April 13, 1882 | 
who argue that the gas companies will successfully compete with 
the electric light, because the profits from their waste products 
will pay their dividends. The Holborn street lamps each con- 
tain two of Edison’s bulbs suspended from a cross bar running 
through the top of the lantern. The light is of a golden tinge 
like gas, but much purer, brighter, and steadier. The lamps 
were switched on and off with the greatest ease, and altogether 
the experiment was a complete success. 
‘THE Commission of the French Academy of Sciences for the 
Transit of Venus expeditions have completed their work. All the 
astronomers selected are practising daily at the observatory, taking 
readings with the artificial transit apparatus, invented by M. 
‘Wolf on the occasion of the last transit. In spite of some ob- 
jections, which have been disregarded, three kinds of observations 
will be taken: (1) by direct contact; (2) by refracting prisms 
and micrometrical distances ; (3) by photography. The s‘ations 
are the following : French Antilles (Guadeloupe or Martinique), 
directed by M. Tisserand; Spanish Antilles (Cuba), M. 
d’Abadie; Florida (United States), Col. Perrier; Coast of 
Mexico, M. Bouquet de la Grye; Patagonia (on the Rio Negro), 
M Perrotin, director of the Nice Observatory ; (M. Bischoffsheim 
will be at the expense of the partial fitting out of this expedi- 
tion) ; Santa Cruz, Capt. Fleuriais. It is to be remarked that 
very few of the heads of the missions sent out in 1874 have 
been appointed again by the French Institute. Four of these 
eight stations are located in the northern hemisphere, and four 
inthe southern, At all of them will be observed the entrance 
and the exit. 
THE use of Jablochkoff lights in the Avenue de l’Opera has 
been discontinued, the Municipal Council of Paris having refused 
to grant a concession of ten years, which was asked for by the 
Company. It is said that other electric light companies will 
make proposals for the illumination of that fashionable part 
of Paris. In the meantime M. Cances, the inventor of a new 
regulator, is illuminating experimentally the rue de Crassant, a 
long and narrow lane-of Central Paris, where newsagents have 
congregated for the last half century. 
ON March 20 last, William Edward Gaine, C.E., the inventor 
of parchment paper, died at the residence of his son, at Blackburn, 
at the age of sixty-five. 
THE usual Congress of Astronomers and Meteorologists will 
take place this week in Paris, as well as the Congress of the 
Sociétés Savantes, the annual meeting of the Société de Physique, 
and the Association Scientifique de France. But the Congress 
of Instituteurs and Institutrices has been postponed for a future 
period. M. Ferry will deliver as usual the official speech as 
Minister of Public Instruction, on Saturday, on the occasion of 
the distribution of prizes to the delegates of learned societies. 
MM. MIGNAN AND RANARD have construc'ed an integrating 
hygrometer for precipitating the vapour of the atmosphere, and 
analysing the products if required. It is composed of an iron 
tube filled with liquor ammoniz; by gently opening a taper 
the ammonia is absorbed by water and the hygrometer is covered 
with moisture which is collected in a cup arranged for the 
purpose. During the recent dry weather the amount of precipi- 
tation was 3 grammes of water in twenty minutes. The weight 
of liquor ammonia was 34 grammes. A peculiarity is that a 
number of floating particles are precipitated with the humidity 
of the air. It has been suggested by M. W. de Fonvielle that 
the hygrometer might be used for analysing the matter of clouds 
where the precipitation of a few grammes will be a question of 
a very few minutes. 
EXPERIMENTING with electro-magnets on various minerals, 
Prof. Doelter has made the interesting observation that the 
absolute amount of iron present does not determine the degree 
NATURE 
505 
to which the minerals are attracted, for sulphides and sulphates 
containing much ifon are very little attracted, while the attrac- 
tion of oxides, carbonates, and silicates is strong. This varying 
amount of attraction (it is pointed out) may be of service in 
mechanical separation of natural mixtures of ores, purifying 
ores, isolation of rock matter, and approximate estimation of 
quantitative mineralogical composition. 
THE project started by Admiral Mouchez of building a captive 
balloon for observing the conditions of the air at several hundred 
metres from the earth will be abandoned ; but a captive balloon 
will be established at Montsouris Meteorological Observatory. 
THE deaths are announced of Prince Wladislaus Lubomirski, 
an eminent conchologist, who recently died at Warsaw, aged 
fifty-eight ; and of Prof. Vincenz Kletzinsky, Professor of Che- 
mistry at the Wieden Communal School, who died at Vienna 
on March 18 last, aged fifty-six. 
THE Ethnographical Congress which was to meet this week at 
Geneva has been indefinitely postponed. The number of par- 
ticipators who intended to be present from England, Germany, 
Austria, and Italy was not considered sufficient by the Com- 
mittee. 
Mount Erna has again been in an active condition, An 
eruption and a rain of ashes (rampilli) has quite recently alarmed 
the neighbouring inhabitanits. 
THE first number is published of Dr. M. C. Cooke’s ‘‘ British 
Freshwater Algz” (exclusive of Desmidieze and Diatomaceze). 
As no systematic work on the subject has been published since 
Hassall’s in 1845, a good account of British Freshwater Alge is 
much wanted. In the present number, which includes the 
Palmellaceze only, Dr. Cooke has perhaps already reached the 
most difficult part of kis work, the history of development of 
some of these lower organisms being still very obscure. We 
could have wished to see, at the outset, a greater effort to give 
the student something approaching a natural classification of 
Algae, instead of the very rough and artificial one which Dr. 
Cooke has adopted. The exclusion of the desmids and diatoms 
is wise, these forming a separate literature of their own. 
Pror. E. MorReEN issues the ninth annual edition of the 
“*Correspondance Botanique” (Liste des Jardins, des Chaires, 
des Musées, des Révues, et des Sociétés de Botanique du 
Monde), well posted up to the close of the year 1881. 
Tn addition to the above catalogue, the Bulletin de la fédéra- 
tion des Sociétés d’ Horticulture de Belgique (1881), published 
under the authority of the Belgian Government, contains the 
official report of the National Exhibition of Horticulture and 
Pomology, held at Bru-sels in 1880, in honour of the fiftieth 
anniversary of the independence of Belgium; much other horti- 
cultural information, and a paper on the Bromeliaceze of Brazil. 
SINCE March 1 a new Spanish periodical, Revista Germanica 
de Literatura, Artes y Ciencias, is published at Leipzig twice a 
month, Its editors are Sefiores S. Gimenez and J. O. Monasterio ; 
Herr L. Seidel is the publisher. The object of the serial is 
to facilitate intellectual intercourse between Germany and the 
Spanish races. 
AT the last meeting of the American Association a lecture 
was delivered by Capt. C. E. Dutton, of the United States 
Geological Survey, upon the ‘‘ Excavation of the Grand Cafion 
of the Colorado River.’’ The lecture was illustrated by a large 
number of lantern views. A picture of the chasm, at a point 
about the middle of its length, was exhibited as a type, showing 
that it consists of an inner and an outer gorge, or an upper and 
alower chasm, The outer one is about five miles in width, 
with palisades on either side, very nearly 2000 feet high, facing 
each other across a comparatively smooth plain or valley flcor. 
