March 29, 1883 | 
NATURE 
EA 
aim convinced that lava dust it was, but can get no one to coin- 
cide with my opinion.” Can this be a relation to the Norway 
dust? Isee your Norway note says the wind blew strongly from 
north-north-west, which would bear towards the Red Sea.” 
M. NApo.t, electrician to the French Great Eastern Rail- 
way, has published in the Aéronxawt an article showing that elec- 
tricity supplies a less ponderous motive power than steam for 
propelling balloons. He supposes that 3230 grammes of ma- 
terial is enough to generate, by means of Bunsen elements, an 
electric current able to give with a Gramme machine of a con- 
venient construction one horse-power working during an hour. 
ON the evening of February 28, at 8:40 p.m., two travellers 
sledging over the Lesj6, a remote lake in Varmland, in Sweden, 
saw a meteor of remarkable size and lustre fall about a mile off. 
Their backs were turned at the time of its appearance, but its 
luminosity was so strong that the whole country round was illu- 
minated, and when they turned its brilliancy blinded them for a 
fev seconds. Its track was marked by a vivid band, to the eye 
one foot broad and three yards long, of a yellowish colour. The 
meteor, after about five seconds, burst with a shower of sparks 
of the same colour before striking the earth. The night was 
perfectly clear. 
THE Swedish Chamber of Agriculture has granted a Mr, A. 
Carlsson 50/. for the practical study of English agriculture 
during the coming season. 
Ir is undoubted that Gramme was the first to construct a 
dynamo-electric machine with continuous induction, using (inde- 
pendently of Pacinotti) a ring-armature similar to Pacinotti’s 
ring. But regarding the question, who it was that first produced 
continuous dynamo electric currents, and so was the first to 
combine experimentally the principles of Siemens and Pacinotti, 
Prof. von Waltenhofen offers proof (Wied. Ann. No. 2) that 
this priority belongs to Prof. Pfaundler of Innsbruck. In 1867 
Herr Kravogl of Innsbruck showed his electromagnetic motor at 
the Paris Exhibition; this consists of coils forming a hollow 
ring which rotates round a horizontal axis, while it incloses a 
bent cylindrical rod tending by weight to take the lowest position, 
but kept suspended in a certain raised position by currents in the 
coils, whereby also the ring is rotated. In a letter on this 
machine in 1867 Prof. Pfaundler proposed to apply Siemens’s 
principle to it, and get electric currents from mechanical work 
of rotation (the battery being included at first with a shunt, then 
quite excluded). This he tried and effecte| about three years 
later, as a letter dated February 11, 1870, records. Thus 
Pfaundler seems to have produced continuous dynamo-electric 
currents before Gramme, and to have indicated the possibility of 
getting such currents from the Kravogl ring machine in the same 
year (1867) as Siemens’s invention of dynamo-electric machines 
acquired publicity. 
THE Committee of the Annonay Montgolfer celebration have 
already collected 60,000 francs, and subscriptions are pouring in, 
They have decided upon the publication of a special organ, of 
which the first number will be issued in a few days. The cele- 
bration will consist in the erection of a statue to the two 
brothers, several ascents, the sending up of a Montgolfier similar 
to the original one, and a cavalcade representing the provincial 
officials, who wi'nessed the preceedings on June 5, 1783. 
If seems to result from recent researches by A. W. Pehl, 
brought before the Russian Chemical Socieiy, that the poisonous 
action of the ergot, the bad effects of which are so often witnessed 
in Russia, is due to putrefaction poisons called ptomaines, which 
appear during the decomposition of the albuminoids in flour. 
The ergot, that is the sclerotium of the small mushroom, C/avz- 
cps purpurea, has energetic peptic qualities and thus would 
directly contribute to the formation of ptomaines in the flour, 
WE have received the last number of the Caucasian /zvestia, 
which appeared at ‘Tiflis on February 24. I+ contains 
several interesting papers; M. Stebuitzky contributes a paper 
on the measurements by Parrot, in 1829, of the seconds pendu- 
lum on the Great Ararat, and, introducing all necessary correc- 
tions for rendering them comparable with recent measurements, 
he arrives at the result that the length of the pendulun at the 
monastery of St. Jacob on the Ararat is 440°1613 Paris lines. 
The anomaly would be thus equal to 7°7 swings per day, and 
corresponds to an elevation of geoide on the normal spheroid 
of 855 metres. Compared with Tiflis (1343 metres), this 
diminution of gravity would point out the existence of great 
cavities in the Ararat. We notice also a paper on the changes 
of height of the level of the Caspian Sea, by M. Filipoff; 
measurements of heights in the villayet of Trapezunt ; comple- 
mentary notes to the formerly-published anthropological 
measurements, by M. Erxert ; and a summary of the first part 
of M. V. Miller’s researches on the Osetian language. In the 
bibliozraphical part we find an interesting sketch of the climate 
of the Caucasus, on the ground of the meteorological observations 
published by Dr. H. Wild in his work, ‘‘ Die Temperatur-Ver- 
haltnisse des Russichen Reichs,” and a report, by M. Zagursky, 
on Baron Uslar’s posthumous work on the Tabasatan language ; 
it is a serious work, containing a very elaborate grammar of the 
language, a list of words, and a chestomathy. The same 
fascicule contains the necrologies of Dr. Land and Count Sol- 
logoub, and a variety of notes. In the appendix we find a 
translation of Mr. Palgrave’s reports on Anatolia and Lazistan, 
which are considered as the more reliable with regard to 
population, 
A SERIES of shocks, lasting several seconds, believed at pre- 
sent to be due to earthquake, were felt at Amsterdam at 5 am, 
on March 17. The movement was in a vertical direction, and 
caused mirrors and other pendent articles of furniture to 
oscillate. 
THE additions to the Zoological Society’s Gardens during the 
past week include a Common Wigeon (Mareca penelope $ ), 
British, presented by Lieut.-Col. C. Birch Reynordson ; three 
Sirens (Stren Jacertina) from South Carolina, presented by Mr. 
G, E. Manigault; six Common Squirrels (Scturus vulyaris), 
British, a Lemur (Zemurx ) from Madagascar, two Robben 
Island Snakes (Coronella phocarum) from Robben Island, 
South Africa, purchased ; a Gayal (Bidos frontalis), born in 
the Gardens. 
OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN 
THE Comet 1883 a.—From elements calculated by Dr. 
Hepperger of Vienna upon observations extending from Feb, 24 
to March 4, the following epheweris for midnight at Berlin 
results :— 
R.A. Decl. Distance from 
hs) mses. A rl Earth. Sun. 
March 30 ... 3 29 24 2ieAGr2... 1/407 -.. 1:073 
31... 3 33 59 20 19°5 
Aipril: AD 25 3) $ou25 20 50°3 ... 1°536 ... 1°098 
2) SU AzEay: 20 21°4 
EY 2c G5 LQU52:0) -22) 15 7Ouee baer 
A 2-3 SONS ON LON 2453 
I cee Sh! SR) ace | HEE Roman Ue ahs OTS) 
6G: 31581402. 18 2976 
Toe CAG 2 ES 2 LS) 227, ia.) LOS %. cre Ee ag 
Oita) ROMER) een, 302 
9 4 9 48 +17 Io0'2 ... 1°698 ... 1°204 
The ascending node of this comet falls at a radius-vector of 
about 2°36 in the region of the minor planets, the descending 
node at a radius-vector of 1°12, or 0°14 outside the earth’s path ; 
but, for the comet to passat its least distance from our globe, the 
perihelion passage must occur about November 16. 
