 at St. George's Hospital as to their methods and aims of work. 

 A valuable address on the more important developments of 

 modem medicine, especially in the department of bacteriology, 

 was given at Westminster Hospital by Dr. S. M. Copeman. 

 l>r. W. J. Mickle discourseil on psychological medicine at 

 Middlesex Hospital, and Dr. ti. D".\th read a paper at Guy's 

 llospital on "Our Profession, our Patients, our Public, and our 

 Press." The introductor>' address to the students of the London 

 School of Medicine for Women was given by Miss Ellaby. 



The annu.1l exhibition of natural scientific specimens of the 

 South London Natural History Society will be held at the St. 

 Martin's Town Hall, Charing Cross, on the evening of 

 October 17. 



A PORTRAIT bust in bronze of the late Dr. Robert Brown, 

 the botanist, has been presented to the Montrose Town Council 

 by Miss Paton, a kinswoman of the botanist ; it has been placed 

 in a niche in the house where Dr. Brown was born in 1773- 



The Lancet announces that a subscription has been opened in 

 Bristol to proride for the purchase and retention in that city of 

 the celebrated collection of relics l)elonging to Jenner in con- 

 nection with his introduction of vaccination. The collection is 

 at present the property of Mr. Frederick Nockler, of Wotton- 

 under-Edge, and was exhibited by him at the Bristol Exhibition 

 in 1S93, and since then in London, at each of which places it 

 attracted a considerable amount of attention. 



Was any record obtained of an earthquake in England on 

 September 13 ? A correspondent informs us that at 12.25 *••"• 

 on that day, four slight but very distinct shocks were felt two 

 miles north-west of Southampton. The shocks caused the 

 room to shake, and a deep grinding noise was heard ; they 

 occurred a few seconds after each other, but the interval between 

 the third and fourth was a little longer than that between the 

 previous tremors. The last shock appears to have been the 

 most intense. 



On Saturday, September 14, the ceremony of breaking 

 the soil preparatory to the erection of the new building 

 of the BrookljTi Institute, was performed in that city. The 

 estimated cost of the new building is several millions of 

 dollars, as its projectors intend it to be one of the finest and 

 most complete of its kind erected. The Institute, which 

 has a membership approaching 4000, has never yet had a 

 suitable home, and it is confidently anticipated that rapid strides 

 in membership and usefulness will be made when the present 

 scheme has been carried to a conclusion. 



We much regret to have to record the death, from injuries 

 received whilst riding his bicycle, of Prof. C. V. Riley, of 

 Washington. Prof. Riley, who was fifty-two years old and a 

 native of England, died on September 14. He w.as for many 

 years Sl.ate entomologist of Missouri, and from 1 878 till 1S94W.1S 

 (lovcmmcnt entomologist of the United .States, .ind .-is such did 

 very much in devising and applying means to destroy noxious 

 insects. His successful cx|X'riment in checking the ravages of 

 Ihc white scale in California, a few years ago, by introducing the 

 (larasitic lady bug, Vedalia iardinalii^ w.is among the most 

 brilliant triumphs of economic entomology. Prof. Riley has 

 written and published much. He w.-is one of the original Fellows 

 fA the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 

 and President of the Zoological Section in 1888, when he 

 ilelivcrcd an address on the causes of variation in organic forms. 



AUTHORITIES have differed much as to the character of 

 crystallised bromine. Gmclin-Kraut's Hand-lmok descriljcs the 

 vilid 5ul»lancc as stcclgrey and similar to io<linc, whereas 

 Schutzcnitergcr says " solid bromine Is a crystalline, brown-red 



NO. 1353, VOL. 52] 



mass, and not grey-blue, as it is often described." The Z(it- \ 

 schrift fur Anorgaitisclu' Chemie (x. I and 2) gives a short ac- 

 count of its preparation by Henryk .\rctowski by a new method. 

 A very concentrated solution of bromine in carbon bisulphide, 

 when cooled to - 90°, deposits the halogen in the crystalline form 

 and free from the solvent. When thus obtained, bromine forms 

 a mass of fine needles of some millimetres length, which have ;v 

 fine dark carmine-red colour like that of chromium trioxide. 

 Solid bromine, obtained in mass, has a crystalline fracture, and 

 has no well-defined metallic lustre like iodine ; at the best, it has 

 a dull black metallic apfiearance. 



The boiling point and the critical temperature of hydrogen, 

 concerning which Prof. K. Olszewski made a preliminary state- 

 ment in Na ri"RE some little time ago, have since been dctermincil 

 by him with every precaution .-igainst error, with the result thai 

 his first estimate is proved to have been very near the truth. In 

 the current number of Wkdonaitn s Aiinalcn the process is 

 described in det.<iil. The "expansion method," which had 

 already been successfully employed to determine the critical 

 pressure, was again utilised, the critical temperature being the 

 temperature at which liquid hydrogen, when slowly released from 

 pressure, first boils up, and the boiling point being the tempera- 

 ture attained when the pressure is reduced to that of one atmo- 

 sphere. The chief difficulty was, as usual, that of determining 

 the temperature accurately. Prof. Olszewski succeeded here by 

 using a coil of thin platinum wire immersed in the hydrogen, 

 whose varying resistance indicated the amount by which it was 

 cooled. This coil w,as placed in a cast-iron cylinder into 

 which hydrogen was conducted from a reservoir under iSo 

 atmospheres pressure. The cast-iron cylinder could be brought 

 down to a temperature of - 210° C, not far from the absolute 

 zero, by means of liquid oxygen. But the critical temperature 

 of hydrogen was found to be still lower, viz. - 234*5'' C, and had 

 to be found by exlrapol.-ition. The boiling point was - 243 '5° C, 

 or -406 "3° F. 



In a reiMrt on the Coosa coal-field, published by the Geo- 

 logical Survey of .\labama, Mr. \. M. Gibson describes some 

 rcnmrkable effects of the great " cloud-bursts" which devasl.ited 

 that region in 1S72, and are still conspicuous after a lapse of ^ 

 over twenty years. Clean-cut channels, in one case sixty feet 

 wide and three or four feel deep, are described as extending 

 down the mountain sides. They were formed by the direct j 

 force of the downpour of water, and along them were carried! 

 great m.isses of rock — one weighing a hundre<l tons — earth,a 

 trees, &c., which formed moraine-like masses at the base, or J 

 were scattered far over the lower ground. f 



Vol.. \-\. of the new series of Reports of the Geological Survey 

 of Canada h-is recently been published, and contains the annual 

 reports for the years 1892 and 1893, two s)>ecial preliminary 

 rejwrls on particular districts (namely, parts of Ontario and ) 

 Nova Scotia), and chemical and mining re|>orls illustrated bjfj 

 numerous statistical diagrams. Among the matters of generMjll 

 interest, we may note the results of Mr. Low's exploration flif 

 I-ibrador. He finds that the interior of l^brador is well*|l 

 wooded, instead of being a treeless wilderness as generallyM 

 supposed, and finds evidence that the continental ice-cap took J 

 its rise in the interior of that country. In the chemical rejiorti, | 

 Mr. G. C. Hoffmann records a remarkable mineralogical difc j 

 covery. In the kaolinizcd perlhite fnmi a pegmatite vein anl'| 

 found spherules of metallic iron, mostly minute but at tiniM ' 

 mca-suring as much as a millimetre in diameter, and having a 

 siliceous nucleus. Mr. Hoflfmann refers to similar sphcrulM 

 described by him some years ago ( Trans. Roy. Soc. Cn/iadi, ■ 

 vol. viii. sec. iii. p. 39), on the joint-surfaces of a quart/itc, and 

 considers that the explanation suggested in that case applies hcJt 

 .again— that the iron has been reduced from limonite by the ad 

 of organic matter. 





