5i6 



NA TURE 



[March 28, 1895 



student of geography can obtain the latest geographical in- 

 formatioa. 



Dr. a. E. Me\xr, of the Royal Zoological Museum at 

 Dresden, has sent us a description of two new bird? of paradise 

 from New Guinea. {Abk. u. Ber. d. K. Zool. ii. Anthr.-Elhn. 

 M:is. zu Drt:den, 1894-95, No. 5). One of the birds, shown 

 in its natural size in one of the two coloured plates which 

 illustrate the paper, possesses remarkable ch.iracteristics in the 

 form and colour of its plumage, and in the arrangement of two 

 very long feathers which stretch out from the head to about twice 

 the length of the body of the bird. This bird has been named 

 Pteridophora alherti, in honour of King Albert of Saxony, and 

 the second one described and figured by Dr. Meyer has been 

 called Paro'.ia carolts, after Queen Caroline. 



The seventh volume of the Proceedings of the Royal Society 

 of Victoria has reached us. The volume contains twenty-eight 

 papers, many of them illustrated with plates, communicated to 

 the Society during 1894. With two or three exceptions, the 

 papers belong to the domain of natural science. Among the 

 contributions we notice one on Tasmanian earthworms, by 

 Prof. Baldwin Spencer, and a note, by the same author, on two 

 new forms of marsupials obtained in Central .\ustraUa, during 

 the visit of the Horn Scientific Expedition to the Macdoanell 

 Ranges. The geology of Castlemainc is described by Mr. T. 

 S. Hall, and geological notes on the country between Strahan 

 and Lake St. Clair, Tasmania, arc contributed by Messrs. 

 Graham Officer, L. Balfour, and E. G. Hogg. The older 

 tertiary rocks of .Maude, and the paleontology of the older ter- 

 tiary of V'ictoria, form the subjects of two separate papers, and 

 a catalogue of non-calcareous sponges collected in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Port Phillip Heads is given by Prof. .\. Dsndy. 

 Mention must also be made of a paper, by Mr. R. H. Mathews, 

 on rock paintings and carvings figured by the Aborigines of New 

 South Wale;, in caves and rock shelters ; and also of one in 

 which Mr. E. F. T. Love gives the results of observations with 

 Rater's invariable pendulum, made at Sydney. The object of 

 this investigation was to throw some additional light on the 

 question of the difference between the values of ^^ at Melbourne 

 and Sydney. .\ comparison of the results obtained by the 

 United States Coast Survey oflScers at Sydney in 18S3, with 

 those found by Mr. Baracchi at Melbourne in 1S93, has shown 

 that a pendulum beating seconds approximately should lose 

 8-58 vibrations per day, if transferred from Melbourne tu 

 Sydney. Lieut. Elblein found, however, by swinging three of 

 von Stemeck's pendulums at the two places, that the loss was 

 I3'48 vibrations per day. Mr. Love comes to the conclusion 

 that the difference between the vibration numbers at Melbourne 

 and Sydney is 12-2 per day. 



Tmk additions to the Zoological Society's Gardens during the 

 past week include a Sand Badger {i1/<r/« <j«4«/«a) from Japan, 

 presented by Mr. Frederick Ringer ; two Polar Bears ( Ursus 

 marilanus, i 9 ) from the Arctic Regions, presented by Mr. 

 John J. Hughes; a Spotted lIy.T;na {Hyu:na crocuta,\\.), a. 

 Vociferous Sea Eagle (l/aliaeltis vocifer), a Black Kile 

 (Mill us mi^an), horn East Africa, presented by Mr. T. E. 

 C. Remington; a Black-backed Piping Cxoii (Gymiiorliina 

 liiicieii) horn Australia, presented by Mr. J. V. Haggard; 

 a Raven {Cjri'us corax) British, presented by Mr. W. 

 Hillary; a Puff Adder (Vipera arielaus) from East Africa, 

 presented by Dr. A. Donaldson Smith ; a Chimpanzee 

 {AnthropopitlucHS trogladyles, 9 ) from West Africa, a 

 Common Marmoset {f/npale jcuchm) from South-east Brazil, 

 deposited ; a I'urplc-brcasted Lory {Eos rieeiiiala:) from 

 Moluccas, a Blue-faced lloaey-csAcr (Entomyza cyanolis) from 

 Australia, purchased. 



NO. 1326, VOL. 51] 



OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN. 



The Moon and Atmospheric Waves. — Lunar atmospheric 

 waves, or air-tides, as they might be called, can, according to 

 M. Bouquet de la Grye, be .lislinctly traced in the records of 

 barometric pressure collected at insular stations or stations 

 situated close to the sea, where there are no powerful local 

 disturbances to obscure them. In a contribution to the 

 Annuaire dtt Bureau des Loti^tudes., he reproduces curves of 

 atmospheric pressure traced at Brest, St, Helena, Cape Horn, 

 Batavia, and Singapore, which distinctly show a regular ebb and 

 flow twice a day in accordance with the position of the moon. 

 The amplitude depends upon the declination of the moon and 

 upon its distance from the earth, and also upon the latitude of 

 the place of observation. The maximum amplitude at Brest 

 is about a quarter of an inch of water, which means a fiftieth 

 of an inch of mercury, a small oscillation indeed, but one 

 which is well within our limits of accurate measurement. At 

 Batavia the maximum heights are hall an hour after the passage 

 of the moon through the upper or lower meridian. But the 

 retardation is almost imperceptible in other places. This is 

 probably due to the extreme mobility of the upper strata of the 

 atmosphere, and contrasts with the great retardation experienced 

 by the ocean tides. M. Bouquet de la Grye points out the 

 striking analogy between the ocean tide, with an amplitude of 

 I m. under the equator, in an ocean having a mean depth of 

 5000 ra., and the atmospheric tide of 2 mm. of water in a sea 

 of air the weight of which represents 10,000 mm. of water. 



Stellar PHOTOGRArHV. — A remarkable illustration of the 

 value of photography in astronomical researches is afforded by 

 a recent comparison of one of Dr. Max Wolfs well-known 

 photographs with the same part of the sky as seen with the 

 36- inch refractor of the Lick Observatory. Piof. Schaeberle 

 finds that an enlarged photograph of the region about Algol, 

 taken with an exposure of five hours, certainly shows stars down 

 to mag. 165, assuming that stars of the 17th mag. are at the 

 limit of vision of the telescope. Making due allowance for 

 the loss of detail in the process of enlarging, " it appears pro- 

 b.-ible that practically every isolated star visible at Mount 

 Hamilton can be photographed by Dr. Wolf, at or near sea- 

 level, with his comparatively small telescope.' (Aslronomical 

 Journal, No. 338). The telescope employed by Dr. Wolf has 

 a Voigtiander lens of six inches aperture. 



Standard Time in Australia. — The resolution as re- 

 gards Australian standard time, adopted at Melbourne last 

 October (see p. 278), has come into cOect. Queensland, New 

 South Wales, Victoria, and T.ismania .ire now all using the 

 time of the meridian- 150° E., th.it is, ten hours before Green- 

 wich. Queensland was the first of the Australian colonies 10 

 take action, and there the new time caiue into force on the first 

 day of this year. Mr. H. C. Russell, of Sydney Observatory, 

 has sent us a copy of the .\ct which established the mean lime 

 of the meridian 150° E. of Greenwich as the standard time in 

 New South Wales, on and after February i. He says that 

 " South Australia has adopted the time of the ninth hour before 

 Greenwich." 



Nova Aurig.e. — Notwithstanding the enormous velocities 

 in the line-o(-sight recorded by the spectroscope, Nova Aurig.T: 

 has given no signs of proper motion, such as can be perceived 

 with the telescope and micrometer. Such, at least, is the result 

 of a comparison of the measurements made in 1S94 by Prof. 

 Barnard with tho-e made by the same observer in 1893, and by 

 Mr. ISurnham in 1892. [Asl. Nach. No. 3279.) The magni- 

 tude also remains pretty constant, being I0'5, on the scale 

 adopted at the Lick Observatory. The Nova seems to be too 

 far removed from our system to give any appreciable parallax. 



NEW COMPOUNDS OF HYDRAZINE WITH 

 FATTY ACIDS. 



COMPOUNDS of several of the more important organic 

 fatty acids with bydiazine, analogous to the aromatic 

 hydrazidcs previously prepared, have been oblaintd by P™. 

 Curtius and his pupils Messrs. Sch.'fer and Schwan, and M 

 account of them is published in the current issue of the Journal- 

 jiir Prakliiclit Chemie. The hydrazides of the monobasic fatly 



