432 



NA TURE 



[March i, 1900 | 



those whose means and leisure permitted, was that of pupilage. 

 Now it is quite recognised that an alternative method of com- 

 mencing training is afforded by well-equipped Technical Colleges. 

 In conclusion, Sir William White referred to the steps which 

 have been taken in the organisation of educational work in 

 Bristol, and to prevent over-lapping of the varipus institutions 

 and authorities concerned with education. Prof. Wertheimer, 

 the headmaster, reports that, acting on the suggestions of the 

 Technical Instruction Committtee of the Bristol Town Council, 

 the Governors of the Technical College have completed an 

 agreement with the Bristol School Board, in virtue of which 

 the evening class work of the Board and of this College, in 

 science and technology, are so arranged as to avoid over- 

 lapping. In virtue of an agreement with the Bristol School of 

 Art, the Art School of the College will be closed at the end of 

 this session, and art students will be advised to attend the other 

 school ; the School of Art on its side will close its science 

 classes and advise its students of science to attend the College. 

 The relation of the Technical College to the University College 

 does not appear to be mentioned in the report. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 



American Journal of Science, February. — Sedimentary rocks 

 of Southern Patagonia, by J. B. Hatcher. Two years of further 

 study have greatly augmented the results obtained since the 

 first report. Chief among the additional observations and 

 resultant modifications of the author's former views are : — (i) 

 The discovery near Sandy Point, in the Strait of Magellan, of 

 an entirely new series of Tertiary deposits several hundred feet 

 thick, and underlying the Patagonian Beds. These new 

 Tertiary deposits have already been noticed by Dr. A. E. 

 Ortmann, and have been named by him the Magellanian Beds. 

 (2) The discovery near Lake Pueyrredon of several distinct 

 fossil-bearing horizons in the Cretaceous. — Explorations of the 

 Albatross in the Pacific (II.), by Alexander Agassiz. The choice 

 of Dolphin Bank, Tahiti, as a standard to determine the growth 

 of coral turns out to have been unfortunate, as it is in the midst 

 of an area comparatively free from corals. Only a few growing 

 corals were found by the author, the top of the bank being 

 entirely covered by Nullipores. After coaling at Tahiti, the 

 Albatross left for a cruise in the Paumotus. The western 

 islands are probably all on a great plateau connected perhaps 

 by the 8oo-fathom line. The soundings, like those off the Fijis, 

 show that atolls do not necessarily rise from great depths, and 

 that in this characteristic atoll district atolls are found, it is true, 

 with steep slopes, but rising from moderate depths. — Action of 

 ammonium chloride upon analcite and leucite, by F. W. Clarke 

 and G. Steiger. When analcite is heated with four times its 

 weight of ammonium chloride, about one-half of the soda in the 

 analcite is converted into chloride, while variable ammonia is re- 

 tained. Other zeolites, like leucite, natrolite, laumontite, stilbite, 

 chabazite, apophyllite, show a similar reaction, varying, how- 

 ever, to an extent which probably depends upon their molecular 

 structure. A new means of studying the latter is thus provided. — 

 Devonian strata in Colorado, by A. C. Spencer. Devonian and 

 associated strata were deposited originally over an extensive 

 area in the southern Rocky Mountain region, the boundaries- of 

 which are as yet entirely unknown. — Estimation of thallium as 

 the acid and neutral sulphate, by P. E. Browning. The salt 

 obtained by heating thallous chloride with sulphuric acid until 

 the excess of the latter is expelled, and then raising the heat to 

 redness, has the constitution of a neutral sulphate. The author 

 tested whether this neutral sulphate, or the acid sulphate 

 described by thallium, can be used for the estimation of thallium, 

 and finds that it can be done, provided the conditions of 

 temperature are carefully attended to. — Motion of a submerged 

 index-thread of mercury in the lapse of time, by C. Barus. The 

 author endeavoured to frame a theory to account for the 

 observed gradual sinking of an index-thread of mercury in a 

 vertical tube containing water. He proceeded on the sup- 

 position that water penetrates past the index-thread in a very 

 thin sheet, but found that the thickness of the sheet would 

 have to be far below that of a molecule of water. He eventually 

 found that the sinking was due to the volume viscosity of glass. 

 A four years' experiment showed that the sinking proceeds at a 

 regularly retarded rate through infinite time. 



Annalen der Physik (formerly Wiedemann's Annalen), No. i. 

 — A study on soap-bubbles, by O. Dorge. The author performs 



NO. 1583, VOL. 61] 



on a soap-bubble a cyclical electric process analogous to a Carnot' 

 cycle, the expansion and contraction being either at constant 

 charge or at constant potential. He arrives at a law which 

 states that no process is possible in which electric energy is 

 transferred without loss or gain from one potential to another. 

 This law corresponds to the second law of thermodynamics. — 

 Diffuse reflection of light, by H. Wright. If the angle of 

 incidence is constant, the intensity of reflected light varies as the 

 cosine of the angle of reflection in the case of perfectly dull 

 surfaces. The converse does not hold good, so that Lambert's law 

 is only partially correct. — Electric conductivity of dilute amal- 

 gams, by A. Larsen. Experiments upon amalgams of lead, 

 zinc, cadmium, tin and bismuth show that the metal contained 

 in dilute liquid amalgams is dissociated, and that the degree of 

 dissociation increases with the dilution and the temperature. 

 —-Stationary temperature of an electrically heated conductor, by 

 F. Kohlrausch. The author supposes a conductor whose surface 

 is protected from loss of heat, except two terminals, each of 

 which is kept at a constant temperature and a constant potential. 

 When the stationary state has been attained, all points at the ' 

 same potential will also have the same temperature. The 

 greatest quantity of heat will be developed in those metals in 

 which the ratio of the thermal to the electrical conductivity is 

 smallest.— Spark potential in gases, by A. Orgler. The author 

 proposes a new definition of the " specific electric strength " of 

 a gas, which gives a real constant for any given gas. If 8 is the 

 width of the gap, and A and B the spark potentials in the gas 

 and in air respectively, the specific electric strength is the ratio 



— : — . It is units for air, 0*888 for carbonic acid, and 0563 

 dS dd 



for hydrogen, whatever the width of the gap. — Molecular sus- 

 ceptibility of paramagnetic salts of the iron group, by O. 

 Liebknecht and A. P. Wills. Jager and Meyer's series of 

 atomic susceptibiHties of Mn, Fe", Co, and Ni, in the ratio of 

 6:5:4:2, is not confirmed, the numbers obtained being 

 6 '98 : 5"86 : 470: 2. Wiedemann's series a, a + b, a + ^b, a + 2^ 

 agrees rather better with facts, but a still closer approximation 

 is obtained by putting <^= i •25a instead of I"i5a. There is a 

 sudden rise from chromium to manganese and ferric iron, and a 

 gradual fall from the latter to cobalt, nickel and copper. — 

 Molecular susceptibilities of salts of the rare earths, by H. du 

 Bois and O. Liebknecht, There is a gradual rise from ceriu m 

 to praseodymium and neodymium ; a decided rise in samarium, . 

 gadolinium and erbium, and a sudden fall to ytterbium. — 

 Magnetic viscosity, by Lizzie R. Laird. To preserve the initial 

 or instantaneous magnetisation of a disc for measurement, it is 

 kept in rotation, and the rise of intensity of magnetisation on 

 stoppage is recorded by a photographic device. 



The number of the Journal of the Royal Microscopical 

 Society for February 1900 contains a further instalment of Mr. 

 F. W. Millett's Report on the recent Foraminifera of the Malay 

 Archipelago, collected by Mr A. Durrand ; and a paper by Dr. 

 H. C. Sorby, F.R.S., on the Preparation of Marine Worms as 

 Microscopical Objects, the fluid used for removing the salt being 

 a strong solution of glycerin. The character and arrangement 

 of the blood-vessels are especially well brought out by this mode 

 of treatment. Among the paragraphs relating to Microscopy 

 may be especially mentioned an abstract of van Heurck's paper, 

 from the Annates de la Sociiti Beige de Microscopie, on Modern 

 Apochromatic Objectives. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 



Royal Society, January 18. — " An Experimental Investiga- 

 tion of the Thermodynamical Properties of Superheated Steam." 

 By John H. Grindley, B.Sc, Wh.Sc. Communicated by Prof. 

 Osborne Reynolds, F.R.S. 



In Regnault's experiments on the relations between the 

 pressure, temperature, and latent heats of saturated steam, the 

 steam to be experimented upon was obtained by withdrawing 

 it upwards from a boiler, allowing any entrained moisture to be 

 separated by gravity. Saturated steam obtained in any other 

 manner would not necessarily have the same total heat of 

 evaporation as that obtained by Regnault. 



Whether the steam could always be brought into the same 

 condition, as regards its freedom from moisture, by such a process 

 of drainage was open to question, and it remained to be deter- 



