PCP 
NATURE 
[JUNE 29, 1899 
of State which may have conferred upon it powers in relation to 
secondary education. The Royal Commission on Secondary 
Education recommended that there should bea central authority, 
a Government Department, in London, to supervise secondary 
education and local authorities in the country. The opinion 
of the Government is that the central authority in London 
must be created and arranged before the local authorities in 
the country can be usefully set on foot, and it is to organise 
and arrange a central department in London to exercise the 
sort of functions recommended by the Royal Commission that 
this Bill has been brought before Parliament. The Bill pro- 
poses the abolition of the existing Committee of Council on 
Education and to replace it by a Board of Education con- 
sisting of the First Lord of the Treasury, the Chancellor of 
the Exchequer, and the Secretaries of State for various depart- 
ments, having a President and a Parliamentary Secretary in 
the same manner as the Local Government Board and the 
Board of Trade. To this new Board of Education are to be 
transferred all the powers and functions which are at present 
exercised by the Committee of Council, so that it will stand in 
relation to educational matters and the distribution of the 
science and art grants and technical instruction exactly in the 
same position, and have exactly the same powers, as the present 
Education Department possesses. 
SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 
American Journal of Sctence, June. —Othniel Charles Marsh— 
portrait and obituary notice. —The Camden Chert of Tennessee 
and its Lower Oriskany Fauna, by J. M. Safford and C. 
Schuchert. The latter describes in detail a peculiar chert form- 
ation discovered by the former.—Recent discovery of rocks of the 
age oi the Trenton formation at Akpabok Island, Ungava, by J. 
F, Whiteaves. Describes the fossils collected by Dr. R. Bell, 
of the Canadian Geological Survey, on Akpabok Island, between 
Ashe Inlet and Fort Chimo, and concludes that they belong to 
a lower geological horizon than the Hudson River formation as 
at first supposed. —Studies in the Cyperaceze, No. 10, by T. 
Holm. Describes the North American species of Fimdristylis, 
Vahl.—On Rosccelite, by W. F. Tlillebrand and H. W. Turner. 
Rosccelite is a vanadium mica, some specimens of which show a 
tendency to crystallise in little rosettes. It occurs most frequently 
embedded in quartz at Placerville, California. It contains 45 
per cent. SiOv, 24 per cent. V,O3, rt per cent. alumina, 10 per 
cent. potash, 4 per cent. water, and traces of magnesia and 
ferrous oxide.—Gravitation in gaseous nebule, by F. E. Nipher. 
If R be the radius of a spherical mass of gas of cosmical di- 
mensions, and T its temperature, the product TR is constant. 
The heat capacity of such a gravitating mass is negative. If 
heat leaves the gas, it contracts and becomes warmer. The 
physical condition to be satisfied in order that a central mass or 
core, having a radius equal to that of the sun, should contain a 
mass equal to that of the sun, is that its temperature is 20 
million degrees Centigrade. The pressure at the surface of this 
sphere is 366 million atmospheres. The average density of the 
spherical mass, which is three times the density at the surface of 
the hydrogen sun, is about 7 per cent. less than the average 
density of the sun itself, but the nature of the gas is immaterial. 
In the sun as itis, the rarefied external parts of the solar nebula 
have parted with their heat, and the temperature throughout the 
mass has ceased to be uniform. But the abolition of cosmical 
pressure has almost wholly compensated the fall in temperature 
of the sun from 20 millions at least to perhaps 10,000 degrees. 
Symmss Monthly Meteorological Magazine, June.—Un- 
precedented frost in the United States in February 1899. In 
that month 64°°8 were recorded at Camden Town, being 2° 3 
higher than any reading recorded in February in London during 
104 previous years, while about the same time at New Orleans 
an equally unprecedented low reading of 7° (25° below freezing) 
was registered. Prof. Garriott, in charge of the forecast 
division, states that the most remarkable series of cold waves in 
the history of the Weather Bureau traversed the United States 
from the North Pacific to the South Atlantic coasts during the 
first half of February, damaging crops and fruit in the southern 
States to the extent of millions of dollars. The cause of this 
intense cold is ascribed to barometric depressions in the south, 
combined with a large area of high barometer over British 
north-west territory.—On a recent recurrence in weather: a 
lunar or 30-day period, by H. H. Clayton. The author has 
NO. 1548, VOL. 60] 
treated the temperatures observed at the Blue Hill Meteoro- 
logical Observatory, from July 1898 to February 1899, in the 
same way as Mr. A. MacDowall has treated the temperatures 
for the same time observed at Greenwich. The figures show a 
well-marked period of about thirty days, but the interval is too 
short to determine whether the period had the exact length of 
the lunar period, or had any relation of cause and effect. 
Weedemann's Annalen der Physik und Chemie, No. 5.— 
A double trough refractometer, by W. Hallwachs. The author 
describes certain improvements in his differential interference 
refractometer for liquids, and measurements made with it on 
solutions of cadmium bromide, sugar, chloracetic acid, and 
chloracetates.—Optical properties of burnt-in gold and plati- 
num films, by G. Breithaupt. Thin layers of gold, platinum, 
and other metals were burnt into glass or obsidian, and tested 
with regard to their dispersion. Gold showed normal disper- 
sion, so did brass, when well polished with cotton wool. 
Platinum, steel, and nickel steel showed anomalous dispersion. 
—A new method of detecting electric waves, by A. Neug- 
schwender. This is the author’s second communication on the 
subject of his damp anti-coherer. He found that the estab- 
lishment of conductivity between the two sides of a metallic 
slit on moistening it depended upon the presence of some 
metallic salt in the moisture which could be separated electro- 
lytically. Under the microscope the metal so separated out 
forms a tree-like formation, which suddenly breaks up on the 
impact of electric waves, thus destroying the conductivity. — 
Determination of the pitches of Appunn’s pipes by optical and 
by acoustic means, by F. A. Schulze. The author has 
repeated Appunn’s determinations of the pitches of high pipes 
by the method of revolving mirrors, by Kundt’s dust figures, 
and by Quincke’s interference tube. He confirms Stumpf’s 
result that the highest Appunn pipes have pitches assigned to 
them which are wrong by several octaves.—Determination of 
high pitches by difference tones, by C. Stumpf. The author 
defends the trustworthiness of the method of difference 
tones against Appunn’s criticism.—On the refracted wave at 
so-called total reflection, by W. Voigt. Against Ketteler’s 
criticism the author maintains that there exists a stream of 
energy parallel to the surface of the second medium in 
“total” reflection, and that this stream of energy is nothing 
else than a ray of light.—Thermal insulators, by W. Hempel. 
This is a comparison of the insulating properties of Dewar 
tubes silvered on the outer surface of the inner tube, with 
those of wool and feathers. Eiderdown turns out to be the 
most effective of the old insulators, as it is capable of main- 
taining a charge of solid carbonic acid and ether below — 66° 
for an hour and a half, whereas the same charge surrounded 
by cotton or silk reaches —56° in the same time, and ~— 33> 
when surrounded by an imperfect vacuum. At the same time, 
the charge remains below —70° in a Dewar tube, the initial 
temperature in every case being — 79°. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
Lonpon. 
Royal Society, May 18.—‘‘ Diffusion of Ions into Gases.” 
By John S Townsend, M.A. (Dublin), Clerk Maxwell Student, 
Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge. Communicated by Prof. 
J. J. Thomson, F.R.S. 
In the paper upon this subject the principles of the theory 
of interdifusion of gases are applied to the diffusion of ions 
produced in a gas by the action of Rontgen rays. When a gas 
is ionised in this way, and then removed from the action of 
the rays, the conductivity gradually disappears. If there are 
no electric forces acting on the gas, the loss of conductivity is 
due partly to the encounters between positive and negative ions, 
and partly the effect of the surface of the vessel which discharges 
those ions that come into contact with it. : 
The ions may be considered as a separate gas (A) mixed with 
the ordinary uncharged molecules (B), which are unaffected by 
the rays. When the mixture is passed along a metal tube there 
is a loss of conductivity, due to the ions coming into contact 
with the surface. A formula is given for calculating the rate 
of diffusion of the ions A into the gas B from this loss of con 
ductivity, which was found experimentally. The following 
values were obtained for the coefficients of diffusion of ions into 
air, oxygen, carbonic acid, and hydrogen. 
