~ Dec. 30, 1869] 
of all the French Agricultural Associations :— 
“NATURE 
245 
~ species represented in the national collection. The latter are, 
however, specially indicated. Some notion of the marvellous 
yariety of bird-form may be gathered from the fact that this 
- volume gives the name and habitat of no less than 6,057 species. 
The second and concluding volume is stated to be far advanced 
towards completion. We have also to chronicle, for the benefit 
of our entomological readers, the appearance of Part II. of the 
_ Catalogue of Specimens of Dermoptera Saltatoria in the British 
Museum, by Mr. Francis Walker. 
A LARGE depot of petroleum has just been Absent ered in the 
Caucasus, It is situated on the east of the Caspian, where there 
are large numbers of these springs, many of them occurring in 
close proximity. This new spring is said to be capable of pro- 
ducing 40,000 livres daily. The American method has recently 
been adopted with the greatest success 
Dr. RopINneEtT, formerly president of the;Paris Academy of 
Medicine, member of the Municipal Council, and at one time 
president of the Hygienic and Sanitary Commission of the City 
of Paris, has just died. His decease was due to an affection of 
the chest, contracted whilst on a scientific expedition in Germany. 
Dr. Robinet had completed his 72nd year. 
Ir appears that the surface glass which contains soda undergoes 
considerable change after a lengthy exposure to the air. Bluish 
glass undergoes no such alteration, but that which has originally 
a greenish tinge becomes brown after a time, whilst very pure 
white deteriorates rapidly, showing first a yellow, then a brown, 
and finally a violet film. At this season of the year we do not 
require this additional colouring to the appearance of our already 
discoloured atmosphere. It has been noticed that some modern 
- stained glass on a foggy day has almost the richness of the ancient. 
We need not go far for a solution of this. The old glass has ac- 
_ quired in the course of ages a film which takes the place of a 
permanent fog, especially on those colours which, like the ruby, 
are formed by a thin coating of the coloured glass on a thicker 
plate of transparent metal. 
Tue Agricultural Society of France has recently addressed the 
following questions to each of its members, and to the presidents 
“‘t, Can the depre- 
ciation in the price of wool be remedied ; and, if so, by what 
means? Does the rise in the price of meat afford a sufficient 
compensation to the producers of wool? 2. Do the production 
and sale of cereals meet with any obstacle demanding the atten- 
tion of the legislator? 3. Is there any: defect in the facilities for 
increasing the domestic consumption or the exportation of wine? 
4. Have the agricultural industries, especially those which pro- 
duce alcohol and sugar, any need 0 modification as regards the 
economic regulations to which they are subject? 5. Are there 
in your district any other branches of agricultural produce 
suffering from a crisis to which it would be necessary to call 
public and legislative attention ?” 
We have been requested to state that the cable laid between 
Salcombe and Finisterre (Dec. 2nd) was manufactured at W. T. 
Henley’s Telegraph Works, North Woolwich. 
= 
SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 
In the Annales des Sciences Naturelles (Zoologie, Tome xii. 
Nos. 3 and 4), M. Marcy continues his elaborate paper on the 
flight of Insects and Birds. Prof. E. Lartet describes and figures 
Trechomys Boudnellit and two other fossil rodents of the Eocene 
of Paris. New observations on the Zoological Characters and 
Natural Affinities of the A°pyornis of Madagascar are given by 
MM. Alphonse Milne-Edwards and Alf. Grandidier. Their 
paper is illustrated by a fine series of figures of the bones of these 
_ gigantic fossil birds : even the enormous bones of the lower limb 
are drawn the size of nature. ‘The present double number of the 
Annales is concluded by a communication from M. Edward 
Perrier, entitled “Researches on the fedicellaria and ambulacra 
of star-fishes and sea-urchins. ” 
THE November number of the Avznales de Chimie et de Phy- 
sigue contains the termination of a long memoir by Lecoq de 
Boisbaudran, on Supersaturation ; a memoir by Des Cloiseaux, 
on Gadolinite, a mineral whose anomalies are very lucidly con- 
nected and explained ; a very interesting paper by Boussingault, 
on the Function of Leaves, in which the influence of light is 
studied as affecting the decomposition of carbonic acid ; Obser- 
vations on a Note of M. Velter as to the agricultural utility of 
salt, by Peligot ; a Chemical Study of Egyptian wheat, by Aug. 
Houzeau ; the Polarisation of the Blue Light of Water, by J. L. 
Soret (taken from the Geneva Archives): and an account of 
Roberts’s elegant experiment, showing the increase of volume 
undergone by palladium in combining with hydrogen. 
THE November number of Reichert and Du Bois Reymond’s 
Archiv fur Anatomie contains the following papers:—‘‘The 
Influence of Artificial Respiration on_ Reflex,” by Dr. P. 
Urspensky, of St. Petersburg; ‘*Musculi subcrurales et Sub- 
anconaci,” by Dr. M. Kulaewsky; ‘*The ‘Ramus collateralis 
ulnaris nervi radialis again,’ by Professor W. Krause, of ,Got- 
tingen; ‘‘The Inter-aryteenoid Cartilage of the Human Vocal 
Organs,” by Professor H. von Luschka, of Tiibingen (plate) ; ‘On 
the Influence of the Curara Poison on the Electromotor Power of 
Muscles and Nerves,” by Hermann Rocher; ‘The Nervi 
Splanchnici and the Ganglion Cceliacum,” by ine Bidder, of 
Dorpat; ‘‘On the Musculus Broncho-cesophagus Dexter,” -a 
communication by Dr. Wenzel Gruber, Professor of Anatomy 
at St. Petersburg. 
POGGENDOREFE’S Annalen der Physik und Chemie, 1869. (No. 
tr. Vol. cxxxviii. Part 3). The physical papers in this number 
_(the last published) are :-— 
(1.) “ On the applicability of Ohm’s Law to Electrolytes, with 
a numerical determination of the Electrical Resistance of dilute 
sulphuric acid by means of alternating currents,” by F. Kohlrausch 
and W. A. Nippoldt (pp. 370 to 390). This paper forms the 
continuation and conclusion of one begun in the previous number 
of the “Annalen.” After discussing the special difficulties that 
lie in the way of accurate determinations of the galvanometric 
properties of electrolytes, the authors show how the most im- 
portant of them, the polarisation of the electrodes, may be over- 
come by substituting for a continuous current in one direction 
arapid succession of currents of short duration in opposite 
directions. Such currents were obtained by the rotation of a 
steel magnet inside a coil of wire ; and the employment of them 
necessitated the use of a Weber's bifilar dynamometer, instead 
of an ordinary galvanometer. There is a full discussion of the 
action of the rotating magnet, showing the mean electromotive 
force due to a given velocity of rey olution, and the action of the 
resulting current on the dynamometer. In the part of the 
paper now published, the strength of the current traversing a 
column of dilute sulphuric acid is proved to be proportional 
to the electromotive foree even when the latter does not 
exceed 1; part of that of a Grove’s cell. By using thermo- 
electric currents, the proportionality between electromotive 
force and strength of current, in the case of solution of sulphate 
of zinc between amalgamated zinc electrodes, is shown to hold 
good even when the electromotive force is only zas'spu Of that 
of a Groye’s cell.- The paper concludes with a series of nume- 
rical determinations of the specific resistance of dilute sulphuric 
acid of various degrees of concentration, from which we quote 
the following :—At 22° C. the maximum conducting power is ° 
possessed by sulphuric acid of specific grayity 1°233 (containing 
31°5 per cent. hydric sulphate); taking the conducting power of 
mercury at O° as unity, the conducting power of such acid is 
0000077274. 
(2.) “On a Comparable Scale for Spectroscopic Observations, ” 
by A. Weinhold (pp. 417 to 439). In order to compare the 
indications of various spectroscopes, the author proposes to denote 
the various parts of the spectrum by reference to the interference- 
bands seen in the spectrum of light reflected from a thin plate of 
biaxial mica ; and to reduce the results obtained by the use of 
plates of various degrees of thickness to a common denomination, 
by taking two definite parts of the spectrum, ¢.g., Fraunhofer’s 
lines D and F, as fixed points, and dividing the interval between 
them into 100 "parts. The bands of the interference-spectrum 
then become comparable with the divisions on an arbitrarily 
graduated thermometer, the value of which is determined by 
observing two fixed temperatures. The paper contains a full and 
careful description of the way of carrying out the proposed 
method in practice. 
(3.) ‘* Experiments on Retarded Ebullition ” (third part), by 
