Feb. 22, 1883] 
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399 
Kilauea, though 10,000 feet lower in level than the summit 
crater, showed no change, no signs of sympathy whatever. 
A DEPUTATION from a number of the Scientific Societies of 
Yondon had an interview with Sir John Lubbock on Tuesday, for 
the purpose of asking him to oppose the Bill to authorise the 
construction of a railway through Epping Forest. It was stated 
that the line would greatly destroy the natural beauty of the 
Forest, and that the existing means of access to it were abundant. 
Sir John Lubbock said he would be prepared to assist in oppos- 
ing the Bill; but it was pointed out that, as the Corporation and 
the Verderers had given their sanction to the scheme, it would 
be difficult to secure its rejection. 
THE death is announced of Herr Thomas Dickert, well known 
by his geographical relief-maps. He died on January 11 at 
Poppelsdorf, near Bonn, aged eighty-two. Al-o of Dr, Bohdalek, 
formerly Professor of Descriptive Anatomy at Prague University, 
who died at Leitmeritz on February 2. 
Av a public meeting held in Glasgow last week, called at the 
suggestion of Sir William Thomson and Mr, John Burns of 
Castle Wemyss, it was agreed to collect the money to establish 
a permanent and efficient observatory on Ben Nevis. The 
building will cost 2000/., the instruments 1000/7. In all 5000/, 
are required, and of that sum 1400/. has already been subscribed. 
The Government has refused to assist in the matter. 
M. Tresca read before the Paris Academy of Sciences on 
Monday his report on the experiments of M. Marcel Deprez ; 
the distance being exactly 17,000 metres instead of 20,000 as 
at first asserted, and the motive-power 6°21 horse instead of 5, 
the percentage is exactly 0°326, a little less than one-third. It 
may be supposed that the percentage of primary engines, tele- 
graph wires, and secondary engines is 0°70, so that the result 
obtained is just (0°70)? =0°343, almost exactly the real value. 
The measurements have been taken with accuracy, and no error 
can be adduced. The number of revolutions of the primary 
machine was 588 in a minute. Others were tried on Monday 
with 814 revolutions, but it is too soon to judge of the result. M. 
Tresca having declined to doso, an Academical Commission has 
been appointed to report upon M. Deprez’s theories. M. Tre-ca 
praised Mr. Hutchinson who made the electrical measurement 
with apparatus brought from London for measuring differences 
of potential and number of amperes, The electrical measures 
were verified with dynanometers. 
Dr. WARREN DE LA RUE has been elected by the Com- 
mittee a Member of the Athenzeum Club under Rule 2, which 
provides for the admission of persons eminent in literature, 
science, or the arts, or for public services. 
THE usual sitting of the Congrés des Sociétés Savants will 
take place in Paris on March 27, 28, and 29next. The Minister 
of Public Instruction will preside over the concluding meeting 
on the goth. For the first time the Academy of Aérostation has 
been summoned to send delegates. 
From the beginning of the next financial year Kew Gardens 
will be opened an hour earlier than at present, viz. at 12 o’clock 
instead of I. 
AT the Technical College, Finsbury, the introductory address 
was given by Mr. Philip Magnus, Director and Secretary of the 
Institute, on Monday evening last. Sir Frederick J. Bramwell, 
F.R.S., was in the chair. 
WE are glad to see that the new and spirited Scottish 
quarterly, the Scottish Review, does not neglect science. In the 
February number, which is just out, there appears an article on 
Medical Reform and an appreciative estimate of the late James 
Clerk Maxwell. 
THE Journal Tklégraphiquedu Bureau Central de Berne, sam- 
marising the principal lacunze in the universal system of tele- 
graphy, notes as one the construction of a line to Iceland for 
recording the principal atmospherical events observed in the Polar 
regions, 
A DISTINGUISHED Swedish entomologist, Gustaf Wilhelm 
Belfrage, has recently died in Texas, where he had been for 
some years residing. The deceased had collected and forwarded’ 
a number of entomological specimens to the Swedish Academy 
of Sciences in Stockholm, for which he had received a State 
grant. 
AN International Exhibition of Garden Produce and a 
Botanical Congress will be held in St. Petersburg this summer. 
Reports from Lower Bavaria announce the discovery of 
auriferous and argentiferous sand deposits. They are confined 
to a layer of gneiss which occurs in the granitic rocks for a 
length of about fifteen or eighteen miles, between the villages of 
Innernzell and Zenting. It appears that 100 kilogrammes of the 
sand contain about 10 to 15 grammes of pure silver and between 
2 and Io grammes of pure gold; the sand from 4-6 metres depth 
is even richer. The weathered gneiss partly carries gold and 
silver and partly gold only; no special form is marked in the 
occurrence of the auriferous sand ; there are deposits that seem 
to be alluvial, others which occur in the firm rocks, others again 
in distinct veins of mica slate, and still others in exposed gneiss 
which is many yards high. 
IN a recent communication to the Vienna Academy, Prof. 
Graber, of Czernowitz, describes a long series of experiments 
with regard to the ‘*skin-vision” of animals; affording exact 
proof that certain animals, without the aid-.of visual organs 
proper, can make not only quantitative but qualitative distinc- 
tions of light. These experiments relate chiefly to the earth- 
worm, as representing the eyeless (or ‘‘dermatoptic”) lower 
animals, and to the 77iton cristatus, as representative of the 
higher (‘‘ophthalmoptic”) eyed animals. In a table Prof. 
Graber pre-ents columns of numerical ‘‘ coefficients of reaction,” 
indicating how many times more strongly frequented a space 
illuminated with bright red, green, or white without ultra-violet, 
is, than one illuminated dark blue, green, or white with ultra- 
violet respectively, the conditions being the same as regards 
light-intensity, radiant heat, &c. In one set of experiments, the 
animals were in the normal sta‘e ; in another, the anterior end 
of the worm, and the eyes of the triton were removed, 
“CATALOGUES of the New Zealand Diptera, Orthoptera, and 
‘ Hymenoptera, with Descriptions of the Species,” by F. W. 
Hutton, F.G.S., Professor of Biology at Canterbury College, 
N.Z., have been published by the Colonial Museum and Geo- 
logical Survey of the Colony. ‘They consist of reprints of the 
original descriptions of such species in the orders named as have 
been described from New Zealand, without, as a rule, critical 
remarks, and form an amplification of Lists already published 
in the Zrans. N.Z. Institute.. Only 227 species for the three 
orders are enumerated. Although this publication is dated 1881, 
it has only just been received in England, In some respects it 
is already obsolete, especially in Hymenoptera. Mr.. Kirby in 
1881 enumerated 81 species in this order, Prof. Hutton enume- 
rates about 71, which should be still further reduced from 
synonymic considerations. 
THE Belgian Academy offers a prize of 3000 francs (120/.) 
for the best treatise on the destruction of fishes by the pollution 
of rivers. Several points are to be treated of which relate to the 
impurities which find their way into rivers from the principal 
branches of trade and the manufactures, and also to the practical 
means for rendering these impurities harmless. The treatises 
