514 



NA TURE 



\Oct. II, 1877 



Nansouty has resumed his former post with the power of sending 

 warnings to the lowlands. The telegraphic line from Bagncres 

 to the Pic is 28,000 metres long; the altitude of the Pic is 

 2,866 metres, and of Bagneres about 550 ; consequently, the 

 difference of altitude exceeds 2,300 metres. The laying of the 

 telegraph was a very difficult operation, and a portion of the 

 wire has been placed underground. A number of lightning- 

 conductors have been established for protection, and the 

 extremity of the line has been immersed in the lake of Oncet at 

 a small distance from the final slope. Warnings and regular 

 observations will not be sent to the international head office at 

 the observatorj", until a final decision has been made as to 

 Leverrier's successor and the organisation of French meteorology. 

 Great efforts are being made by the Meteorological Society to 

 establish a special meteorological office. 



Bunsen's " Gasometrische Methoden " have appeared in a 

 second revised and enlarged edition. 



There was a severe earthquake shock at Geneva on Monday 

 morning. Clocks were stopped, bells were rung, buildings 

 cracked, and the English and Russian churches were rather 

 shaken. No great damage was done, The shock extended to 

 Berne, Mulhouse, and Malesina in North Italy. 



The meeting of the Sanitary Congress at Leamington last 

 week was decidedly successful so far as the value and appropriate- 

 ness of the papers read are concerned, and we hope that sub- 

 stantial practical results will soon follow. A very interesting 

 paper was read by Surgeon-Major De Chaumont on the effects 

 of climate upon health. His conclusions were :—(l) That with 

 proper hygienic precautions there is hardly a place on the earth 

 wliere man may not enjoy good health, and that where this is 

 not found possible it is from the existence of malaria ; (2) that, 

 admitting this much, there are, however, still differences existing 

 which render residence in certain climates more desirable than in 

 others, as most conducing to the fullest health and vigour ; (3) 

 that the possibility of acclimatisation has been greatly exaggerated, 

 but that there still remains a residuum of truth in the idea ; (4) 

 that there is still a certain importance to be attached to the 

 climatic treatment of disease, although the particular factor or 

 factors that produce the influence are still involved in much 

 obscurity. 



The Prefect of the Seine has issued a decree forbidding bakers 

 and pastrycooks to burn in their ovens wood which had been 

 painted or impregnated with any metallic salt. This measure has 

 been taken in conformity with the advice of the Council of 

 Hygiene, which is said to be giving other signs of its renewed 

 'ife and activity. 



M. Gaston Tissandier and his brother have made an ascent 

 from Giffard's aeronautical gas-works, for the purpose of collecting 

 the dust floating in the atmosphere. The method [employed has 

 been to condense the moisture of the air and analyse the water 

 and ice thus obtained with a microscope. 



The English price of the International RrAtw has been 

 reduced from \s. dd. to half-a-crown. This is presumably done 

 to bring it on a level with the Contemporary and Nineteenth 

 Century in price as well as in general aim. 



The Gentleman's Magazine for October contains an account, 

 with a map, of the missionary colony, Livingstonia, on Lake 

 Nyassa, by Mr. F. A. Edwards. 



The members of the Woolhope Club, struck with the absence 

 of any good illustrated English work on the apple and pear, 

 have decided to publish a " Pomona," in which a carefully- 

 coloured Illustration will be given of all the best varieties of 



apples and pears grown in Herefordshire — and therefore in 

 England — so as to call the special attention of all fruit-growers 

 to those varieties which are most worthy of cultivation. Every 

 apple or pear described will ihave its outline and coloured repre- 

 sentation, whilst the descriptive letterpress and general produc- 

 tion of the work will be under the supervision of Robert Hogg, 

 LL.D., F.L.S., &c., &c. The Woolhope Club proposes to 

 publish the "Herefordshire Pomona " in annual parts, of full 

 quarto size, one at the close of each year. Each part will consis 

 of six or more coloured plates, according to the amount of annua 

 subscriptions received. The Club guarantees the publication of 

 the first part at the close of the present year, 1877, and it will 

 contain an introductory paper on " The Early History of the 

 Apple and Pear," and also one on the " Life of Thomas Andrew 

 Knight," president of the Royal Horticultural Society, "and 

 his Work in the Orchard." 



In a new form of the Sprengel air-pump described in a paper 

 at the British Association by C. II. Stearn and J. W. Swan, the 

 mercury reservoirs at the top and bottom of the pump are closed 

 so that the external atmosphere exerts no pressure on the surface 

 of the mercury contained within them. In consequence of this 

 the fall-tube may be much shortened while the efficiency of the 

 instrument is retained. At the commencement of the exhaustion 

 of a receiver the mercury supply reservoir is filled to the top and 

 closed by a stopper ; a small exhausting syringe attached to the 

 reservoir at the bottom of the fall-tube is then set in action, 

 which removes a considerable portion of the air from the receiver 

 to be exhausted, and also very much reduces the pressure on the 

 mercury in the lower reservoir ; tiie flow of mercuiy through the 

 pump rapidly completes the exh,iustion. A small vacuum tube 

 with aluminium wires a quarter of an inch apart was exhausted 

 in twelve minutes to such an extent that an induction coil giving 

 sparks half an inch long in air failed to produce the faintest 

 luminosity, the fall-tube of the pump being only nine or ten 

 inches long. 



At one of this year's meetings of the Dresden Naturalists' 

 Society " Isis," Herr Schuster read an interesting extract from a 

 chronicle of the town of Meissen, dating from the year 1590, and 

 written by Peter Albinus, in which the mines in the environs of 

 Meissen are described. Amongst the natural products of the dis- 

 trict the author mentions the numerous vases and urns which were 

 frequently excavated, and were superstitiously believed to have 

 grown in the ground. People at that time believed them to be 

 inhabited by dwarfs, and that when winter approached they 

 sank down deeper into the earth ; while in spring, and par- 

 ticularly in May, they again rose to the surface, and thus formed 

 a flit little cone above themselves. Although Albinus himself 

 thinks this belief rather too coarse, and ventures his opinion that 

 the objects in question are artificial — thus showing that already 

 three hundred years ago the interest in these remains of pre- 

 historic times was a vivid one — it is to be regretted that the super- 

 stition we have mentioned has even up to this day not yet died 

 out entirely, since a great part of the uneducated masses in 

 Saxony are still of the same opinion with regard to the vases 

 and urns. 



At another meeting of the same society some interesting 

 statistical data were given showing the total quantities of the 

 various products obtained from a single Saxon mine, the Him- 

 melfahrt Fundgnibe, near Freiberg, since its opening in the 

 year 1524. This mine up to the end of 1875 had yielded about 

 535 tons of silver, 54,125 tons of lead, 1,785 tons of copper, 

 13,585 tons of sulphur, 2,175 '°"5 of arsenic, and nearly the 

 same quantity of zinc. 



A third note of interest read at a meeting of the same 

 society was by Herr L. H. Zeitteles, and treated of the prehis- 



