JuLy 27, 1899} 
NATURE 
BS, 
ACCORDING to the Fournal of Applied Microscopy, it is 
proposed to, hold a bryological meeting at Columbus, Ohio, 
during the session of the American Association for the Ad- 
vancement of Science at that place. It is intended to present 
a series of papers, illustrated by specimens, photographs, micro- 
scopical slides, books and pamphlets, and to show the work 
done by leading workers on the subject. In addition to these 
will be shown collections of specimens, macroscopic and micro- 
scopic, illustrating the monographic work of living American 
students, and foreign students who have worked on North 
American mosses will be asked to co-operate, 
- THE weather was very warm and dry last week, and the ther- 
mometer reached a higher point than on any previous occasion 
this summer. At Greenwich there were five consecutive days on 
which the shade temperature exceeded 80°, and on Wednesday 
and Friday the thermometer exceeded 88°. In some of the London 
suburbs the air temperature was highest on Friday, the 21st, the 
thermometer in Stevenson’s screen touching 90° in the south of the 
metropolis. The highest temperature in the sun’s rays at Green- 
wich occurred on Wednesday, when the thermometer registered 
158°, which is higher than any reading during the previous three 
years. A sharp thunderstorm passed over the metropolis on 
Sunday morning, and the accompanying rainfall was generally 
“heavy. At Greenwich the fall of rain exceeded three-quarters of 
an inch, at Westminster an inch was measured, while at Brixton 
the rain amounted to half an inch, and in some localities it was 
even less. A cooler air has spread over the British Islands 
during the last few days, and the general type of weather is 
favourable to occasional showers, so that at length the recent 
drought may reasonably be considered at an end. 
THE United States Monthly Weather Review for March contains 
an interesting historical account of the meteorological services 
in Russia, and especially of the Central Physical Observatory, 
by Prof. Cleveland Abbe, from which we extract the following 
notes. This institution is dependent upon the Academy of 
Sciences, which was established by decree of Peter the Great, 
dated January 22, 1718, and its first public session was held on 
January 7, 1726. Prof. A. T. Kupffer, born in 1798, was the 
first director and organiser of the meteorological system in 
Russia ; his first volume of ‘‘ Observations météorologiques et 
magnétiques” was published in 1837. Subsequent issues 
attracted the attention of the Emperor, who ordered that the 
work should appear as an annual volume under the title 
** Annuaire magnétique et météorologique.” These volumes 
appeared up to that for 1846, which was published in 1849. In 
the meantime (April 13, 1849) the Emperor established the 
Central Physical Observatory, and the Axnzzazre thereafter 
appeared under the title ‘‘ Annales de l’Observatoire Physique 
Central,” and these were published up to the time of Kupffer’s 
death in 1865. Thereupon Prof. Kamtz (born 1801) was called 
from Dorpat; but he died in 1867. His successor was Prof. 
H. Wild, born at Ziirich in 1833. He held the directorship until 
July 1895, when he resigned on account of health ; but he still 
remains an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences of 
St. Petersburg. During his administration a great impetus was 
given to all meteorological and magnetical work, and the 
volumes of the Annales 1865-9 were edited by him. With the 
volume for 1870 a new series, under the title “‘ Annalen des 
Physikalischen Observatoriums,” :was begun, and under his 
auspices the new observatory at Pavlovsk was established for 
the purpose of scientific investigation. The appointment of 
General Rykatcheff (who began working with Prof. Kamtz in 
1866) as director of the meteorological service in 1895 marks a 
general change in the spirit of administration of affairs in 
Russia, where the so-called Russian element is at present pre- 
dominant. The memoirs bearing on the work of the observ- 
NO. 1552, VOL. 60] 
atory are now published in Russian by the Physical Section of 
the Academy of Sciences ; while the observations properly so- 
called, consisting entirely of numerical tables, are published in 
separate volumes under the former title of ‘‘ Annales de l’Ob- 
servatoire.”” 
AN ingenious machine for printing in colours, invented by 
Mr. Ivan Orloff, chief engineer and manager of the Russian 
Government printing works at St. Petersburg, has just been set 
up in London, and a company has been formed to develop the 
use of the machine for supplying coloured illustrations for 
periodicals and books. In colour printing by the ordinary 
method the successive colours are applied one at a time as the 
preceding one becomes dry. By means of the Orloff machine 
the whole of the colours required in a picture are printed at a 
single turn of the cylinder. If a picture has to be printed ing 
say, four colours, four separate blocks are arranged around the 
curved surface of the cylinder. As each block passes a particular 
point, the roller carrying the colour required by the block is 
made to fall upon it by a system of cams. Each block thus 
receives the coloured ink intended for it in the course of a revo- 
lution of the cylinder. All the printing surfaces, as soon as they 
are inked, transfer their designs to a composition roller which 
they pass, and this in turn transfers the combined coloured design 
to a final surface or forme carried on the same cylinder as 
the separate blocks, and from this /ovme the fully-coloured 
picture is imprinted upon paper at one impression. The funda- 
mental idea of the machine is thus to print the separate colours. 
in succession upon a common surface, and then to use the single 
surface as the forme in the final printing. These operations go 
on continuously. The cylinder completes one revolution in one- 
twentieth of a minute, within which time every colour surface 
has been inked and re-inked with its proper colour, and has 
delivered the result to the forme to be impressed upon paper. 
The results are very effective, and the ‘‘ register” is perfect, no 
matter how many colours are used. The machine appears to 
mark a distinct development of methods of printing in colours. 
From the Standard of July 22 we learn that the Botanical 
Garden of the Vienna University can now boast of possessing 
specimens of a plant not to be found in any similar institution in. 
the world, or, indeed, anywhere else in Europe or America. 
When the Austrian Expedition to Southern Arabia, under Prof. 
Dr. David Heinrich Miiller, was out there last winter, Prof. Dr. 
Oskar Simony, son of the well-known geographer, succeeded in. 
obtaining some incense bushes, notwithstanding that the Arabs 
keep the places where they grow a secret from Europeans. He 
brought them to Vienna alive, and they are now in full leaf. 
In the Aathematical Gazette for June, published under the 
auspices of the Mathematical Association, Prof. F. Morley com- 
municates a note on the sphero-conic, in which he gives a 
simplified proof of the bifocal property. Mr. S. A. Saunders 
calls attention to the paradoxical questions arising from the 
notion of motion a/ an instant, a conception which like pressure 
ata point involves a peculiar use of the word “at.” Mr. R. F. 
Davis contributes a paper on ‘‘ Porismatic Equations”; and 
there is the usual collection of problems and solutions and 
reviews of text-books. 
ONLY one article in the new part of the Quarterly Review 
is of scientific interest ; it deals with the important subject of 
climate and colonisation. The writer of the article, after sur- 
veying a selection of the literature of the subject, and comment- 
ing on the efforts that have been or are being made towards 
a better understanding of tropical diseases, says: ‘* Europeans 
who settle in tropical countries must not expect to remain un- 
changed from generation to generation. Even when there is. 
no intercrossing, although the main features may persist for a 
long while, the new surroundings gradually give their own. 
