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Sept 28,1871 | 
NATURE 
439 


mental philosopher worthy of the name. 
the seventeenth century was: altogether prodigious ; at no time 
has so much been effected ; indeed the greater number of the 
sciences sprang into existence at this time. 
Science was greatly promoted by the establishment of Scien- 
tific Societies about the middle of the century. Literary Socie- 
ties had existed in Italy long previously ; these consisted of a 
number of members who met together at stated intervals for the 
discussion of literary matters, the recitation of poetry, and the 
" mencement of the proceedings. 
reading of essays. The names of some of these societies were 
sufficiently curious ; thus we find, among others, the following :— 
the Grieved, the Fiery, the Dispirited, the Solitary, the Rough, 
the Unripe. Baptista Porta founded the first scientific society 
in 1560, and called it the ‘* Academy of the Secrets of Nature ;” 
but on account of the privacy of the meetings, and the prevalence 
of occult and forbidden arts at this time, it came to be believed 
that the members used magical and diabolical influences, and the 
society was dissolved by the Pope. Shortly afterwards Porta 
published his ‘* Natural Magic,” in which he endeavours to prove 
that the magic of Nature is as wonderful as the magic of Art ; in 
a word, that we find in the phenomena of Nature results quite as 
wonderful as those produced by professed sorcerers. After the 
dissolution of Porta’s Academy, we find no scientific society until 
the formation of the Academy of Cimento in Florence, in 1567. 
This Scciety was not founded for the discussion of theoretical, or 
eyen simple observational science : ‘‘ our sole design is to make 
experiments and to relate them,” says the secretary at the com- 
Consequently, although the 
Society flourished for no more than ten years, a volume of ‘* Ex- 
periments made in the Academy of Cimento” appeared in 1667, 
and from its importance it was speedily translated into Latin, and 
into most of the languages of Europe. It contains a number of 
experiments relating chiefly to pneumatics and heat. 
About the year 1658, a few Oxford men, interested in science, 
agreed to meet in each other’s rooms once a week for the trial of 
experiments, and for the discussion of scientific matters. The 
number of members increased, and after a while the meetings 
were removed to London, and were held in Gresham College. 
Soon afterwards the society was incorporated by Charles the 
Second, under the name of the ‘Royal Society for Promoting 
Natural Knowledge.” Note the significance of the term Vatural 
as here employed. There was so much unnatural science in the 
world, so much magic, witchcraft, false knowledge, that the 
society thought it well to specify ‘‘ Natural Knowledge.” We 
find traces of the magical lore of the age in the accounts of early 
meetings of the Society ; thus we find in the minute-book of the 
Society the following entries under the year 1660 :— 
“June 5th. His Grace the Duke of Buckingham promised to 
bring into the Society a piece of an unicorne’s horn. 
“July 14th. A circle was made with powder of unicorne’s 
horn, and a spider set in the middle of it, but it immediately ran 
out several times repeated. The spider once made some stay 
upon the powder. 
“June 26th. Dr. Ent, Dr, Clarke, Dr. Goddard, and Dr. 
Whistler, were appointed curators of the proposition to torment 
a man presently with the sympathetical powder. 
**June roth. The fresh hazell sticks were produced, where- 
with the divining experiment was tried, and found wanting.” 
This Society continues to meet weekly, and in its Transactions 
may be found all the most important scientific memoirs which 
appear in this country, The Académie des Sciences was founded 
in Paris a few years after the Royal Society of London. 
The influence of scientific societies on the influence of experi- 
mental science has been, and still is, very considerable. Towards 
the end of the seventeenth century they were very generally dis- 
persed throughout Europe, and experimental results accumulated 
at a rapid rate. They were embodied in text books, and were 
soon introduced into the Continental universities, and thus became 
incorporated with general learning. No place in the world has 
taken so prominent a part in the furtherance of experimental 
science as the University of Leyden. Its professors during the 
seventeenth century were renowned throughout Europe, and 
students flocked from every part of the Continent to the Uni- 
versity. Again, it is a noteworthy fact that the first text book of 
physical science, and the first text book of chemistry, both issued 
from this university :—the Physices Elementa Mathematica of 
S’Gravesande, and the Z/ementa Chemie of Boerhaave. They each 
consist of two well-illustrated quarto volumes, and were pub- 
lished during the first half of the last century. The greater 
number of the sciences are made up of the discoveries of the last 
The science work of | 

two centuries, and these will come under our notice when we 
study the special science itself. I may, therefore, safely leave our 
brief survey at this point. 
(Zo be continued.) 


SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 
THE Révue Scientifique Nos, 8—12 has been to a large extert 
occupied by a report of the most important papers read at the 
recent meeting of the British Association ; but we find in addi- 
tion the following valuable articles :—A report of the very 
important course of lectures delivered by M. Claude Bernard at 
the Collége de France ‘‘On the Action of Heat on Animals ;” 
report of a course of lectures by M, Gréhant ‘‘On the Renewal 
of the Air in the Lungs,” largely illustrated by woodcuts ; a 
paper by M. Onimus on Les nerfs trophiques ; and a number of 
other papers chiefly bearing on physiological subjects, either 
translated from the English, or extracted from the proceedings of 
learned societies. Copious extracts from Mr. Darwin’s work 
**On the Descent of Man” are also translated from time to time. 
Der Naturvforscher, Nos. 31—34, August 1871. This journal 
is entirely made up of articles and abstracts from German, 
French, English, and Italian serials. Some of the latter are 
especially interesting to us, asbeing less known in this country, In 
the first number we find some researches by Prof. Nobbe of 
Tharand on the function of potassium salts in the nutrition of 
plants. The experiments were made on buck-wheat and rye ; 
they led to the conclusion that potassium is quite indispensable 
to the assimilation of plants ; without it no starch is formed in 
the chlorophyll-granules, and the weight of the plant remains 
constant, exactly as in pure water. Neither sodium nor lithium 
can replace potassium, the lithium being positively pernicious. 
An article giving the results of the second German Arctic Expedi- 
tion describes the climate of East Greenland, where the ground 
appears to be for three months free from snow, and covered with 
abundant herbage, fed upon by the reindeer and the musk-ox. 
The latter was not before known to inhabit this region. From 
an account of the water supply and soil of the town of Zurich, 
we learn that in the cholera epidemics of 1855 and 1867, no con- 
firmation could be found of Pettenkofer’s theory with respect to 
the connection of cholera and ‘‘ Grundwasser.” Prof. Nobius of 
Kiel, discusses the nutrition of deep-sea animals, especially in 
relation to the organic ‘‘slime,” which he believes to be chiefly 
of vegetable origin. Prof. Karsten related to the Austrian 
Pharmaceutical Conference in Vienna his personal experience of 
the poisonous properties of the famous manchineel tree ({/iAfo- 
mane manzanilla) of the West Indies and tropical America, which 
have been doubted by some naturalists. Being engaged for some 
hours in collecting its juice, Karsten was attacked with burning 
sensations of the skin, swelling of the face, eyes, &c., which 
compelled him to pass three days in total darkness, He attri- 
butes these effects to a volatile poison given off by the tree. 
Other papers are: Nyland ‘‘On the Phenomena of Discharge 
of Induced Currents of Electricity ;” Fritsch ‘‘ On the Geological 
History of the Santorin Group ;” Meunier “On the Cosmical 
Relations of Meteorites, and the Black Colouring Matter of the 
Meteorite of Tadjera ;”” Secchi ‘‘ On the Solar Protuberances ;” 
Young ‘‘On the Corona;” Klocke ‘‘On the Growth of 
Crystals,” &c. The following papers on physics are from journals 
little read in England :—‘‘ The Heat given off by Incandescent 
Platinum,” by Prof. Garibaldi of Genoa. He used, as Tyndall 
in his experiments on the electric light, a thermopile, but let the 
rays pass through a dry vacuum tube closed with thin plates of 
rock-salt, and absorbed the light rays by a solution of iodine in 
carbon disulphide. In this way the errors arising from the 
passage of the rays through a moist atmosphere and through 
prisms and lenses of rock-salt are avoided. He finds the ratio 
of visible and invisible rays given off from white hot platinum 
I : 253 but there was still some loss of the dark rays. (Il nuovo 
Cimento ; ser. 2; tom. iii.) In another research, Garibaldi 
has investigated the power of absorption for heat of the con- 
stituents of the atmosphere. The source of heat was heated 
platinum, and radiation took place through a closed vacuum, 
thus avoiding some of the errors of other experimenters. The 
power of absorption possessed by aqueous vapour was found to 
to be 7,937 times that of dry air. A valuable paper by Kundt 
(«* Wiirzburger Verhandlungen.” Neue Folge, vol. iii.), discusses 
the anomalous dispersive power for particular parts of the spec- 
trum possessed by certain coloured substances as hematin, chloro< 
phyll, sandal wood, litmus, &c. 
