588 
NATURE 
| April 19, 1883 
but as yet unfamiliar with the principles common to all depart- 
ments of natural history. Mr, Herbert Spencer, who is already 
an honoravy vice-president of the Society, has been communicated 
with, and has expressed his cordial approval of the course of 
work proposed to be done by the section, adding some valuable 
sugge-tions. It is intended to go through the whole of his works, 
discussing special points as they arise, and where practicable 
giving illustrations. The president of the section (Mr. W. R. 
Hughes, F.L.S.) will open the first meeting with a brief 
address. 
SEVERAL contributions to the theory of the microphone have 
lately appeared. Mr. Shelford Bidwell has communicated to 
the Royal Society a series of determinations of the changes of 
resistance of a microphenic contact under different pressures ; 
and comes to the conclusion that the mere fact that a current 
causes delicately adjusted metal contacts to adhere to each other 
seems sufficient to account for the superior efficiency of carbon. 
Mr. Bidwell also thinks that the heat generated at the coatact 
by the current plays an important part, for in carbon this reduces 
the resistance, whilst in metals it increases it. Mr. Bidwell’s 
experiments on metals were, however, confined to the metal 
bismuth, which, being both the most fusible and the worst con- 
ductor, is the very one which ought to have been avoided. No 
conclusion of any value as to the metals in general can be drawn 
from experiments on bismuth alone. Mr. Oliver Heaviside has 
also experimented on the nicrophone, and finds the apparent 
resistance of a contact to vary inversely as the square root of the 
current. Arguing from these observations he concludes that it 
is no use to arrange a number of microphones either in series or 
in parallel. This result is, however, contradicted by experience, 
for a transmitter such as the Hunnings, with many contacts in 
parallel, is much more powerful than the single-contact Blake 
transmitter. Moreover the results attained in Paris lately by M. 
Moser using a ‘‘ battery” of microphones arranged partly in 
series, partly in parallel, disposes of this conclusion of Mr. 
Heaviside’s. It may be remarked that the suggestion to use a 
battery of microphones was made in 1881 by Prof. Silvanus 
Thompson. Messrs. Munro and Warwick have lately produced 
some successful telephonic or microphonic transmitters with 
metal contacts. These experimenters regard the action of the 
microphone as due to the existence of a silent discharge of elec- 
tricity through the thin air stratum at the contact. This view is 
perhaps sustained by a remarkable observation due to Mr, Stroh, 
that when a current is passed through a carbon microphone of a 
peculiar type there is a very minute repulsion observable between 
the two pieces of carbon, the actual movement being through a 
distance of o005 of a millimetre! 
Litera scrip~ta manet is a phrase which is literally trae of 
China, It is generally mentioned in popular books on that 
country that the respect for paper on which any words are written 
is so great that scavengers are specially employed to collect it in 
the streets and preserve it. Whatever doubt existed on this 
score must now be set at rest, for in a recent is-ue of the Peking 
Gazet‘e we find a memorial to the throne from the Police Censor 
of the central division of the capital, reporting that there are in 
that city over eighty establishments for the remanufacture of 
waste paper. Paper with characters on it, 
complains, used to be mixed up with the waste paper and 
defiled by being applied to such base uses. The memorialist 
and his colleagues published proclamations embodying the 
sacred edict of the great Emperor Kang-bi, that in heaven and 
earth there is nothing more precious than written characters. 
Shopkeepers were forbidden to traffic in printed or written 
paper, and the manufacturers were ordered to pick out all such 
paper from among the waste paper purchased by them, and 
send it to the offices, where a certain amount per pound would 
the memorialist | 
be paid for it. Two temples were selected where this paper 
could be properly burned periodically. The police magistrates 
on inquiry find that now the manufacturers have some idea of 
the reverence due to written characters ; but some permanent 
means of supporting the expenses of the purchase and sacred 
process of destruction should be established, as at present the 
memorialist has to pay them out of his own pocket. He further 
sug-ests that the sale of the house and furniture of a certain 
e-caped criminal, though they will not fetch much, will be 
sufficient, if put out at interest, to meet these expenses; and he 
further requests that the sale of written paper to manufacturers 
be forbidden. The Imperial rescript on this memorial has not 
come to our notice ; but in all probability the escaped criminal’s 
house and furniture are now employed in preventing the defile- 
ment of the ‘‘ flegende Blatter” of Peking. 
ACCORDING to the China Mazi telegraphs in China are likely 
to receive a most important extension in the shape of a line from 
Canton to Shanghai. Should this line be constructed, the 
southern port will then be in direct connection with Tientsin. 
Lead ore, according to the same authority, has been discovered 
in Kwantung, the province in which Canton is situated ; aud it 
is proposed to work mines of this metal. These movements are 
stated to be purely Chinese, ‘‘ and as signs of progress they are 
worthy of the most attentive consideration.” 
From Mr. J. F. Duthie’s ‘‘ Report on the Progress and Con- 
dition of the Government Botanical Gardens at Saharunpur and 
Mussoorie for the Year ending March 31, 1882,” we learn that 
many additions have been made to the Gardens, of interesting 
and valuable economic plants, among them the Cassta marz- 
landica, L., or North American senna plant, the wax palm of 
the Andes (Ceroxylon andicola, Humb.), upon the trunks of 
which large quantities of wax are formed and is easily removed by 
scraping, Ferzla tingifana, L., the ammoniacum plant of Morocco, 
Fraxinus ornus, L., the manna ash of the Mediterranean 
region, Guaiacum officinale, L., the limum vite of commerce, 
Quassia amara, L., one of the bitterwood trees from the West 
Indies, Rheum palmatum, L., var. tanguticum, a native of 
North-We-t China, one of the species which yields medicinal 
rhubarb. Besides these, many new fruits, vegetables, and fodder 
plants have been under cultivation. Mr. Duthie reports a very 
important item of cultivation, that of drug-yielding plants for the 
supply of drugs for the use of the medical department. Extract 
of henbane and extract of taraxacum have both been made, and 
Mr. Duthie has prepared a list of other drugs which he prop ses 
to cultivate either in the hills or at Saharanpur. Amongst these 
may be mentioned aconite, aloes, buchu, calumba root, colchi- 
cum, digitalis, gentian, jalap, liquorice, scammony, colocynth, 
and others. It seems that the cost of maintaining the Saharunpur 
Gar.‘ens much exceeds the income derived from them ; but being 
kept up mainly for scientific purposes they are not expected to 
prove directly remunerative. It further appears that sanction 
has lately been given to the closing of the Gardens at Musso rie 
and Chajri, which it has been found impossible to work success- 
fully. A new Hill Garden, however, is to be opened at a more 
eligible site, 
THE valuable geological and paleontological collections from 
Spitzbergen made by Dr. A, Nathorst and Baron De Geer last 
summer will be distributed between the National Museum and 
the Geological Museum at Stockholm, while the duplicate 
sprcimens will be presented to the museums in Upsala, Lund, 
and Gothenburg. 
THE Second Part of vol. i. of Thomson and Tait’s ‘* Natural 
Philosophy,” second edition, is announced for immediate publi- 
cation, edited for the most part by Prof. F. Darwin. The 
remaining yolume, originally planned, will not be published. 
