June 28, 1883] 



NATURE 



207 



effort which is now being made to interest the working classes 

 in science in what was formerly the Royal Victoria Theatre. 



Our Paris Correspondent writes : — An interesting experiment 

 took place on June 24, at the early hour of 3.45 in Paris, for the 

 purpose of testing the capacity of accumulators of the French 

 Storage Company to move tramcars. We travelled up to La 

 Muette and back, a distance of 30 kilometres, in about three 

 hours and twenty minutes, including stoppages and loss of time 

 incurred by several incidents. The road has many steep inclines, 

 which were ascended without difficulty. The mean velocity 

 exceeded 10 kilometres per hour. The electricity was supplied 

 by seventy accumulators, weighing 30 kilograms each, which 

 were placed under the seats. At starting the potential was 

 140 volts, and having completed its task the current was as high 

 as 126, so that at least to kilometres more could have been run if 

 deemed necessary. This run is the longest on record made by 

 electriciiy. M. Philippart was directing the operations. 



The Balloon Exhibition was closed at the Trocadero on the 

 24th inst. It was visited by two officers of the British army, sent 

 by the Government to report. Among the notable objects we may 

 mention the original valve used by Gay-Lussac in his ascent, a 

 new valve used by French aeronauts, the car and net of Lhoste 

 as rescued from the North Sea, a panoramic apparatus for 

 photographing a bird's-eye view of scenery as seen from a 

 balloon at an altitude of 200 metres, several photographs 

 taken from the cars of captive or free balloons in Paris, Boston, 

 and Re uen, a refrigerator by Mignon and Bouard for instantly 

 condensing vapour from clouds, bichromate elements con- 

 structed by Trouve for Tissandier's intended aerial experiments. 



The following are the details of the method by which the 

 fairy-like illuminations at Moscow at the coronation were pro- 

 duced:— The Tower of Ivan the Great and its side galleries 

 were lit up by 3,500 small Edison lamps, fed by eighteen port- 

 able engines, w hich moved a number of dynamo-ele -trie 

 machines of every existing system. The po tab e engines and 

 machines were kept at the other bank of the Moskwa. The 

 sheds communicated with the tower by seventy aerial electric 

 vires. On the ramparts of the Kremlin towards the river eight 

 large and ten smaller electric suns threw their light over the 

 river. The rest of the illuminations consisted of 2CO,ooo lamps 

 and 30,000 coloured glass globes, 50,000 lanterns of Venetian 

 glass, 6co,coo tapers, and 10,800 lb. of fireworks. 



The National Museum at Washington is one of the best 

 examples in the United States of the practical application of 

 electricity. In so large a building it was found advisable to 

 take advantage of the best means of communication, first being 

 its system of telephones and call-bells, by which those in any 

 room can communicate with every room in the building. 

 Twenty-six telephones are connected by a local telephone ex- 

 change, which in turn is connected with the main telephone 

 office of the city. The result is that but three messengers are 

 needed in this vast establishment. The photographic laboratory 

 is independent of the sun, owing to the electric light there used. 

 If one of the 850 windows or 230 doors is opened, a bell rings, 

 and an electric annunciator shows to an attendant at the main 

 office which window or door it is. This system is soon to be 

 applied to every case of specimens. The watchmen at nighl, 

 also, are kept to their posts by hourly releasing an electric 

 current at certain stations, which pierces a dial and records their 

 visit. The sixteen clock dials are likewise run by electric 

 currents. 



A MONUMENT to the memory of the celebrated naturalist, 

 Lorenz Oken, will be unveiled at Offenburg on August I next. 

 It will be in the shape of a fountain crowned with a marble bust 

 of Oken. 



Messrs. Griffith and Farran have issued a new and 

 cheaper edition of Mrs. Lankester's " Talks about Plants; or 

 Early Lessons in Botany,'' first published in 1878. 



Prince Ludwig Ferdinand of Bavaria, an indefatigable 

 worker in the domain of comparative anatomy, is about to 

 publish a monograph on the tongue. Riedel (Munich) will be 

 the publisher. 



A magnificent meteor was observed at Giesshiibl, near 

 Modling (Vienna), on June 3, at 9.44 p.m. It seemed to consist 

 of two fireballs, an emerald green one followed by a red one. 

 They both moved apparently at a not very great altitude in the 

 direction south-east to north west. The phenomenon lasted for 

 three seconds. It is remarkable that the meteor seen at the 

 same place on the evening of March 13, moved in almost exactly 

 the same direction. Abo at Gau-Algesheim (near Mainz) a fine 

 meteor was seen in the northern sky on the evening of June 3 ; 

 it left a most vivid trail behind, which .-hone for some time along 

 the whole extent of its path. 



A writer in the North China Herald gives some curious 

 information respecting the foot-measure in China. At present it 

 varies largely in different parts of the country and according to 

 different trades ; thus the foot of the carpenter's rule at Ningpo 

 is less than ten, while that of the junk-builders at Shanghai 15 

 nearly sixteen, inches. But a medium value of twelve inches is 

 not uncommon. The standard foot of the Imperial Board of 

 Works at Peking is twelve and a half inches. A copper foot- 

 measure, dated A.D. 81, is still preserved, and is nine and a half 

 inches in length. The width is one inch. The small copper 

 coins, commonly called cash, were made of such a size, some- 

 times, as just to cover an inch on the foot-rule. In the course 

 of two centuries it was found that the foot had increased half an 

 inch, and a difference in the dimensions of musical instruments 

 resulted. Want of harmony was the consequence, and accord- 

 ingly in A.D. 274 a new measure, exactly nine inches in length, 

 was made the standard. Among the means employed for com- 

 paring the old and new foot are mentioned the gnomon of official 

 sundials, and the length of certain jade tubes used according to 

 old regulations as standards. One of these latter was so adju-ted 

 that an inch in breadth was equal to the breadth of ten millet 

 seeds. A hundred millet seeds, r ten inches, was the foot. 

 The Chinese foot is really based on the human hand, as is the 

 European foot upon the foot. It strikes the Chinese as very 

 incongruous when they hear that we measure cloth, woodwork, 

 masonry, &c, which they regard as especially matters for the 

 hand, by the foot. Of the jade tubes above mentioned there 

 were twelve, and these formed the basis for the measurement of 

 liquids and solids four thousand years ago. They are mentioned 

 in the oldest Chinese documents with the astrolabe, the cycle of 

 sixty years, and several of the oldest constellations. It is likely 

 that they will be fourd to be an importation from Babylon, and 

 in that case the Chinese foot is based on a Babylonian measur e 

 of a span, and should be nine inches in length. 



Mr. Chas. G. Leland, the writer of No. 4 (1SS2) of the " Cir- 

 culars of Information" of the United States Bureau of Educa- 

 tion, on the subject of Industrial Art in Schools, after premising 

 that ornamental art is innate in man, and indeed is developed in 

 a race before it attains proficiency in the useful, and remarking 

 that the brains of the Parisians of the thirteenth century, when 

 Gothic art adorned every object, were much smaller than they 

 are now, draws the conclusion that children are more open to 

 art education than to technical training. He finds the sexes 

 equal in ability ; urges outline drawing and monochrome as the 

 foundation of further work ; recommends the use of various 

 mechanical helps, as of compasses and stencilling as actual 

 incentives to freehand drawing ; urges the practice of freehand 



