524 



NA TURE 



\_March 31, 1887 



changes produced in the gaseous and liquid states of matter vary 

 as the square, cube, or some other simple function of the tem- 

 perature ; Graham, in like manner, sought to show that the 

 movement of his diffusive molecules, whether in liquids or in 

 gases, was related to some equally simple function of their mass. 

 Henry says of Dalton that "his inmost mental nature, and all its 

 outward manifestations were in the language of the German 

 metaphysicians, emphatically subjective. Thus in special or 

 objective chemistry lie has left absolutely no sign of his presence ; 

 no great monograph on an individual body and its compounds ; 

 no memorable analysis of a substance deemed simple into yet 

 simpler elements ; no new element — no Ne|>tune — added to the 

 domain of chemistry." Every word of these sentences C3uld be 

 applied with equal truth to Graham. The tendencies of both 

 men were essentially introspective. Each was capable of the 

 most patient concentrated thought and of steady prolonged 

 -attention, wholly abstracted from external objects and events. 

 I have heard the late Dr. Young narrate the most extraordinary 

 instances of Graham's power of mental abstraction. Dalton said 

 of himself that, " If I have succeeded better" than many who 

 surround me, it has been chiefly, nay, I may say, almost solely, 

 from unwearied assiduity. It is not so much from any superior 

 genius that one man possesses over another, but more from 

 attention to study and perseverance in the objects before them, 

 that some men rise to greater eminence than others." 



It seems like a contradiction in tertns when we reflect for a 

 moment upon the characteristic features and tendency of his 

 work, to .say that Gr.iham, like Dalton, was utterly devoid of 

 the quality we call imagination. Henry says of Dalton that 

 imagination had absolutely no p.irt in his discoveries ; except, 

 perhaps, as enabling him to gaze, in mental vision, upon the 

 ultimate atoms of matter, and as shaping forth those pictorial 

 representations of unseen things by which his earliest as well as 

 his latest philosophical speculations were illustrated. Graham 

 would not allow his fancy even that amount of play. Even in the 

 speculative essay from which I have quoted so largely, it seenii 

 as if every word had been weighed and every sentence put to- 

 gether with slow laborious thought. This p.assionless aspect of 

 his work seems to have greatly impressed Angus Smith, himself 

 a man of lively sympathy and of quick susceptibility. " His 

 works," says Smith, " are full of care, but not of joy. " 

 (To be continued.') 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 

 Aniericaii Journal of Sciciue, March. — On the absolute wave- 

 length of light, by Louis Bell. The experiments here described 

 were undertaken with a view to check the results obtained by C. 

 S. Pierce for Prof Rowland's great map of the solar spectrum, 

 .and to furnish a value of the absolute wave-length as nearly as 

 possible commensurate in accuracy with the micrometrical ob- 

 servations. For the wave-length of D, at 20' C. and 720 mm. 

 pressure, Mr. Bell obtains 5896 'oS, or/« vacuo 589771, as com- 

 pared with 5896 '22, Rowland's micrometer measure from Pierce's 

 preliminary result, and 5895 "89, Thalen's correction of Angstrom, 

 both in air at ordinary temperature and 760 mm. pressure. But 

 neither of these was corrected for errors in the gratings ; hence, 

 obviously, the cause of the discrepancy. — On the relative wave- 

 length of the lines of the solar spectrum, by Prof Henry A. 

 Rowland. This measurement of the relative wave-lengths of 

 the spectrum and its reduction to absolute wave-lengths by some 

 modern determination has been undertaken in connexion with 

 the photographic map of the solar spectrum on which the author 

 has been engaged for several years, and which is now finished 

 from the extreme ultra-violet wave length 3200 down to wave- 

 length 579°- -A-ppended are tables of coincidences and of 

 wave lengths of standard lines. — The norites of the " Cortlandt 

 series " on the Hudson River, near Peakskill, New York (con- 

 tinued), byG. H. Williams. Here are studied the mica norites, 

 the augite norite (hyperite), pyroxenite, and the iron ore and 

 emery in the Cortlandt norite. Owing to incipient alteration, 

 easily visible under the microscope, the West-Chester County 

 emery appears to be of less commercial value than that of Asia 

 Minor. — Natural solutions of cinnabar, gold, and associated 

 sulphides, by George F. Becker. In the course of investigations 

 on the geology of the quicksilver deposits of the Pacific slope, 

 the author has made some studies, here detailed, on the question 

 of the state of combination in which quicksilver is dissolved in 

 natural waters. The solubility of zincblende, pyrite (marcasite). 



copper sulphides, gold, and other .associates of cinnabar, is 

 incidentally examined, the quantitative analysis involved in the 

 process being made by I!)r. W. H. Melville. — Fluviatile swamps 

 of New England, by N. S. Sh.aler. In examining the fresh- 

 water swamps of this region, the author has carefully studied 

 the geographical distribution of those formed along the banks of 

 rivers. Although the inquiry is mainly limited to the post-glacial 

 changes in the valleys trending northwards, much light is inci- 

 dentally thrown on the pre-glacial altitude of the continent. It 

 is made evident that these valleys could not have been excavated 

 by streams of their present slope ; hence the inference that 

 the descent of the northward flowing rivers must have been 

 more rapid in pre-glacial times than at present ; in other words, 

 this part of the continent was at that time relatively lesi elevated 

 in its northern parts than it is at present. — On the Mazapil 

 meteoric-iron which fell on November 27, 1SS5, by William Earl 

 Hidden. — On observations of the eclipse of August 18, 18S7, 

 in connexion with the electric telegraph, by Prof. David P. 

 Todd. Referring to his remarks in the Proceedings of the 

 American Academy of Arts and Sciences for 18S1, p. 359, the 

 author points out how the proposed method of telegraphic 

 transmission of important observations might be adopted during 

 the eclipse of August iS next. — On two new meteorites from 

 Carroll County, Kentucky, and Catorze, Mexico, by George F. 

 Kunz. The Kentucky iron has some ethnological interest in 

 connexion with the ornaments of meteoric iron occurring in the 

 mounds of the Little Miami Valley, Ohio, all apparently belong- 

 ing to one and the same meteoric fall. The Catorze mass, 

 weighing 92 pounds, was found near Catorze, San Luis, Potosi, 

 in 1885. It is one of the caillite group of Stanislas Meunier, 

 and shows the Widmanstiitten lines very finely. Analysis : 

 Fe 90 'og ; Ni and Co 9'o7 ; P o'24 ; with specific gravity 7'S°9- 



Rivista Scicntifico-Industriale, February. — On the cause of 

 the electric discliarge accompanying thunderstorms, by Prof. 

 G. Guglielmo. The views of Ermann and Peltier are here 

 subjected to close scrutiny, and shown to be inadequate to 

 account for these electric phenomena. — On the variations in the 

 electric resistance of .antimony and cobalt in the magnetic field, 

 by Dr. G. Fae. The author's researches show that, apart from 

 the intensity of the observed effects, antimony behaves in the 

 way determined by Righi for bismuth, and cobalt in the way 

 determined by Thomson for iron and nickel. 



Rendiconti del Realc htituto Lomb.irdo, February. — Summary 

 of the meteorological observations recorded in the Brera Obser- 

 vatory, Milan, during the year 1886, by E. Pini. The daily, 

 monthly, and annual means are tabulated for the atmospheric 

 pressure, temperature, rainfall, velocity, and direction of the 

 winds throughout the year. — Meteorological observations for 

 the month of January, 1S87, at the same Observatory. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 



London 



Royal Society, March 10. — "Note on Induction Coils or 

 'Transformers.'" By John Hopkinson, M.A., D.Sc, F.R..S. 



"Note on the Theory of the Alternate Current Dynamo." 

 By John Hopkinson, M.A., D.Sc, F.R.S. 



March 17. — " The Embryology of Monotremata and 

 Marsupialia." Parti. By W. H. Caldwell, M. A., Fellow of 

 Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Communicated by 

 Prof. M. Foster, SecR.S. (Abstract.') 



(l) T/ie Egg-membranes. — In Monotremata, in very young 

 ova, a fine membrane exists between the single row of follicular 

 cells and the substance of the ovum. This membrane, which I 

 will call the vitelline niembratw, at first increases in thickness with 

 the growth of the ovum, and through it pass numerous fine proto- 

 plasmic processes connecting the protoplasm of the follicular 

 cells with that of the ovum, and serving to conduct food granules, 

 which, appearing in the neighbourhood of the nuclei of the cells, 

 travel thence to the ovum ; food granules also appear in the 

 neighbourhood of the germinal vesicle, and travel away from it : 

 hence the horseshoe-shape of the yolk-mass as seen in section. 



' The author being at the present time in Australia and so unable to 

 correct the proof of this abstract. I have undertaken this duty. In doing so 

 I have ventured, for the sake of what appeared to be increased clearness, to 

 introduce into § i some modifications of the author's manu.^icript, being 

 guided therein by the author's more detailed account given in the fuller 

 paper. — M. I''osTER, Sec. R.S. 



