5i6 



NA TURE 



\_April I, i8t)6 



a Bourdon's metallic recording barometer, in which the 

 drum turning in eight days is supplied with a continuous 

 band of paper, serving for six months or a year. 



Various specimens of aneroids were exhibited, including 

 skeleton aneroid, showing the various working parts ; 

 aneroid with altitude scales ; pocket watch aneroid, in- 

 dicating heights to 20,000 feet ; Stanley's surveying 

 aneroid ; F"ield's engineering aneroid ; aneroids as sup- 

 plied to Her Majesty's ships previous to 1854, and the 

 pattern now adopted ; and self-registering aneroid with 

 maximum and minimum indexes. Messrs. Lund and 

 Blockley exhibited a barometer dial 6 feet in diameter, 

 the hand of which is kept in its true position by a single 

 aneroid vacuum-box. 



Mr. Stanley showed his chrono-barometer, which is a 

 clock that counts the oscillations of a pendulum formed 

 by a suspended barometer. The upper chamber of the 

 pendulum is a cylinder of an inch or more in diameter. 

 By change of atmospheric pressure the mercury in the 

 pendulum is displaced from the bottom to the top, and 

 vice 7'ffsi!. The rate of the clock is accelerated or re- 

 tarded in proportion to the displacement of the mercury. 



Among the other forms of barometer were Jordan's 

 glycerine barometer, the cistern and upper part of the 

 tube only being shown, as the instrument, when com- 

 plete, would be about 30 feet in height ; Cetti's long-range 

 mercurial and glycerine barometer; Hicks's flexible 

 barometer ; Lowne's handy weather-glass ; Ronketti's 

 thermo-barometer ; Wilson's diflerential barometer; and 

 several patterns of sympiesometer. 



The most interesting of the new instruments was 

 Immisch's pocket metallic thermometer. This is a 

 watch-shaped instrument, and about the size of a small 

 locket. The index-hind is actuated by the expansion 

 and contraction of a very small Bourdon tube filled with 

 a highly expansive liquid, and hermetically sealed, the 

 motion of the tube being multiplied by an ordinary rack 

 and pinion. 



To the Savilian Professor of Astronomy ill the Universilv 



of Oxford, Author of a Memoir on the Proper 



Motion of Forty Stars in 



The Pleiades, 



On his receiving the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical 

 Society for his Invcstiij^ations of the Relative 

 Brightness of the Fixed Stars 

 Pritchard ! thy praise is lifted to the skies, 

 Who in the starry fields find'st pure delight, 

 Noting each ray that gilds the brow of night 

 From pale gems set in depths beyond surmise. 

 Press on, where Fame's subliinest summits rise- 

 Time's stroke falls lightly on his sacred might 

 Who ploughs from morn to eve his furrow right 

 Then sinks to rest 'midst sunset's gorgeous dyes. 

 Hail ! faultless herald of the bright-eyed throng 

 Heir to the wand, once Tycho's, to assign 

 What place and precedence to each belong : 

 Whilst yet with watery ray yon Pleiads shine 

 Or strew with sands of gold their hair divine, 

 Thy name shall flourish in immortal song. 



NOTES 

 Her Majesty the Queen has been ple.ised to intimate her 

 intention of opening the Colonial and Indian E.xhibition on 

 Tuesday, May 4. 



M. VuLPiAN has been elected by a majority of one over M. 

 Alphonse Milne-Edward?, Permanent Secretary of the Paris 

 Academy of Sciences, in the place of the late M. Jamin. 



The death is announced of Mr. Charles George Talmage, 

 F.R.A.S. , on Saturday. He was director of the private 

 observatory of Mr. J. G. Barclay, at Leyton. 



There has recently died in Calcutta one who, though not in 

 any sense a man of science, has done much for science as an 

 artistic delineator. A Belgian by birth, Jules Schaumberg more 

 than twenty years ago found his way to India, in search of the 

 picturesque, and was at first associated with M. Rousselet, author 

 of " Les Indes des Rajahs," during which time he made many 

 •admirable sketches and water-colour pictures illustrative of the 

 architecture and life in the cities of Central India. His capital 

 having been exhausted, he accepted an appointment as artist in 

 connection with the Geological -Survey of India. The number 

 of plates drawn by him for the Survey and also for the yournalo\ 

 the Society amount to hundreds, and those who knew Schaum- 

 berg well remember the interest and spirit he threw into the 

 drawing of plates representing animated life. He lately officiated 

 as Principal of the Bengal .School of ."^rt, and died suddenly .at 

 the .age of forty-six. 



The Biological Section of the Canadian Institute of Toronto 

 proposes to petition the Dominion Government to reserve one of 

 the islands in Lake Superior for the preservation of native 

 Canadian animals. 



Mr. Edgar Hall, of Queenborough, sends us a cutting from 

 the Sydney Echo of February 4, giving an interesting account 

 of a vessel which is reported to have been set fire to by a meteor. 

 The vessel, a schooner, tlie f. C. Foni, was on her voyage from 

 the P.acific Coast to Kahului, Maui, and the communication 

 originally appeared in the Pacific Advcrtiicr, published at Hono- 

 lulu. The letter is dated " Kahului, Dec. 22, 1885," and addressed 

 to the Hon. S. G. Wilder. It is signed "T. H. Griffiths, captain ; 

 B. J. Weight, passenger." On Saturday, Dec. 12, according to 

 the letter, being in latitude 23° 53' N., longitude 143° 26' W. , 

 at 1.30 p.m., the weather being fine .and wind moderate, the 

 first mate, Mr. Mercer, discovered the mizen-staysail, which was 

 clewed up, to be in flames at the mainmast-head. With all 

 possible speed the fire was put out by means of water, beating, 

 and cutting away. "It is needless to say that all hands won- 

 dered at a fire occurring at the mast-head, but the finding of 

 fragments of some metallic-like substance showed us that sonie- 

 ihing'of a meteoric nature was the cause. Those on the deck 

 were picking up burning fragments and throwing them over- 

 board. The pieces of the strange substance were found at the 

 base of the mainmast. A piece as large as a man's hand was 

 thrown overboard quite hot by Mr. Weight, and a piece as large, 

 or larger, which was burning the mainsail, was thrown over- 

 board by one of the hands. The above are the facts, as we 

 remember them, and as they are recorded on the ship's log. In 

 the night previous the weather was clear, but meteors were very 

 numerous, and the mate and man at the wheel noticed their fre- 

 quency and number.-, and also that they would burst in a manner 

 resembling a rocket. No shock was noticed, the first intimation 

 of the occurrence being the st.aysail in flames. Our theory is 

 that the substance found is the crust of a meteor or fragment 

 projected laterally. As there was a large quantity of kerosene 

 and other combustible matter on deck, there were doubtless 

 more than th« two pieces thrown overboard in our anxiety to 

 avoid disaster."' 



A PRIZE of 25,000 francs, or 1000/., is offered every year by 

 Leopold II., King of the Belgians, for the best essay on some 

 ])redetermined subject tending to advance the well-being of 

 mankind. The competition is alternately restricted to Belgians 

 and thrown open to the whole world, being settled by an inter- 

 national jury. The subject of this year's competition, open to 

 the whole world, was "The Best Means of improving Sandy 

 Coasts" ; and the prize has been awarded by an international 



