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NATURE 347 
Feo. 9, 1882 | 
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Tamworth in New South Wales, and that at Tamora the 
diamond drill has discovered water at a depth of 4oo feet, the 
site of the boring being on a rocky hill roo feet above the 
alluvial flat, on which the town is situated. 
THE French Government has instituted a commission of in- 
quiry into the actual position of working-men engaged in the 
industrial arts. The commission, composed of members of 
both houses of the French Parliament, engineers of the public 
service, and leading manufacturers, has held already two sittings 
in the Conservatoire des Arts et Meétiers, where a special room 
has been fitted up for examining witnesses. The depositions 
are taken by shorthand writers, and will be published at full 
length, to support the recommendation of the committee, 
WE are informed that the great Danish’ work entitled 
“‘Tcones Flore Danice,” whose completion has been long 
anxiously desired by botanists, will be ready for publication in 
the course of 1883. The work, of which the 51st number has 
appeared, will in its entirety consist of fifty-four numbers, three 
of these being supplementary parts devoted to the consideration 
of Swedish and Norwegian plants not included in the flora of 
Denmark. Subscribers, or intending purchasers, should apply 
without delay for the copies they require to Prof. Joh. Lange, 
or to Messrs. Lehman and Stage, Copenhagen, as it is proposed 
to break up the plates as soon as the last number has been 
struck off. An exception will, however, be made in regard to a 
few of the plates, in view of the possibility of their being used 
in the production of three other works, which the publishers 
and editors of the ‘‘Icones Florze Danice” propose to issue, 
provided a sufficient number of subscribers can be secured. 
These works are: (1) ‘‘Icones Florz Grcenlandice,” with 
letterpress and 330 plates; (2) ‘‘ Arboretum Scandinavicum,” 
including the indigenous trees of Denmark, with 160 plates ; 
(3) Icones Plantarum Officinalium Scandinavize,” with 300 plates. 
M. PAuL Bert, before the resignation of the Gambetta Ministry, 
had instructed M. Dumas, the Permanent Secretary of the French 
Academie des Sciences, to draw up a list of scientific men who 
have died or received injuries while making experiments or re 
searches for the advancement of science. Pensions, it was 
proposed, should be given to the widows and families of those 
who had fallen victims to their scientific ardour, whilst those 
whose injuries have not been fatal will receive substantial aid, 
We trust the change of Ministry will not affect this laudable 
proposal, 
M. PLATEAU lately sought to estimate the distance to which 
the moon is mentally referred in the sky, by getting some one, 
after looking at that body, to project the accidental image on a 
wall, then move to or from the wall till the diameter of the 
image seemed equal to that of the moon; and he obtained the 
distance 51 metres, Again, Prof. Thirion, of Namur, got 
twelve students to draw on a black board a circle the size of the 
moon as it appeared to them, The circles varied from 19 to 79 
ctm., mean 32 ctm., and it was inferred that the moon was 
mentally referred, on the average, to about 35 metres. Dr. 
Charpentier, by still another method, obtains the value 12'9 
metres, so that there are great differences, and in any case the 
distance is much less than might have been thought. M. 
Plateau bas further applied accidental images to finding the 
distance to which the imaginary celestial vault is referred, 
A spot ina white square of paper on a dark ground was looked 
at steadily at the side of an open window for twenty seconds, 
then the person looked skywards, above the opposite houses, 
then to one of these houses, and compared the sizes of the acci- 
dental images in cither ease. The sides of the two were by one 
person estimated as 5 to 6, by another as 4 to 5; and the width 
of street being about 30 metres, the distance assigned to the 
celestial vault is inferred to be in one case 30, in the other 29 
metres. A similar result was got by night. 
Most encouraging to any, who have hitherto worked unsuc- 
cessfully towards establishing a Free Library, should be the 
picture of past and present which is given in the First Annual 
Report of that institution at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The failure 
of the first effort in 1854, the cold feeling indicated by the very 
small number of votes against and for the adoption of the Free 
Libraries Act in 1872, the further delay till 1878 and 1880, 
contrast strangely with the handsome new building ; the large 
proportion of borrowers to the population, the appetite for 
reading among these borrowers causing the large circulation, and. 
the 23,000 well-selected and well-catalogued books (see NATURE, 
yol. xxiii. p. 262) which this report can boast of, The wisdom 
of the Newcastle committee in devoting money as well a 
labour to the purpose of thoroughly well doing this work of 
cataloguing is confirmed by the sale of 6000 such catalogues at 
1s. each. The importance of the Juvenile Library comes out 
strongly also, nearly half the borrowers (4413) beiug under 
twenty-one years of age, and the turn-over of books being by 
far the greatest in that department. An immense work is being 
done by this means, and there must be room for much more 
power, being devoted profitably to the production of these 
influential works. This library is fortunate in its large spaces 
for stowing away Blue Books, Transactions, and newspapers, 
which no public library should be without, yet which fill up so 
much space ; in its arrangements for home binding ; it is fortu- 
nate in the fact that its 1d. rate brings in over 2800/. a year, 
and we hope that under the new Act to be brought in next 
Session, it will be fortunate in getting more. 
In a recent number of Vatawren, Hr. Bergh has drawn attention 
to the powerful agency exerted by ice in severing rocks, of which 
he gives a striking instance occurring on the Aalesund in West 
Norway, where a low ledge rising out of the fjord is all that 
remains of a once extensive fjzld promontory, which in the year 
1717 was suddenly blown up and precipitated into the water by the 
force of the ice within the interstices of the stone. The winter 
had been mild, and during a rapid thaw a considerable stream 
had welled up from the ice-covered summit of the fjzld, and 
carried its waters into every crevice of the rock, when a sudden 
change of wind brought about a sharp frost, which turned the 
descending waters of the newly-formed stream into ice, arresting 
their course within the interstices of the rock, The result was 
the explosion of the entire mass of the fjzld below the outbreak 
of the stream, and its projection from a height of more than 
1500 feet into the neighbouring fjord, which engulfed the 
whole of the promontory, with its cultivated fields and farm- 
stead. Simultaneously with the disappearance of the land below 
the surface of the fjord, a huge mass of waters was propelled 
against the opposite shore, carrying with it rusty anchors, boat- 
rafters, and numerous other objects which had long lain at the 
bottom. The disturbance extended a mile beyord the point at 
which the land was submerged, and the waters in retreating 
carried with them a wooden church which had stood fifty feet 
above the fjord, besides sweeping away all the fishing-boats for 
a distance of two and a half miles. Before this occurrence, 
which was attended by loss of life to about a score of persons, 
the headland had been much resorted to on account of the 
halibut, which abounded in the neighbourhood, but since that 
period the fish has never returned, a circumstance which, ac+ 
cording to local popular belief, is due to the covering up by the 
infallen rock of certain submarine cavities and springs frequented 
by the fish. 
A MosT interesting experiment has taken place at the 
; Comptoir d’Escompte of Paris, one of the leading bank- 
