May 3, 1894J 



NA TURE 



J7 



A propo! of the early return of birds this year, Jlr. J. H. 

 Barbour, writing from Ballyholme, Ireland, says that on 

 Saturday, April 28, about 10 p.m., he heard the corncrake 

 several times, and it was heard in the district a fortnight before. 



A LETTER has been received in reply to the one on "The 

 Mass of the Earth," which appeared in our issue of April 19 

 (p. 575), but it was not accompanied by the author's name. If 

 the author will send his name, the Editor will be glad to print 

 his reply to "K." 



Dr. Jentink, the Director of the Leyden Museum, reminds 

 us that two specimens of Rhinoceros liniiis have formed part of 

 the Museum collection for more than forty years, one of them 

 being a remarkably fine animal. These are described in iVo/es 

 from the Leyden Museum (1890, pp. 241-245), and we regret 

 that they were not mentioned in the note on the two specimens 

 recently modelled by Mr. Rowland Ward, printed in Nature 

 of April 19 (p. 584). 



We know of no collection of text-books in which the theory 

 underlying industrial machines and processes is set forth in a 

 more scientific and thorough manner than it is in the works of the 

 Encyclopedic Scientifique des Aide-Mcmoire series, edited 

 by M. Lcaute, and published by Gauthier ViUars, and by 

 Masson. Two of these volumes, which have recently appeared, 

 deal with freezing machines, one being devoted to the machines 

 depending upon easily liquefiable gases, and the other to machines 

 in which air, or one of the so-called permanent gases, is caused 

 to expand rapidly, and thus bring about a decrease of tempera- 

 ture. The titles of the two books are, respectively, " Machines 

 Frigorifiques a Gar Liqucfiables" and "Machines Frigorifiques 

 a Air," and their author is M. R. E. de Marchena. Another 

 volume, just added to the series, is " Construction and Resis- 

 tance des Machines a Vapeur," by M. .\lheilig. 



We have received the sixteenth yearly volume of Aits clem 

 Archiv der D;ulschen Seewarte, 1893, containing seven impor- 

 tant discussions in meteorology and terrestrial magnetism. The 

 current number of this valuable publication inaugurates a new 

 departure, a; a considerable amount of routine matter has been 

 removed to another periodical, in order to make room for 

 scientific discussions, and to allow of the work being brought 

 out with less delay than heretofore. It is not practicable to 

 mention here the whole of the subjects dealt with : among the 

 most original investigations not .already referred to in our 

 columns are papers by Dr. C. Kassner on " Circular Cyclones," 

 and by Dr. W. Kuppen and Dr. H. Meyer, on the frequency 

 of the various amounts of cloud as a climatological element. 

 This last paper embraces the results of a number of long series 

 of clou I observa'ioas in different parts of the globe, and a part 

 of the North Atlantic Ocean. 



In general, a work which has reached a seventh edition needs 

 no better testimony of its good qualities than that to be found 

 in the fact of its survival. This is the case with Sir David 

 Salomon's " Electric Light Installations and the Management 

 of Accumulators," which is being issued by Messrs. Whittaker 

 and Co. The edition has been mostly rewritten, and will be 

 completed in three volumes. The first volume appeared a short 

 time ago, and was confined entirely to the treatment of accumu- 

 lators. Vol. ii., which has just been issued, deals with engines, 

 dynamos and motors, and numberless pieces of apparatus con- 

 cerned in the generation and utilisation of electricity. Special 

 applications of such apparatus are reserved for description in 

 vol. iii., now in the press. In the three hundred pages of 

 which the second volume consists, as many as 295 illustrations 

 are crowded ; but as the author has confined himself to the repre- 

 sentation of typical forms of instruments, he has saved the book 

 from being merely an illustrated trade catalogue. 



NO. 1279, VOL. 50] 



The Cambridge University Press will shortly publish a 

 treatise on the ' ' Steam Engine and other Heat Engines," by Prof. 

 Ewing ; the seventh volume of the edition of Prof. Cayley's 

 collected papers, and the first volume of the collected papers of 

 the late Prof. Adams. An " Elementary Treatise on Electricity 

 and Magnetism," by Prof. J. J. Thomson, is in the press, and 

 also a new edition of Prof. Lamb's " Hydrodynamics," largely 

 rewritten and extended. An " Elementary Treatise on Hydro- 

 statics," by Mr. John Greaves, has Just appeared, and a Key to 

 Mr. C. Smith's "Arithmetic " is nearly ready. The completion 

 of Mr. H. M. Taylor's "Euclid" is also announced, and will be 

 published in August. The second volume of Dr. Creighton's 

 " History of Epidemics " may be expected shortly, and a new 

 volume of the Royal Society's Catalogue. In the series of Cam- 

 bridge Natural Science Manuals, Mr. Glazebrook's volumes on 

 " Light " and " Heat," recently published, will be followed by 

 volumes by the same writer on " Mechanics and Hydrostatics," 

 and on " Electricity and Magnetism," and by Messrs. Darwin 

 and Acton's " Physiology of Plants." 



Dr. J. P. VAX DER Stok, the Director of the Batavia Meteoro- 

 logical Observatory, has sent us a report of the rainfall obser- 

 vations made in the East Indian .\rchipelago during 1S92. 

 This " Regenwaarnemingen in Nederlandsch-Indie " has now 

 reached its sixteenth year. From it we learn that observations 

 were made in 192 stations during 1892, of which 104 were in 

 Java and Madcera, and 88 in Sumatra and other islands in the 

 Archipelago. In addition to the volume of rainfall observations, 

 the Government of Netherlands India has published one con- 

 taining the observations made at the magnetic and meteorological 

 observatory at Batavia during 1892, being the fifteenth volume 

 of the "Observations" of the Observatory. No science can 

 claim so many disciples as meteorology. There is scarcely 

 a corner of the world, inhabited by civilised man, in which the 

 temperature is not recorded and the rainfall measured. Indeed, 

 the thermometer and the rain-gauge are the instruments by means 

 of which the first continuous scientific observations are made in 

 most parts of our globe. Meteorological observations, there- 

 fore, rapidly accumulate, and the volumes containing them have 

 almost become unmanageable, both as regards number and size. 

 One is sometimes tempted to ask whether these masses of 

 statistics are worth publication, but the remembrance of past 

 discoveries — such, for instance, as Schwabe's discovery of the 

 solar cycle from his daily records of the'state of the sun's surface 

 during a quarter of a century — shows the importance of record- 

 ing all observations that good may come from them. 



A FURTHER paper by M. Lobry de Bruyn, of Amsterdam, 

 upon the subject of free hydroxylamine, is contributed to the 

 current issue of the Berichle. It contains an account of a num- 

 ber of experiments upon the stability of the isolated base, 

 together with additional observations upon the mode of prepa- 

 ration. When M. de Bruyn prepared his large quantity of solid 

 hydroxylamine three years ago, several small quantities, 

 amounting to five or six grams in each case, were sealed up in 

 small bottles previously cleansed with acid, and preserved in a 

 dark room. Upon recently examining the contents, they were 

 found to be mostly liquid, indicating a certain amount of de- 

 composition. The melting point of pure hydroxylamine is 33° ; 

 two of the liquefied specimens referred to solidified again a( 

 28°5 and 25°"2 respectively. The amount of decomposition, 

 however, is not very great, three of the specimens being found 

 to contain 93, 84, and 73 per cent, respectively. Hence free 

 hydro.xylamine appears to be a tolerably stable substance at 

 ordinary low temperatures, but the stability diminishes rapidly 

 with rise of temperature. The decomposition is accompanied 

 by the liberation of bubbles of nitrogen and nitrous oxide. The 

 change appears to be one of self-oxidation and reduction, one 



