Dec. 3, 1874] 



NATURE 



99 



and its advantages in the physical laboratory, since the fiftieth 

 part of a milligramme can be estimated by ^it "quicker than by 

 the ordinary method. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 



London 

 Physical Society, Nov. 21.— Dr. J. H. Gladstone, F.R.S., 

 president, in the chair. — Prof. Macleod described a simple 

 arrangement he had devised for showing internal resistance in 

 battery cells. Two tubes about half a metre long, one of which 

 is about twice the diameter of the other, are closed at their lower 

 ends with corks. On the corks and within the tubes rest two 

 discs of platinum foil connected with binding screws by platinum 

 wires passing through the corks. The plates are covered with 

 chloride of silver and the tubes are filled with a solution of 

 chloride of zinc. Each tube is provided with a disc of amal- 

 gamated zinc soldered to a long insulated copper wire. The 

 discs are cut so that they nearly fit the tubes, one being exactly 

 double the diameter of the other, and therefore exposing four 

 times the surface to the action of the liquid. On connecting the 

 terminals with a galvanometer, the current will be found to in- 

 crease as the distance between the zinc and platinum plates is 

 diminished by lowering the zinc plate into the tube. In order 

 to obtain the same deflection of the galvanometer by the narrow 

 cell, the distance between the plates must be one-fourth those of 

 the larger ones. The apparatus may also be used to show that 

 opposed cells of the same kind will not produce a current. For 

 this purpose the platinum plates are connected together and 

 the t«o zinc plates joined to the galvanometer. No cur- 

 rent will flow, whatever the distance between the plates. — 

 Mr. James BaiUie Hamilton, of University College, Oxford, made 

 a communication on the application of wind to stringed instru- 

 ments. Mr. Hamilton commenced with a short history of the 

 efforts which had been made to bring the Eolian harp under 

 human control, and explained how he himself had taken up the 

 matter from Mr. John Farmer on leaving Harrow Scliool. Mr. 

 Farmer had succeeded in getting wind to do the work of a bow 

 upon a string by attaching a reed to the end of it, forming thus a 

 compound string from which a few notes of great beauty could 

 be obtained. Mr. Hamilton, in attempting to complete a per- 

 fect instrument, soon found he had undertaken an almost impos- 

 sible task, from difficulties which he explained to the Society. 

 Failing to obtain advice or assistance, either from scientific men 

 or from the musical instrument makers, he was once more thrown 

 upon his own resources, and, conscious both of his responsibiUty 

 and difficulties, resolved to leave for a time his university career, 

 and to investigate to the uttermost a matter on which no infor- 

 mation could be there obtained. The results of his investigations 

 were then shown to the Society. After two years of labour, 

 Mr. Hamilton had not only gained experience sufficient to per- 

 form what he had undertaken, but had also discovered that by a 

 different mode of employing the same material, i.e. a string and 

 a reed, he could secure for a string the advantages it afforded by 

 an organ-pipe in addition to those which it already possessed. 

 Showing a pianoforte string on a sound-board, he said : " Such 

 strings already possess certain advantages ; first, simplicity of 

 reinforcement by a common sound-board ; second, economy of 

 space ; third, blending of tone ; and fourth, sympathy. Can I 

 also secure for this string the advantages of an organ-pipe — 

 namely, first, special reinforcement ; second, volume of tone ; 

 third, choice of quality ; and fourth, sustained sound ?'' Accord- 

 ingly, an open diapason pipe was proposed for imitation, and, to 

 the general surprise, the string was made to exactly imitate it 

 in all these respects. Another string was next sounded, repre- 

 senting the note of the largest organ-pipe in use, in con- 

 junction with other notes, satisfying the hearers that not only 

 could a string do all the work of an organ-pipe in giving 

 volume and sweetness to the note reinforced, but could afford 

 the exquisite sympathetic and blending power hitherto peculiar 

 to strings. Such notes were also sounded seven octaves apart. 

 The reinforcement corresponding to the pipe was secured by 

 the utilisation of a node which cut off from the string a segment 

 corresponding to the note reinforced, presenting to all appearance 

 the phenomenon of an organ built by nature out of a string. This 

 node being a source of motion, is also utilised for gaining quick- 

 ness of speech, since a cord, acting as a damper and stretched across 

 the nodal line of a series of strings, serves to communicate instan- 

 taneous sound from key to key. Another invention of Mr. 



Hamilton's was a string which could not be put out of tune to 

 the great surprise of those who attempted to do so. He also 

 exhibited a new pianoforte string, which by its purity and volume 

 of tone showed that the results of a grand pianoforte could be 

 obtained in a cottage instrument. Mr. Hamilton having satis- 

 factorily answered several questions respecting possible objections, 

 concluded by reminding the Society that it was in attempting 

 faithfully to carry out the designs of another man that he was now 

 in a position not only to perform what he had undertaken, but 

 had also been permitted to bring into use a simpler, purer, and 

 grander source of sound than had been contemplated when he 

 laid his hand to a task which he was still engaged m perfecting. 

 Anthropological Institute, Nov. 24.— Prof. Busk, F.R.S., 

 president, in th> chair.— Col. Lane Fox exhibited and described 

 specimens of stone implements, bows, arrows, and blowpipes 

 from San Jose, Costa Rica. Mr. Charlesworth e.xhibited charac- 

 teristic figures, carved in amalgam by Mexican miners, and a 

 chaplet of gold and silver coins as worn by the women of Naza- 

 reth.— A brief paper by the late Mr. Cotesworth was read. On 

 ruins in the neighbourhood of Palmyra ; with Notes on some 

 skulls found tlierein, by the President. Tlie ruins described 

 were groups of towers and tombs lying north and south of the 

 Kuryelein road on the hills facing the castle. In one of these 

 towers were discovered many skulls and other human remains, 

 some of which were exhibited on the table. The date of their 

 deposition could not, in the opinion of the author, be less than 

 l.Soo to 2,000 years ago. There were also large underground 

 tombs showing the same arrangements as in the towers. An 

 examination of the remains by the President showed that they 

 belonged to individuals of a dolichoceplialic race of large rather 

 than small stature, but by no means gigantic. A short time 

 since Capt. Burton had forwarded skulls to the Institute pre- 

 senting the same characteristics as the specimens under con- 

 sideration. — Mr. W. BoUaert contributed Notes on some Peruvian 

 antiquities, and exhibited a series of drawings and photograplis 

 in illustration, which he gave to the Institute. 



Manchester 



Literary and Philosophical Society, Nov. 17.— Edward 

 Schimck, F.R.S., president, in the chair. — Some remarks on 

 Dalton's first table of atomic weights, by Prof. Henry E. Roscoe, 

 F. R.S. Tills has already appeared in Nature, vol. xi. p. 52. 

 — Action of light on certain vanadium compounds, by Mr. 

 James Gibbons. — On basic calcium chloride, by Harry Grimshaw, 

 F.C.S.— On the structure of Stigmaria, by Prof. W. C. Wilham- 

 son, F.R.S.,' which we hope to give next week. 

 Phil.\delphia 



Academy of Natural Sciences, July 21. — Dr. Rusch- 

 cnberger, president, in the chair. — Prof. Persifor Frazer, 

 jun., described a coal-cutting machine, designed by Mr. 

 James Brown, of Brazil, Indiana. It consists of a steel or 

 iron wheel, set in a frame, connected with the pneumatic 

 eni^ine, which runs in rails laid parallel to the face of the 

 heading, which in this case may be several hundred yards long. 

 On the outer periphery of this wheel are arranged twenty or 

 thirty triangular-shaped pieces of steel, united with it at one of 

 their apices by a pin. In the middle of the opposite side, 

 which is curved, are firmly-fixed chilled-steel teeth, which set 

 themselves by friction against the coal to the proper position for 

 cutting, as the wheel is rotated to the right or left. The motion 

 is imparted by means of a small-toothed whael which moves in 

 rack-work on the under-surface of the wheeL 



July 28. — Dr. Ruschenberger, president, in the chair. — On 

 report of the committees to which they had been referred, the 

 following papers were ordered to be publislied : — Description of 

 a new species of Helix, by James Lewis, M.D. — On some 

 Batrachia and Nematognathi, brought from the Upper Amazon by 

 Prof. Orton, by Edward D. Cope. — Notes on American Lepi- 

 doptera, with descriptions of twenty-one new species, by Aug. R. 

 Grote. — Determination of the Species of Moths figured in the 

 "Natural History of New York," by Aug. R. Grote, A.M. 



Aug. 4. — Dr. Ruschenberger, president, in the chair. — Mr. 

 Tliomas Meehan exhibited some branches of Acer Pciinsyl- 

 vanician, Liu. {A. striatum. Lamb), which had a remarkable 

 system of dimorphic foliage. The first pair of leaves developed 

 after the bursting of the bud in the spring, were larger and more 

 perfectly developed than any subsequent ones. The next pair 

 were usually lancelinear. Occasionally there was a tendency to 

 the production of a pair of lobes, but usually the margins were 



