May 13, i38o] 



NATURE 



39 



was then poured on and allowed to act under pressure for 

 several hours. It was then filtered oft" and evaporated to 

 dryness with nitric acid, so as to decompose any ammonia 

 salts. The residue was then treated in three different 

 ways, and the spectrum photographed in each case. 



I. With excess of hydrochloric acid. 2. Water was 

 added to the iron and boiled with it. 3. Acetic acid was 

 added and boiled with the iron, some of which was dis- 

 solved, and the solution was therefore nearly neutralised 

 with ammonia and boiled. Photographs were then taken 

 of the spectra of the iron thus precipitated and the filtrate 

 from it. The following is a summary of the results 

 obtained : — 



" The above experiments were made with 7° coils and 

 dense prisms of 60^ and 75^, with object-glasses of quartz. 

 By using an electro-dynamic tiiachine a greater dispersion 

 might be used, and the length of the image increased. 

 We think that it would then be found that the bodies 

 which we have detected by indirect means would appear 

 in the spectrum of the original metal." 



In addition to the above Mr. Wrightson read a second 

 paper "On some physical changes occurring in Iron and 

 Steel at High Temperatures," which was a continuation 

 of a paper read by him at the Liverpool meeting last year. 

 Mr. Ackermin, of Stockholm, contributed a very lengthy 

 memoir "(_in Hardening Iron and Steel ; its Causes and 

 Effects.'' There were also five other papers on subjects 

 of importance, chiefly to those technically interested in 

 the manufacture of iron and steel. 



In conclusion the Institute must be congratulated not 

 only on the importance and number of the papers pro- 

 duced, but also on the fact that it has succeeded in 

 obtaining contributions from three foreign countries, viz., 

 Germany, Russia, and Norway, a circumstance which 

 will no doubt give to the proceedings of the association 

 an international importance. 



NOTES 



Mr. W. Ciwndler Roberts, F.R.S., Chemist of the Mint, 

 has been appointed to the Lectureship of Metallurgy in the 

 Royal School of Mine.s, rendered vacant by the resignation of 

 Dr. Percy, F.R.S. Mr. Roberts will continue to hold his 

 appointment at the Mint. Mr. Richard Smith, hitherto Assistant 

 MetaUurg'st, has been appointed Instructor in Assaying. 



The following foreign men of science have recently (Mny 6) 

 been elected Foreign Members of the Linnean Society : — M. 

 C.J. de Ma.ximo»icz, Director of the Imperial Museum and 

 Herbarium, St. Petersburg, author of many important memoirs 

 on systematic botany; 1 Jr. Edward Strasburger, Professor of 

 Botany in the University of Jena, well l-.nown for his morpho- 

 logical and physiological researches among various groups of 

 plants ; and Prof. Elias Metschnikoff, Director of the Embryo- 

 logical and Zoological Institute, Odessa, whose investigations 

 on the structure and development of the lower maiine inverte- 

 brata are highly valued. 



The Municipality of Rome has just erected on the promenade 

 of the i'incio a statue in honour of Father Secchi. The statue 

 represents the great astronomer in the attire of a member of the 

 Company of Jesus. 



Under their present government the French are multiplying 

 the statues erected to their men of science by means ol public 



subscription. Not less than three new schemes are on foot for that 

 purpofe in several parts of the country. A committee has been 

 established at Montpellier for Auguste Comte ; another at Blois, 

 in honour of Denis Papin, a rival of the Marquis of Worcester, 

 who, according to the French notion, inventedthe steam-engine; 

 and a third at Bar-le Due, on behalf of Fran9ois Cugnot, an 

 engineer born in the vicinity of that city, who in 1770 constructed 

 a road-locomotive. This rudimentary steam-engine, which is 

 exhibited just now at the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, was 

 tried officially but unsuccessfully in the arsenal of Paris more 

 than a century ago. 



Dr. Nils Johann Andersson, the celebrated Swedish 

 botanist and traveller, as the Gardener's Chronicle learns from 

 the Bolanisches Centralblatt, died after long suffering on March 

 27 at Stockholm. Andersson was born on February 20, 1821, 

 studied at Upsal, graduated as Doctor of Philosophy in 184S, 

 and resided at the University as Assistant Professor of Botany. 

 Afterwards he took part in the expedition of the frigate Eugenie 

 round the world, 1851-1853, the result of which he pubbshed in 

 several treatises which were translated into various foreign 

 language^. In 1855 he became Demonstrator of Botany at 

 Lund, and in the following year w'as appointed permanent Pro- 

 fe^sor of Botany, Director of the Bergianska 'schen Garten and 

 Su_ erin'.endent of the botanical division of the Royal Museum. 

 There he worked with great success till the beginning of 1S79. 

 From here Andersson undertook numerous journeys in the cause 

 of science to Lapland, Norway, Germany, France, England, 

 &c. He also acquired scientific renown through his various 

 treatise?, books of travel, and text-books. 



Prof. Silvestri, of Catania, reports as follows concerning 

 the renewed activity of Etna, to which we referred last week : — 

 "The eruption issues from the western side of the mountain, pre- 

 cisely the part which separates the central crater from the eruptive 

 craters of last year. The situation indicated represents the 

 principal part of the ravine which was then formed and remained 

 opened, and which, beginning at the recent eniptive craters, 

 finally crosses the great crater. This ravine, in \\hich are many 

 crater-caverns which opened last May but remained inactive, is 

 now the scene of the present activity, limited as yet to a simple 

 eruption of steam and ashes, such as has frequently taken place 

 during the past months at the summit of the mountain. To-day 

 (April 28), while the sky is cloudless, one sees from Catania the 

 summit of Etna enveloped in clouds which, scattered by a rather 

 strong north-east wind, have no resemblance to eruptive clouds, 

 though they are formed by the steam issuing from the mountain. 

 The eruption of mud at Paterno to the south still continues, and 

 on certain days in some of the craters increases in energy, ejecting 

 as abundant mud as during the first days after the appearance of 

 the phenomena." 



On Tuesday evening a paper on the botanical enterprise of 

 the empire was read to the Colonial Institute in St. James's 

 Hall by Mr. Thiselton Dyer, assistant director of Kew Gardens. 

 The lecturer gave a history of botanical gardens, which date 

 from the middle of the sixteenth century, when Alfonso d'Este, 

 Duke of Ferrara, the patron of Tasso, set the fashion of making 

 collections of foreign plants and flowers. The earliest public 

 botanic garden was founded by Cosmo de' Medici in 1544 for the 

 University of Pisa. The following year one was founded at 

 Padua. In France the earliest botanic garden was founded at 

 Montpellier towards the end of the sixteenth century, and in 

 Germiny that of Giessen was established in 1614, and in the Low 

 Couniiies that of Leyden dated from 1577. In England the 

 Royal Garden at Hampton Court was founded by Queen Eliza- 

 beth, and supported by Charles II. and George HI. Those w hich 

 followed and still remain were Oxford, founded in 1632 ; Chel- 

 sea, in 1673 ; and Edinburgh, in 16S0. The origin of Kew as a 



