114 



NATURE 



{June 7, 1877 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE 



Cambridge, May 30 — The Sheepshanks Astronomical 

 Exhibition has been adjudged to John Edward Aloysius 

 Steggall, scholar of Trinity College. 



The twenty-second annual report of the Botanic Garden 

 Syndicate has been issued. It is stated that during the past year 

 much attention has been paid to the labelling of the arranged 

 trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants in the open ground, and it 

 is believed that they all, or nearly .all, are correctly and legibly 

 named. There has not been time, without neglecting other im- 

 portant work, to name with similar completeness the plants 

 scattered in tlie belt. It is believed that very few of the plants 

 in the houses are without names, although a few duplicate 

 specimens may be in that condition. About 1,700 new labels 

 have been written. The culture of the plants is such as to give 

 satisfaction to the syndicate. About 170 species of herbaceous 

 plants have been raised from seed to supply the places of those 

 which have died. Among the presents acknowledged are packets 

 of seeds from the Indian Ilotanic Gardens, from Baron E. v. 

 Mueller, and five la'ge ferns from Australia from the last-men- 

 tioned gentleman. 



Oxford. — At the ensuing commemoration the honorary degree 

 of D.C.L. will be conferred upon Mr. J. Evans, the distin- 

 guished antiquary ; Dr. Harold Browne, the Bishop of Win- 

 chester ; and Lord Coleridge. It is probable that degrees will 

 be conferred on certain other di»tingui;hed persons, whose 

 names, however, it would be premature to announce at present. 



On November 23 next there will be an election to a Bracken- 

 bury Natural Science Scholarship at Balliol College, worth So/. 

 a year, tenable during residence for four years, open to all such 

 candidates as shall not have exceeded eight terms from matricu- 

 lation. Papers will hi set in (i) Mechanical Philosophy and 

 Physics, (2) Chemistry, (3) Physiology ; but candidates will not 

 be expected to offer in more th.an two of these. 



Durham. — The University Mathematical Scholarship has 

 been awarded to Mr. F. W. Sanderson, Hatfield Hall. 



The Universities Bile. — The attempt was made twice on 

 Monday in the House of Commons to get a clause inserted in 

 the Universities Bill abolishing Clerical Fellowships. As might 

 have been expected, the attempt failed, though in the case of 

 Mr. Goschen's motion by a very narrow majority — only 9. 



Universities AND National Life. — The following forcible 

 remarks on universities and national life occur in the address of 

 Prof. Sylvester at the John-; Hopkins University, to which we 

 have already referred: — "The mention of Germany brings to 

 my mind the importance of universities to the maintenance or 

 development of a national spirit in the countries in which ihey 

 are fostered and cariied on with an animus free from local or 

 sectarian prejudices. I think that there can be little doubt that 

 the greatest fact in modern history, the consolidation of the Ger- 

 man empire, the resurrection of the German people, is mainly 

 to be attributed to the feeling of brotherhood and the spirit of 

 nationality kept alive in those ganglions of thought, those cen- 

 tres of intellectual activity, the German universities. It is the 

 university professors who have made German unity a possibility, 

 and I cannot but deplore the unpatriotic short-sightedness of 

 those in my own counti'y who, until so late a period, have 

 struggled, and still covertly struggle, to make our universities in 

 England not the representatives of the universal English mind, 

 but the monopoly of a party and the appanage of a sect." 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 



Americati Journal of Science and Arts, May. — On vortex 

 rings in liquids, by J. Trowbridge. — An account of the dis- 

 coveries in Vermont Geology of the Rev. Augustus Wnig, by 

 J. 1). Dana. — Notes on the history of Helia-nthns tiihnosus, the 

 so-called Jerusalem artichoke, by J. H. Trumbuil and AsaGr.iy. 

 — A new investigation of one of the laws of friction, by A. S. 

 Kimball. — Examination of American columbic acid minerals, by 

 J. Lawrence Smith. — On the sensitiveness to light of various salts 

 of silver, by M. Carey Lea. 



Poggcndorff's Annalen dcr Physik iind C/icviie, No. 3. — On 

 the cohesion of salt solutions, by G. Quincke. — On the theory of 

 stationary electric flow in curved surfaces, by A. Topler. — On 

 normal magnetisation, by M. Petruscheffsky. — On the tempe- 



rature in the conducting wire of a galvanic current, by M. 

 Streintz. — Remarks on a statement of E. Kohlrausch on thermo- 

 electricity, by M. Clausius. — On the galvanic resistance of haloid 

 compounds, by M. Lenz. — On the dynamical significance of the 

 quantities occurring in the mechanical theory of heat, by M. 

 Szily. — On a paradox of the mechanical theoiy of heat, by M. 

 Ritter. — Researches on the movements of radiating and irradi- 

 ated bodies (concluded), by M. Zollner. — On the connection 

 between absorption and dispersion, by M. Ketteler. — On the 

 neutral combs of the Holtz machine, by M. Riess. — Galvanic 

 dipping battery for elements with two liquids, by M. Hertz. 



Ixciilc htitiito Lomliardo di Scienze e Leitcre. Rendiconti, 

 vol. X. fasc. iv. V. vi. — Observations on Borrelly's comet, by M. 

 Schiaparelli. — Ditto by P. Secchi. — On a singular congenital an! 

 lipomatous ])igmentary alteration, by M. Scarenzio. — Contribu- 

 tion to the study of Addison's disease, by M. Valsiiani. — New 

 barometric formula for the measurement of altitude?, and the 

 reduction of barometric heights to the sea-level, by M. Grassi. — 

 General method of obtaining diagrams of the motion of a point, 

 by M. Padelletti. — On algebraic differential equations of the first 

 order and first degree, by M. Pincherle. — On some questions of 

 electrostatics, by M. Beltrami. — On some unpublished letters 

 from Lagrange to Euler, by M. Schiaparelli. — Origin and 

 anatomy of intestinal diverticula, and their application in prac- 

 tical surgery, by M. Sangalli. — On a new species of Dochmius 

 {Dochmius hahami), by MM. Parona and Gras-i. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 



London 



Royal Society, May 31. — "On the Amplitude of Sound- 

 Waves," by Lord Rayleigh, M.A., F.R.S. 



Scarcely any attempts have been made, so far as I am aware, 

 to measure the actual amplitude of sound-bearing waves, and 

 indeed the problem is one of considerable difficulty. Even if the 

 measurement could be effected, the result would have reference 

 only to the w.Tves actually experimented upon, and would be of 

 no great value in the absence of some means of defining the in- 

 tensity of the corresponding sound. It is bad policy, however, 

 to despise quantiiative estimates because they are rough, and in 

 the present case it is lor many reasons desirable to have a general 

 idea of the magnitudes of the quantities with which we have to 

 deal. Now it is evident that a superior limit to the amplitude of 

 waves giving an audible sound may be arrived at from a know- 

 ledge of the energy which must be expended in a given time in 

 order to generate them, and of the extent of surface over which 

 the waves so generated are spread at the time of hearing. An 

 estimate founded on these data will necessarily be too high, both 

 because sound-waves must sufTer some dissipation in their pro- 

 gress, and also because a part, and in some cases a large part, 

 of the energy expended never takes the form of sound-waves at 

 all. 



The tnuice of sound in my experiment was a whistle, mounted 

 on a Wolf's bottle, in connection with which was a syphon 

 manometer, for the purpose of measuring the pressure of wind. 

 This apparatus was blown from the lungs through an india- 

 rubber tube, and with a little practice there was no difficulty in 

 maintaining a sufiiciently constant blast of the requisite duration. 

 The most suitable pressure was determined by preliminary trials, 

 and was measured by a column of water 9', centimetres high. 



The first point to be determined was the distance from the 

 source to which the sound remained clearly audible. The experi- 

 ment was tried in the middle of a fine still winter's day, and it 

 was a.scertained that the whistle was heard without effort at a 

 distance of S20 metres. In order to gaard against any effect of 

 wind, the precaution was taken of repeating the observation with 

 the direction of propagation reversed, but without any difference 

 being observable. 



Tlie only remaining datum necessary for the calculation is the 

 quantity of air which passes through the whistle in a given time. 

 This was dttermined by a laboraiory experiment. The india- 

 rubber tube was put into connection wit'i the interior of a rather 

 large bell-glass open at the bottom, and this was pressed gradually 

 down into a large vessel of water in such a manner that the 

 manometer indicated a steady pressure of 9;. centimetres. The 

 capacity of the bell-glass was 5,200 cubic centimetres, and it 

 was found that the supply of air was sufficient to last 26.^ seconds 

 of time. The consumption of air was therefore 196 cubic centi- 

 metres per second. 



