March 26, 1S85] 



NATURE 



49i 



he says, in concluding his description of its contents, is far from 

 being sufficient. What is needed is a museum where the fossils 

 could be classified, epoch by epoch, and where it would be easy 

 to follow the history of the development of life from the time at 

 which traces of it are perceptible down to the coming of man. 

 " We may hope that one day France, where Cuvier founded the 

 science of fossils, shall have a palseontological museum worthy 

 of her. Meanwhile the new gallery will render a service, for it 

 will give some idea of the majesty of ancient nature." 



The Electrical Exhibition held at the Observatory of Paris 

 was opened by the President of the Republic on the 21st inst. 

 The Ministers of Postal Telegraphy and Public Instruction 

 were present. A Gramme machine was used for rotating the 

 large dome on the roof of the establishment ; the rotation of 

 the dome was made visible at a distance by a ray of electric 

 light sent through the aperture. Transmission of force to a 

 distance was shown by setting into operation a printing ma- 

 chine. A series of lectures is being delivered on the several 

 topics relating to electricity in a room fitted up for the purpose. 

 The first is by M. Wolf, on the Application of Electricity to Astro- 

 nomy, and the last by M. Marie-Davy, on the Use of Electricity 

 in Prognosticating the Weather. All these lectures will be 

 taken down by shorthand writers and published. 



The Mtttarologischt Zeitschrift for February contains a notice 

 by Dr. Eschenhagen on the effect of the Spanish earthquake of 

 Christmas Day last on the magnetic registering apparatus at 

 Wilhelmshavei). During 1883 neither the earthquake of Ischia 

 nor the Krakatoa catastrophe had any influence whatever on 

 the instruments at that place, while an investigation of the curves 

 of the magnetograph during the Andalusian shocks gave the 

 following results. Of the three instruments employed for mea- 

 suring magnetic variations, only one, that for the vertical in- 

 tensity, showed any perceptible change at the time of the shock. 

 The curve for horizontal intensity was broken at that point by 

 an unfortunate accident : the declination instrument m arked 

 complete rest, but there was a movement of the unifilar sus- 

 pended magnet such as might be produced by a shock in the 

 direction from south to north. The movement of the needle at 

 the time of the earthquake had not the character of a magnetic 

 disturbance, but was a simple swinging to and fro. The curve 

 showed a gap at this point, for the rapid swinging could not be 

 red, until the motion became fainter. The first shock to 

 the balance on December 25 was, with tolerable exactitude, 

 9h. 52m. Wilhelmshaven time, and ceased at 9I1. 56m. ; new 

 shocks took place at o,h. 59m., ioh., ioh. 2111., and ioh. 5m. Dr. 

 Eschenhagen does not doubt that the balance acted at this time 

 as a kind of seismograph. Accurate observations as to the 

 precise moment of the outbreak of the earthquake at its centre 

 are not forthcoming ; but according to the newspapers the first 

 shock was felt at Madrid at Sh. 53m., Madrid time, while the 

 same time is also given for Seville ; we may therefore take this 

 to be the time for the Sierra Nevada region, and the shock in 

 Granada, which lay about the centre of the movement, would 

 then be at 9h. 8m. Greenwich time. At Greenwich, however, 

 it was registered at 9h. 15m. in a similar way to that at 

 Wilhelmshaven. It reached the latter place at 9I1. 19.4m- 

 Greenwich time. The distance between London and Granada 

 is about 1650 kilometers, but between Wilhelmshaven and 

 Granada 2040 kilometers, and the wave would have taken 7 m. 

 to traverse the former, and 11-4111. the latter distance. This 

 would give varying degrees of speed in propagation, and if we 

 regard the difference of 390 kilometers as traversed in 4-4 m., 

 we get a third rate of speed which, perhaps, proves that the 

 speed lessens considerably with the distance. It should not be 

 forgotten that Wilhelmshaven is surrounded by marshy ground, 

 which might have retarded the progress of the shock. It 



appears, too, that the general movement was not propagated 

 in concentric circles. 



A writer in a recent issue of the North China Herald 

 describes a work on " The Mathematicians and Astronomers of 

 China and Foreign Countries," compiled toward the close of 

 the last century by a scholar who afterwards became Viceroy of 

 Canton. It is in ten volumes and forty-six chapters, of which 

 three only are devoted to foreign astronomers and mathemati- 

 cians. Forty-one of these are mentioned, but a few foreigners 

 are included in the chapters on the natives, for during the 4000 

 years which the history covers there has always been a leaking- 

 in of knowledge, in spite of the isolation of China ; and when 

 foreign mathematicians were to be had, China has made use 

 them. The earliest Chinese astronomers recorded in this his- 

 tory were in the reign of Huang-Ti, and are purely legendary. 

 One invented the cycle of sixty years, another the twelve musi- 

 cal tubes which constitute the basis of weights and measures. 

 These are supposed to have lived in the twenty-seventh century 

 before Christ, but, as they were not heard of until more than 

 2000 years later, one may assume almost any thing about them 

 except that they lived at the date assigned to them. The first 

 real astronomers whose names remain are the official astronomers 

 of the Emperor Yao. The foundation of scientific astronomy was 

 then laid in the intercalary month and in the use of an instrument 

 for comparing the movements of the stars and the planets with 

 those of the sun and moon. The next scientific triumph men- 

 tioned is the measurement of the width of the earth, which 

 is stated to be 2,333,000 li 325 feet from east to west, and 

 2,335,000 li 225 feet from north to south. This statement is 

 found in a certain " Shan Hai Ching," a very old but fabulous 

 work. The Chinese take it as a proof that in ancient times lati- 

 tude and longitude were understood, because it is said that the 

 official measurer calculated with his right hand, and with his left 

 pointed to the north side of a certain hill. An astronomer 

 who lived in the eleventh century before Christ appears to have 

 been in advance of the Greek mathematician, for it is recorded 

 that he explained to his friend, a certain great sage, that the two 

 sides of a right-angled triangle being taken as three and four, 

 the hypotenuse will be five. The statement as given also 

 embraces the squaring of the circle, "the square comes out of 

 the round as earth comes out of heaven." This comes from an 

 ancient work which is said to be the only one stating the prin- 

 ciple that a round heaven rests on a flat earth. But the same 

 book states that the earth is round, and that the length of the 

 day and the variation of temperature depend on the latitude. 

 The Emperor Kang Hsi, towards the close of the last century, 

 pointed to the work here referred to as evidence that trigono- 

 metry certainly went from China to Western countries in ancient 

 times. During the various dynasties that have ruled in China 

 since our era, the number of astronomers whose labours are 

 recorded have progressively increased, especially after the inven- 

 tion of printing. The forty European astronomers mentioned 

 form a classified list, mainly of ancient Greeks and moderns. 

 Ptolemy, Copernicus, and King Alphonso are placed side by 

 side, and Tycho Brahe is closely followed by Archimedes and 

 Napier. The translators of scientific books from among the 

 Roman Catholic missionaries in China are in close proximity 

 with Newton and Kepler. They won their position in the 

 Chinese estimation amongst the great philosophers by their efforts 

 as translators to teach the Chinese such facts and theories as they 

 knew. The whole work shows that the Chinese honour men of 

 scientific knowledge, and that a number of themselves are always 

 ready to devote themselves with enthusiasm to the study of the 

 mathematical sciences. 



The Royal Academy of Sciences of Belgium has issued a 

 notice with reference to an extraordinary competition for the 



