328 
NA TORE: 
[ FEBRUARY 4, 1904 
the neighbourhood of the critical point for binary mixtures 
with only a small proportion of one component. 
A NoTE on the b constant of Van der Waals’s law is 
contributed by Mr. J. D. van der Waals, jun., to the 
Physikalische Zeitschrift for January t. By different methods 
Van der Waals and Boltzmann have arrived at the formulz 
b = bg — 17b,7/32V and 6=4,, — 36,,27/8V, and the writer 
now claims to have proved that the latter is the correct 
value. 
A porrrait of the late Father Stephen Joseph Perry, 
F.R.S., director of Stonyhurst Observatory, is reproduced 
in Terrestrial Magnetism and Atmospheric Electricity for 
September, 1903 (recently received), accompanied by a short 
biographical sketch. Prof. H. F. 
account 
Reid contributes to the 
International 
Seismological Conference which met in response to a call 
same number a short of the second 
from the German Government at Strassburg from July 24 
to 28 of last year to discuss the formation o% an International 
Seismological Association. 
both manned and 
manned, were made on November 5 and December 
INTERNATIONAL balloon ascents, un- 
3, 1903, 
(the British Islands excepted), 
at the Blue Hill 
The highest altitudes attained 
by many European countries 
and kite observations also made 
Observatory, United States. 
were 
were :—Trappes (near Paris) 16,000 and 14,500 metres, and 
At Zurich 
Kite observ- 
ations were also made at Torbino, at the private observatory 
of M. Demtschinsky. 
Itteville (near Paris) 11,200 and 10,800 metres. 
the balloons reached 13,000 and 17,000 metres. 
From its northern position, latitude 
58° 38/, not far from Pavlovsk, these observations are of 
special interest. The meteorological results will be pub- 
lished later on. 
WE have received the report of the chief of the U.S. 
Weather Bureau for 1903; it contains a most interesting 
summary of the great work carried on by that department, 
furnishes ample proofs of the usefulness of its operations, 
and gives great hopes of ultimate improvement of our pre- 
sent knowledge of meteorological conditions. The oper- 
ations of the U.S. Weather Bureau are naturally of much 
greater proportions than can be possible in our own country. 
It issues each morning (Sundays and_ holidays excepted) 
about 25,000 maps exhibiting graphically, with text and 
tables, the weather conditions at Sh. a.m. ; about 50 per cent. 
of these maps are produced at the larger outlying stations 
of the bureau. The expenditure on various branches of 
the service amounts to one and a quarter million dollars, 
and the independent comments of the Press give evidence 
that the high average of success of the warnings of storms 
and of cold waves affecting agriculture and crops “* brings 
an adequate return to the commerce and industries of the 
country.”’ Prof. Willis that the Weather 
Bureau has for some years been carrying on an investi- 
gation into the fundamental problems as to the true causes 
of weather conditions, and that the construction of high- 
level charts based chiefly on cloud observations points un- 
mistakably, in Prof. Bigelow’s opinion, to a theory which 
will supersede those heretofore published in meteorological 
literature. 
Moore states 
With reference to the problem of seasonal fore- 
casts, Prof. Moore states that meteorology is really a very 
closely allied but difficult branch of solar physics, and ought 
to be studied with the aid of a fully equipped observatory 
devoted especially to such researches. In this sense suitable 
reference is made inter alia to the Solar Physics Observ- 
atory at South Kensington, which is putting forth valuable 
results under the directorship of Sir Norman Lockyer. 
NO. 1788, VOL. 69] 
Tue third number of Spolia Zeylanica contains an ex- 
ceedingly interesting account, by Mr. Everard im Thurn, 
the Lieutenant-Governor of the island, of last year’s pearl- 
fishery in Ceylon. This fishery took place after an interval 
of eleven years, and the gathering of both Europeans and 
natives was consequently very large. The results are not 
yet made known. Mr. im Thurn himself donned a diver’s 
dress and descended to the oyster-beds—a depth of about 
nine fathoms. ‘To a novice such an experience entails many 
unpleasant sensations, but the author deemed himself well 
rewarded by the sight which met his eyes on the sea-bed, 
when all pains were forgotten in the interest of his surround- 
ings. It is pointed out that a good many pearls lying near 
the mouths of the oysters are abstracted by the divers during 
the return from the fishing grounds to shore. The fishing 
was continued for a period of about two months, at the end 
of which the native divers were utterly exhausted. Before 
the next fishery, the Government hopes to find some more 
scientific method of reaping this harvest of the sea than the 
one which has been in vogue for untold centuries. 
An interesting addition has recently been made to the 
Natural History Museum, South Kensington, by the receipt 
of specimens ef some of the blind cave-fishes of Cuba, which 
were described by Prof. Poey in his ‘‘ Memorias sobre la 
Historia Natural de la Isla de Cuba 
but which, up to this time, have remained unrepresented 
” so long ago as 1856, 
in European museums. ‘The special interest of these fishes. 
(Lucifuga subterraneus and Stygicola dentatus) lies in the 
fact that their alliance is with salt-water forms (such 
Brotula) which exist in the neighbouring sea, and not with 
fresh-water fishes, as is the case with Amblyopsis and its. 
There can be little 
as. 
allies of the Great Cave of Kentucky. 
doubt that the Cuban caves in which the blind fishes are 
found were formerly in communication with the sea, and, 
that the ancestors of these fishes entered the caves from the 
adjacent ocean. It is, however, a matter of speculation 
how long a period of life in darkness it has taken to reduce: 
the eyes of these fishes to their present rudimentary state 
and to effect the other changes which now distinguish them 
from their nearest marine relatives. 
A snort biography of the late Major J. W. Powell, of 
Washington, has recently been compiled by Mr. G. Kk. 
Gilbert from a series of articles by various writers in the 
Open Court. From his early youth he lived a strenuous. 
life, both physical and mental, his varied reading being 
rectified by much field work. He lost his right arm in the 
Civil War, in which he served as an engineer. Then he 
was offered the chair of geology in the Illinois Wesleyan 
University, and there organised field expeditions as part of 
the official curriculum in the geological and natural 
history studies. He resigned his professorship to under- 
take the exploration of the canyons of the Colorado River,. 
and was the first to descend that dangerous river. Major 
Powell appointed director of the U.S. Bureau of 
Ethnology in 1879, and also director of the U.S. Geological 
Survey in 1881; the latter office he resigned in 1894, but he- 
kept the former until his death in September, 1902. Not 
only was Major Powell a hard worker, but he was a stimu- 
lating chief and was very fertile in ideas, which he freely 
gave to others. The loving reverence that was paid to the 
““ Major *’ by his colleagues comes out strongly in the re- 
p- 783) of the meeting 
was 
port (Science, November 14, 1902, 
that was held before his funeral. 
We have received from the author, Mr. H. H. Bloomer, 
a paper from the Journal of Malacology (vol. x. part iv.) 
on the anatomy of the molluscs Pharella orientalis and 
Tagelus rufus. 
