236 



NATURE 



\_7uly 19, 1877 



NOTES 



The inaugural meeting of the Domestic Economy Congress 

 was held at the rooms of the Society of Artists in Birmingham, 

 on Tuesday last. In the absence of Lord Leigh the Mayor 

 took the chair. Prof. Huxley gave a short address, in which he 

 maintained that our so-called education does not fit a man for 

 understanding his social duties. Public opinion was now 

 beginning to take a different view of wliat education ought to 

 be. Those who supported this Congres.<; were among those who 

 felt most strongly on the subject, and the influence on Government 

 from discussions and meetings would be successful in the long run. 

 The real business of the Congress commenced yesterday, when, 

 amongst the papers read, were :—" Nursing," by Mrs. W. E. 

 Gladstone; "Infant Life," by the Countess of Ebersburg; 

 "Nursing in Connection with Education," by Miss Helen 

 Taylor; " Elementary Instruction to Children in Physiology," 

 by Prof. Huxley; and "Warming and Ventilation," by Capt. 

 Gallon. We give elsewhere an account of Prof. Huxley's 

 paper, and we commend the latter part of it especially, not 

 only to those who are interested in the teaching of physiology in 

 schools, but to all who have given attention to that " burning 

 question " of the day — vivisection. 



The annual session of the French Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science will take place at Havre on August 23 next, so that 

 the members of the British Association will be able to take part 

 in the proceedings, and a good attendance of these is anticipated. 

 Members wishing to visit Havre are desired to write to the 

 secretary of the French Association, 76, Rue de Rennes, Paris. 

 Dr. Gilbert, local secretary in Havre, will engage rooms if 

 required by previous notice. The president this year is Dr. 

 Broca, Professor to the Faculty of Medicine, and Director of 

 the Anthropological School of Paris. The maritime situation 

 of Havre will supply every opportunity for a number of 

 interesting excursions, especially for members of the British 

 Association. The principal object of the deliberations of the 

 society will be to determine how to secure a large and 

 effective representation of science during the International 

 Exhibition next year. A delegation of the French Society will 

 be sent to the session of the British Association as was arranged 

 last year. 



On Monday the 9th inst. the Haberdasher's Company voted 

 250 guineas as a donation to the building fund of the new City 

 of London College. This institution is the outcome of the 

 Metropolitan Evening Classes for young men, originally estab- 

 lished at Crosby Hall, Bishopsgate Street, in 1848. Since that 

 time it has pursued a most successful career, and now has more 

 than 1,400 members. 



The Albert Medal of the Society of Arts has recently been 

 presented to Sir George B. Airy, K. C.B. , " for eminent services 

 rendered to commerce by his researches in nautical astronomy 

 and in magnetism, and by his improvements in the application 

 of the mariner's compass to the navigation of iron ships. " 



We understand that the International Meteorological Congress 

 which was to have met at Rome in September, has been 

 postponed to next year. 



The sad death of Dr. James Bryce furnishes another instance 

 of the fact that though geology is in itself an invigorating pursuit 

 it has its own share of risks. This long-known writer had left 

 his home in Edinburgh on Tuesday morning the loth inst. for a 

 geological tour in the Western Highlands. He had reached as 

 far as the Falls of Foyers on Loch Ness, whither he had under- 

 taken to conduct a scientific excursion from Inverness a little 

 later. On Wednesday, after leaving at the hotel a note addressed 

 to his daughter announcing his safe arrival so far on his journey. 



he strolled out hammer in hand to make some further observa- 

 tions among the granitic crags of that neighbourhood to which 

 he had already given some attention. He was never seen again 

 alive. A few hours afterwards his lifeless body was found on a 

 slope of di'/'/is at the foot of a shattered clilf of rock. His 

 hammer lay a few yards higher up at the base of the crags. It 

 is supposed that either from the concussion of his hammer or 

 from some other cause a portion of the cliff had fallen away, 

 crushing his temples, and killing him instantaneously. Dr. 

 Bryce's early researches among the basalt of the north of Ireland, 

 his work on Arran and Clydesdale, liis papers on the Secondary 

 rocks of the West Highlands, and his labours in connection with 

 Scottish earthquakes have made his name familiar to geologists 

 in this country. He was seventy-one years of age. 



We regret to announce the death, on the 15th instant, of 

 another well-known geologist, Mr. John Williamson, of Scar- 

 borough, the discoverer of the celebrated Gresthorpe plant-beds. 

 His labours in bygone years, when field-workers like him were 

 very scarce, will long be borne in remembrance. He was born 

 in 1784, so that he was ninety-three years of age. 



The Portuguese African explorers. Major Serpa Pinto and 

 Capt. Brito Capello, have returned to Lisbon after visiting Paris 

 and London (whither they had gone to obtain some necessary 

 articles), and are to start for Loanda in the Zaire. According to 

 the Diario Je Noticias, they have got together a magnificent 

 outfit, and M. de Abbadie, the eminent French exfilorer, pro- 

 nounced this expedition the best and most scientificaUy formed 

 that had yet gone out to Africa. He has given them the remark- 

 able universal theodolite with inverse action, of his own invention, 

 which he has called the "Abbas," and with which he made 

 geodetic measurements in Abyssinia ; which further he used in 

 Algiers in observation of the transit of Venus. They also take 

 a new apparatus invented by Father Perry for the study of 

 terrestrial magnetism, one of the best equatorials of the Poly- 

 technic School of Paris, a sextant of great delicacy, &c. M. 

 Serpa Pinto has previously made extensive journeys in Africa, to 

 Lake Nyassa and to near the Victoria Falls of the Zambesi. 



We note that a public meeting is to be held at the Mansion 

 House to-day in aid of the "African Exploration Fund," 

 recently commenced by the Council of the Royal Geographical 

 Society to promote the continuous and systematic exploration of 

 the interior of Africa. 



An engineer of St. Petersburg, M. de Kern, announces the 

 discovery of a new metal, which he calls Davyutn. It is found 

 in the residues got from extraction of platinum. To isolate the 

 element it is necessary, after having precipitated the ruthenium, 

 to treat the mother Jye with nitrate of ammonia. A red pre- 

 cipitate is produced, which on calcination yields davyum. This 

 metal is easily attackable by aqua regia, and much less by boil- 

 ing sulphuric acid ; potash precipitates it in a yellow state, and 

 sulphuretted hydrogen in a brown, passing into black through 

 desiccation. With sulphocyanide of potassium the chloride of 

 davyum gives a red coloration. From theoretical considera- 

 tions developed by M. Mendeleeff, M. de Kern considers davyum 

 to rank between molybdenum and ruthenium. On this supposi- 

 tion its equivalent should be near lOO; and he proposes to test 

 this experimentally. 



M. V. Obermayek, of Vienna, has proved by experiments 

 that the internal friction (viscosity) of hard black pitch is subject 

 to the same laws as fluid fiiction. He determined the coefii- 

 cients of internal friction by three different methods : — I. Pres. 

 sure of cylindrical plates ; 2. Deformation of parallelepipedal 

 plates ; 3. Distortion of cylindrical plates. No gliding of the 

 black pitch occurs on the metal plates, between which the pitch 

 plates are cast. For soft bodies, _the internal friction appearsj 

 not to follow exactly the laws of fluid friction. 



