Aiigtist 30, 1877] 



NA TURE 



389 



substituted for the American ones referred to throughout the 

 volume. 



The New York Tribune tells us of a" practical application of 

 the telephone. Mr. J. L. Haigh, the contractor for manufac- 

 turing the wire for the Brooklyn Bridge, put up a telephone a 

 short time ago, connecting his establishment with the Bridge 

 Superintendent's office. Mr. Cheever, the agent for the tele- 

 phone in the United States, has lately placed in New York 

 several telephone instruments and wires. One of these connects 

 his office with the Champion Burglar Alarm Company's office 

 at Thirteenth Street and Broadway, using one of their old tele- 

 graph-wires, between three and four miles in length, as the 

 medium of communication. Mr. Cheever has another wire 

 running to Broad Street, in communication with an establish- 

 ment engaged in the construction of telegraph lines. Mr. 

 Cheever is erecting a line for the Clyde Steamship Company 

 from its office in Bowling Green to Pier No. 2, North River, 

 from which its steamships sail. This is a circuitous line, about 

 five miles in length. The piers of the Brooklyn Bridge are also 

 being connected by telephones with the superintendent's office, 

 so that all the movements of the "travellers" in carrying the 

 wires across from pier to pier can be communicated and directed 

 without the use of signal-flags as heretotore. The current of 

 sound in these telephones is carried by a single wire in either 

 direction. All that it is possible to do in ordinary conversation 

 between two people sitting within two feet of each other in a 

 room can be done at the distance of five or ten miles, or even a 

 greater distance, by simply raising the voice and speaking a little 

 slower than naturally. The telephone instruments themselves 

 are very simple, consisting of two wooden tubes, one of which 

 is placed at the mouth, the other at the ear. The extension of 

 these telephones all over the city in place of the electric 

 telegraph is probblay only a question of time. 



From the New York Tiibune we learn that the first act of the 

 new College Administration at Amherst has been the purchase 

 of all the Shepard Scientific Collections located in the college 

 cabinets. These collections, the private property of Prof. C. U. 

 Shepard, were removed from NewiHaven to Amherst in 18471 

 through the influence of Prof Hitchcock, and have remained 

 there ever since, receiving constant personal attention from the 

 Professor, and from the College such enlarged accommodations 

 as their growth required. The purchase has been made for 

 40,000 dollars, or less than half the appraised value of the 

 minerals, the College thereby securing for itself not only all the 

 material necessary for study in this department, but also, to use 

 the Professor's own words, a collection "which, besides being 

 the largest ever fonned by one individual, is actually the best 

 now possessed by any college or university in this country or in 

 Europe." The collections are three in number : viz., a minera- 

 logical, a geological, and a meteoric. Of these the first is the 

 most important and perfect, containing specimens illustrative of 

 almost all the species of the twenty-two orders, selected with the 

 utmost skill and appreciation of scientific beauty. The meteoric 

 collection is the fourth for size and value in the world, the three 

 others which outrank it being those of the national museums at 

 London, Vienna, and Paris. 



Prof. Piazzi Smyth sends to the Edinburgh Courant a 

 memorandum from the Edinburgh Royal Observatory, dated at 

 2 r.M. August 21, in which he states that the 24-hour period 

 then closed had witnessed by far the heaviest rainfall ever recorded 

 there within an equal interval of time, having amounted to 

 no less than I "940 inches. "This particvdar storm," the memo- 

 randum states," which has been marked throughout by a heavy 

 rain-band in the prismatic spectrum of the daylight, though by 

 no particular fall of the barometer, commenced on August 17 

 with a veering of the wind from the west towards the east by 



way of the north, In which easterly position it settled for the 

 four following days, or up to this time, when it has now gone 

 back by the north to the west, and the' depths of rain found in 

 the rain-gauge each day have been thus :-* 



August 18 0-177 



August 19 I '349 



August 20 0794 



August 21 i'940 



making a total of 4 '260 inches in four days; in a climatic 

 position, too, viz., the roof of this observatory, where the mean 

 monthly fall throughout the year is only 2'09i inches." 



It is worthy of note in connection with the present exception- 

 ally wet weather in this country that the rainfall in Victoria this 

 season has been below the average, and the weather cold. 



A SEVERE shock of earthquake was felt in Melbourne on 

 June 25, at 3.30 A.M. 



As already announced, the fiftieth meeting of German natural- 

 ists and physicians will take place at Munich on September 

 17-22. Among the visitors who have announced their intention 

 to read papers, are Professors Waldeyer (Strassburg), Ernst 

 Haeckel (Jena), Tscherraak C^'ienna), K'ebs (Prague), Dr. G. 

 Neumayer (Director of the German Observatory, Hamburg), 

 Virchow (Berlin), Dr. Ave Lallemant (Liibeck), and Giinther 

 (Anspach). 



The British Archseological Association commenced its annual 

 meeting at Llangollen on Monday, under the presidency of Sir 

 Watkins Williams Wynn, M.P. 



The first annual meeting held in Scotland of the Institute of 

 Naval Architects was opened at Glasgow on Tuesday morning, 

 when the members were received in the Corporation Galleries 

 by the Lord Provost. Lord Hampton, the president, spoke of 

 the immense amount of shipbuilding carried on in Glasgow. 

 Papers were read " On Transverse Strains in Ships," by Mr. W. 

 John, and on "Abnormal Influences in the Direct Motion of 

 Steam- Vessels," by Mr. Robert Mansel. The members in the 

 afternoon visited several of the shipbuilding yards in the neigh- 

 bourhood. 



There have been just added to the South Kensington 

 Museum six models illustrating the cliff houses, cave dwellings, 

 and lowland settlements met with through the district where the 

 States of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico join. A 

 series of models of the same kind was shown at the Philadelphia 

 Exhibition, and through Sir Herbert .Sandford these six have 

 been generously presented by the United States' Government to 

 this country. They are reduced to different scales, the cave 

 dwellings being of smaller scale than the lowland dwellings, 

 since with the former the surroundings are given, while with the 

 latter they are not. 



The Archsjological Congress at Kazan was opened on 

 August 12, and will continue its .sittings during three weeks. 

 The Congress is divided into seven sections, one of which deals 

 with pre-historic man. The questions to be discussed are of 

 great interest, as well as the very varied archaeological exhibition 

 opened in connection with the Congress. Several excursions will 

 be made by the archteologists along the banks of the Volga, and 

 during one of these a koorgan (mound) will be excavated 



As we have already announced the Sanitary Institute of Great 

 Britain will hold its Autumn Congress at Leamington from 

 October 3 to 6. The president will be Dr. B. W. Richardson, 

 who will open the Congress with an address on the evening or 

 the 3rd. Other addresses will be given on the 4th and 5th, and 

 among other papers to be read will be one by Surgeon-Major de 

 Chaumont on "The Effects of Climate upon Health," by Mr. 



