March 14, 1895] 



NA TV RE 



469 



nly the denser water of the Mediterranean proper is met with. 

 l"he difference between the ratio? of salinity to allialinity in the 

 ise of the Atlantic and Mediterranean waters is not very great, 

 utisclearly marked. ThemeancoelTicieiitof the Atlantic samples 

 examined by Mr. Buchanan was O'jooo, and of the Mediter- 

 ranean 04S75 ; while the minimum coefficient of the .Vtlanlic 

 -amples was greater than the maximum coefficient of the 

 Mediterranean. A possible cause of the difiference between the 

 Mediterranean and Atlantic waters is sought in the abundance 

 of calcareous rocks on the coasts of the former sea. 



TltE first number of the new ChilianycH/H.-j/ oj Hygiene has 

 recently been issued. It is published under the direction of the 

 Institute of Hygiene recently established in Santiago, and 

 isprinted in Spanish. The present volume confines itself to 

 the history and development of the organisation of public 

 hygiene in general throughout Chili, and an account is also 

 given of the provision for official hygienic administration in 

 ' 'rcrmany, France, England, and Belgium. One of the functions 

 xjrcised by the Santiago Hygienic Institute is the analysis of 

 substances for purposes of trade and commerce, and the grant- 

 ing of official certificates as to their quality. Considering the 

 enormously high death-rate of Santiago, which is stated to 

 reach 57 per looo, some reform in hygienic matters is urgently 

 needed, and it is to be hoped that the establishment of this new 

 bureau of Public Health may beneficially stimulate public and 

 private enterprise in this direction. 



\Vf. could not have a better example of the insufficient 

 morphological descriptions which have become attached to some 

 microorganisms, than that afforded by Mr. A. Coppcn [ones 

 in his memoir on the tubercle bacillus, lately published. This 

 nvestigator has studied this microorganism for several years 

 ist at Davos, where he has had ample opportunity for the 

 - Ileclion of tuberculous material, and, after most elaborate and 

 painstaking researches, he considers that we are not yet in a 

 P'lsition to assign its correct morphological place to the organism 

 I nsociated with consumption. Mr. Jones is of opinion that it 

 j>njbably stands in close relation to the moulds, and that it has 

 far more right to be regarded as belonging to this category than 

 to the schizomycetes in the strictest sense of the v/ord. The 

 conclusions are based upon very careful observations, and the 

 memoir is abundantly furnished with beautiful illustrations. 

 The tetanus bacillus has also been seen associated with 

 mycelium threads, and Almquist is stated to have isolated two 

 bacterial forms which produced a branched mycelium. The 

 subject is a most interesting one, and well worthy the attention 

 of morphologists. 



At the meeting of the French Meteorological Society on 

 February 5, an important discussion took place on the subject 

 of anemometry and the vertical currents of the atmosphere, 

 which have sometimes been recorded by the so-called clino- 

 anemometer. M. Ritter thought that the ascending currents 

 registered by those instruments were simply due to deviations of 

 the atmospheric currents by obstacles, such as the lower on 

 which the recording instrument was placed, which divides the 

 current laterally, and also inflects it in an upward direction. 

 M. Angot stated that such vertical currents do not rise to any 

 great height, in proof of which he said that on making the 

 ascent of the Pic du Midi, with an ascending wind caused by 

 striking the incline of the mountain, a number of small papers 

 thrown into the current only rose a few metres, and then ft 11 

 down behind the observer. These observations tend to modify 

 to a great extent the results of experiments on vertical atmo- 

 spheric currents, which have from lime to time been published, 

 and make it advisable for further experiments to be carried out. 



The Report of the Meteorological Council for the year ended 

 March 31, 1894, has been recently presented to Parliament. 

 NO. 1324, VOL. 51] 



In the department of ocean meteorology, the preparation of 

 current charts for all oceans have been regularly proceeded with ; 

 the Council have procured from foreign meteorological offices 

 nearly all the observations for the Pacific Ocean, with the view 

 of rendering the generalised results as trustworthy as possible. 

 The preparation and extraction of data for the south Atlantic 

 and west coast of South America, have also been actively prose- 

 cuted. In the branch of weather telegraphy and forecasts, an 

 important addition has been made by the receipt of daily reports 

 from two stations in the .Vzores. Forecasts are prepared three 

 times a d.ay, either for publication in newspapers, or for the 

 preparation of storm warnings, while during the hay-harvest 

 season, forecasts were supplied to farmers and others, and were 

 also widely distributed by the B lard of Agriculiure. The total 

 percentage of success of these agricultural forecasts reached 91, 

 being the highest yet recorded. .\mong the various publica- 

 tions the IVeekly Weather Report supplies a very complete view 

 of the chief meteorological changes over the greater part of 

 Europe ; considerable progress has also been made with the 

 rainfall tables of the British Isles, the total number of stations 

 for which the values for 1881-90 will be furnished is approxi- 

 mately 430, so that the general distribution of rainfall over 

 our islands will be well represented. Among the miscellaneous 

 researches carried on by the Council, we may mention the com- 

 parison of Dines's pressure tube anemometer, which shows the 

 wind pressure at each instant ; the vane is erected 93 feet above 

 the ground, and the recording portion is in a room in the Me- 

 teorological Office. Upon the whole, the comparison speaks 

 strongly in favour both of the reliability of this instrument, 

 and of the mean record yielded by the Robinson cup ane- 

 mometer, which has hitherto been generally in use, both in 

 this country and abroad. 



It has often been observed that a bright scarlet uniform will 

 in a good photographic darkroom with ruby-glass windows, 

 appear perfectly white. On this subject Ilerr H. W. Vogel 

 made some interesting communications to the Physical Society 

 of Berlin at a recent meeting. Experimenting with oil lamps 

 provided with pure red, green, and blue colour screens, he 

 found that when white light was rigidly excluded, all sense of 

 colour disappeared to the observers, and nothing but shades of 

 black and white could be distinguished on objects in the room. 

 He further found that a scale of colours illuminated by red 

 light showed the red pigments as white or grey, which abruptly 

 turned into yellow, and not red, on adding blue light. Hence 

 a colour was perceived which was not contained in either of the 

 sources. Red and yellow patches appeared of the same colour, 

 so that they could hardly be distinguished. But the difference 

 was at once brought out by adding green instead of blue light. 

 How very much the kind of sensation experienced depends upon 

 the intensity of illumination is easily seen in the case of the 

 region of the spectrum near the G line of Fraunhofer. This 

 region appears violet when its luminosity is feeble, b'ue 

 when it is stronger, and may even appear bluish-white with 

 strong sunlight, so th.at the assertion often made that with 

 normal eyes a definite colour-sensation corresponds to a definite 

 wave-length, cannot be upheld. Herr Vogel comes to the con- 

 clusion that our opinion as to the colour of a pigment is guided 

 by our perception of the absence of certain constituf nts. Thus 

 a red substance is only recognised as such when light of other 

 colours is admitted, and we perceive its inability to reflect 

 these. 



.\T the meeting of the Institution of Civil Engineers, on 

 Tuesday, iMarch 5, two papers, dealing with the transmission 

 of power by electricity, were read. The first, on "Electiical 

 HauLige at Earnock Colliery," by Mr. Robert Robertson, con- 

 tained an account of the general features of the colliery and of 



