422 



XA TURE 



[March 2, 1899 



The Associalion of American Analomists has accepted the 

 propositions of the editors of the fournal of Analoiiiy and 

 Physiology, and have adopted the journal as the official organ of 

 the Association. Dr. G. S Huntington, professor of anatomy, 

 Columbia University, New York City, has been nominated as 

 the American editor. At the recent meeting of the Association, 

 the president. Dr. Burt ('■. Wilder, discussed "Misapprehen- 

 sions as to the Simplified Nomenclature." He urged especially a 

 fuller recognition of what had been done by the English 

 anatomists, H.arclay, Owen, I'ye-Smith and T. Jeffery Parker, 

 and hoped the nomenclature of the future would be called the 

 '■ Anglo American." 



We learn from the American Xctliiralisl that the depart- 

 ment of scientific investigation of the United States Fish Com- 

 mission is being developed by Prof. Bunipus. The laboratory 

 at Woods 1 loll is to be kept open throughout the year, and 

 students are welcomed there at any time. The facilities of the 

 various stations are placed at the command of those who wish 

 embryological or other material. In the line of research, it is 

 stated that the department has arrived at the conclusion that 

 the late increase in the number of starfish in the oyster-beds 

 of Southern New England, and e'liL-cially in Narragansett Bay, 

 is directly related to the capture of the menhaden and other 

 fishes for the oil and fertiliser factories. These surface-feeding 

 fishes formerly destroyed large numbers of starfish eggs and 

 larva ; but since they have been caught so persistently, the 

 starfish have got the upper hand. 



The first year of the marine biological station at Millport 

 appears to have been a satisfactory one. The Committee of 

 the Millport Marine Biological Association report good progress, 

 not only in regard to the numbers who visited the Robertson 

 Museum, and to the degree in which the facilities afforded by 

 the laboratory were utilised by scientific workers, but also in 

 regard to the measure of public support accorded to the scheme. 

 There were over 8000 visitors to the museum during the past 

 year, and tables in the laboratory were utilised for terms vary- 

 ing from a week to a month on thirty-eight different occasions. 

 While the Committee have reason to be gratified with the present 

 degree of equipment of the station, and with the facilities it 

 affords for biological work, they recognise that, in order to 

 take full advantage of the surrounding sea area, and to bring 

 the station into line with the best-equipped institutions else- 

 where, some considerable additions were still required. It is 

 hoped that as the station becomes better known its complete 

 equipment will follow. It would be extremely gratifying to the 

 Committee were this end accomplished before the meeting of 

 the British Association in Glasgow in 1901. 



To afford the members of the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, 

 the opportunity of cultivating an interest in photography and 

 microscopy, with especial reference to the branches of photo- 

 graphic optics and mechanics, photo-micrography, photo- 

 chemistry, and their manifold applications to the various 

 branches of the arts and manufactures, a photographic and 

 microscopic branch of the Chemical Section is being organised. 

 Of interest in connection with this movement, is the fact that 

 the Chemical Section of the Insliuite has lately become the 

 residuary legatee of the large and valuable accumulation of 

 scientific books and physical and chemical apparatus of the late 

 Mr. Mathew Carey Lea. 



The historical sketch of the first federated institute, which 

 included mining engineers from all parts of the world, given by 

 Mr. Bennett H. Brough in a paper read before the Institution 

 of Mining Engineers, at the general meeting held on February 

 22, is of interest to other societies licsides that before which it 

 was read. The original idea of forming such an institute is 

 NO. I 53 I, VOL. 59] 



saiil by .Mr. Brouch to have been due to the distinguished 

 Austrian mining engineer and metallurgist, Ignaz von Born. 

 The society was established in 1787 under the name Societatder 

 Bergbaukunde, and it was the prototype of the mining institutes 

 of the present day. The object of the society was to afford a 

 means of communication between mining engineers of all 

 nationalities, on matters bearing upon the mining industry. 

 Mining experts from all parts of Europe, and even from Mexico 

 and South America, were enrolled as members. Only two 

 volumes of Transactions were published, the first in 1789 ; and, 

 probably owing to the death of von Born, which occurred at the 

 age of forty-eight, at Vienna, on July 24, 1791, and to financial 

 difficulties, the society soon came to an end. 



Ai' the meeting of the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, on 

 February 15, Mr. L. E. Le\-y exhibited and described the acid 

 blast process invented by him to facilitate the etching of photo- 

 chemical engravings. The invention consists essentially in the 

 application of a spray of finely atomised etching liquid instead 

 of the immersion bath at present in use, the spray being driven 

 against the plate by a powerful blast of air from an air-com- 

 pressor. Under the impulse of the blast the etching proceeds 

 very rapidly. The heat evolved by the rapid chemical decom- 

 position of the metal is absorbed by the expansion of the com- 

 pressed air as it escapes into the etching compartment, and this 

 results in keeping down the temperature of the plate and the 

 etching liquid to a normal degree. .\s each succeeding globule 

 of acid impinges on the metal in the direction in which the 

 etching is required to proceed, the process can be continued to 

 a depth beyond which the finer and closer lines of the design 

 would become too frail to bear the strain of printing, and at 

 that point the etching is stopped and the finer lines are pro- 

 tected by powdering in the usual way, after which the etching 

 can be carried to the requisite depth. Attached to the etching 

 box is a washing compartment, into which the plate carrier is slid 

 when the etching liquid is to be washed away from the plate. 



The committee appointed by the council of the Society of 

 Arts to inquire into the requisite conditions of safely in 

 acetylene gas generators, and to report on the various 

 apparatus shown at the exhibition held at the Imperial 

 Institute, has just published their results and conclusions. 

 The committee classified the generators into three groups : 

 (l) those in which the gas is generated by water being 

 allowed to drip or flow on to the carbide ; (2) those in which 

 the water is allowed to rise in contact with the carbide, the 

 rise being regulated by the increase of pressure in the generat- 

 ing chamber ; (3) those in which the carbide drops into the 

 water. The.se are again subdivided into— automatic generators, 

 whose storage cap.icity is less than the total volume which 

 the charge of carbide is capable of generating, and which, 

 therefore, require automatic regulation ; and non-automatic, 

 whose holders can receive all the gas produced by the charge of 

 carbide. It is concluded that the tests have clearly demon- 

 strated that many types of acetylene gas 'apparatus can be so 

 constructed as with ordinary precautions to be absolutely safe, 

 and that lighting by acetylene need be no more fraught with 

 danger than any other form of artificial lighting in general use. 

 But though the committee consider acetylene gas 10 be s.afe when 

 generated in a properly constructed apparatus outside the building 

 to be lighted, and in accordance with the rules and suggestions 

 contained in the report, they |X)int out that the generation of gas 

 within the house, and the use of hand lamps, cycle lamps, &c., 

 is not unattended by danger, except in skilled hands. 



The Trustees of the Indian Museum have just distributed an 

 important memoir by Major .'\. Alcock, superintendent of 

 the Museum, and professor of zoology in the Medical College, 

 Calcutta, containing an account (with plates) ip( the deep-sea 



