596 



NATURE 



\Oct. 2 1, 1880 



provided the rotation be sufficiently rapid. If a thicker piece of 

 quartz be used, giving two, three, or four dark bands, the 

 rotation-spectrum will present a most beautiful appearance, being 

 crossed by a two-branched, or three-branched, or four-branched 

 spiral, the separate lines of which proceed from the centre to tlie 

 circumference. The sense of these dark spirals w ill change with 

 the sense of the impressed rotation. The effects are very 

 striking. 



Several ingenious contemporaries of ours on this side of the 

 Atlantic have furnished the eager appetites of their readers with 

 diagrams of Graham Eell's photophone, of which the most casual 

 observer cannot fail to notice the utter want of resemblance to 

 one another. More than one at least of these is ben trovato. 



Liquid ozone has been obtained by MM. P. Hautefeuille 

 and J. Chappuis, and is found to be of a beautiful blue colour. 

 If a mixture of oxygen and ozone at a temperature of about - 23° 

 or - 25° be subjected to a considerable pressure, the ozone 

 liquefies and will remain liquid even though the pressure be 

 reduced to 10 atmospheres. Experiments involving alterations 

 of pressure must however be carefully made ; for the ozone is 

 liable to change into oxygen with a sudden evolution of heat, 

 producing an increase of pressure with explosive violence. It is 

 necessary to interpose a layer of sulphuric acid upon the top of 

 the column of mercury by which the pressure is applied in the 

 instrument, as ozone acts directly on the mercury. 



Herr Hankel has recently ( Wied. Ann., No. 8) endeavoured 

 to prove the direct tralisformation of vibrations of radiant heat 

 into electricity. He had formerly shown that rock crystal has 

 thermoelectric polar axes in the direction of its secondary axes 

 (the six successive poles being alternately positive and negative), 

 and he supposes tlie ether within the crystal to -be so arranged 

 that under influence and witli participation of the material mole- 

 cules it is movable in circular paths round the secondary axes, 

 and more easily movable in one direction tlian in the other. 

 Thus all along a secondary axis the more easily occurring rota- 

 tion has the same direction, but looked at from v^■ithout, the 

 direction is opposite at one end to what it is at the other, so 

 giving the opposite modifications of electricity. When radiations 

 from without strike along such an axis, those vibrations in them 

 whose direction ciincides with that of the easier rotation of the 

 ether-molecule in the crystal should induce rotation of this 

 along with the material molecule, and at the two ends of the 

 secondary axis there should be electric tensions, with opposite 

 electricity. Herr Ilankel verified this by placing an insulated 

 metallic ball connected with a gold-leaf electroscope in the 

 middle of one edge of a rock crystal fixed with its principal 

 axis vertical, while sunlight was thrown from the other side 

 along the secondary axis terminating at the ball ; then the 

 arrangement was reversed. The electroscope indicated opposite 

 electricities in the two cases. A gas-flan :e or a heated ball gave 

 similar effects, which, moreover, were proved to be due to the 

 dark heat rays (not to the luminous rays). 



The specific rotatory power of paraglobulin in blood serum 

 is 47°-8 for yellow light ; that of albumen, 57'"3. As these are 

 the only albuminoid substances present in any considerable 

 quantity, two determinations with the aid of the polaristro- 

 bometer suffice (as M. Fredericq has shown to the Belgian Aca- 

 demy) for ascertaining their relative proportions. The rotation 

 produced by the whole liquid is first determined ; then the para- 

 globulin is precipitated with MgSOj, then redissolved in a volume 

 of water equal to that of the original serum, and the rotation- 

 number got from this is deducted from that got I previously. 

 Each of the numljers divided by that representing the specific 

 rotatory power of the corresponding substance indicates the 

 quantity of the substance in 100 cc. 



In a recent brief memoir to the R. Accadeviia dei Lined (Aiti, 

 June, 1880), Dr. Bartoli describes an ingenious application of the 

 Bunsen calorimeter to determination of the mechanical equivalent 

 of heat. A given mass of mercury at zero temperature is sub- 

 jected to a considerable pressure, exactly determined, and passed 

 through a steel tube of so small internal diameter and such length 

 that its velocity of outflow is virtually nil, and so the work 

 equivalent to the kinetic energy of the mercury issuing from the 

 tube becomes negligible in presence of the work consumed by 

 friction between the mercury and the walls of the tube. This 

 tube penetrates, into a metallic cylinder situated within the 

 reservoir of the Bunsen calorimeter. The quantity of ice melted 

 in the calorimeter serves as measure of the heat developed by 

 the work of efflux of mercuiy. It is stated that the numerical 



results are noteworthy for their agreement with the mean of 

 former determinations, and still more for the narrow limits^ 

 between which the extreme values arrived at are comprised. 



Experiments with regard to interpretation of the unequal 

 reversal of magnesium lines in the green part of the solar 

 spectrum are detailed by M. Fievez in a recent paper to the 

 Belgian Academy (Bull. No. S). He first examined the in- 

 iluence of relative intensity of bright magnesium lines on their 

 visibility by observing them separately and projecting them on 

 the solar spectrum. Then he repeated the experiments of 

 simplification of the spectrum by varying the intensity of the 

 spark. Lastly, he studied the influence of greater or less dis- 

 persion and definition on the number and visibility of the lines, 

 comparing prismatic with diffraction spectra. The experimental 

 arrangements were mainly the same as in his recent researches 

 on the spectra of hydrogen and nitrogen. The conclusion he 

 arrives at is that the unequal reversal in question is due merely 

 to a difference in the intensity of the bright lines, not to a 

 dissociation of the metal. 



M. BoUTY considers he has proved (Jotirnal de PJtys., Sep- 

 tember) that in simple electrolysis the Peltier phenomenon is 

 produced according to the same laws as at the surface of contact 

 of two metals. It is a purely physical phenomenon without 

 known relations with the heat of combination, or with the latent 

 heat of solution, but connected by a precise law with the thermo- 

 electric forces of corresponding couples. Chemical actions inter- 

 vene in the production of one or other of the two inverse 

 ])henomena merely as disturbing causes, either altering the 

 nature of the surfaces or producing a secondary liberation of 

 heat. They may mask, more or less, the phenomenon on 

 which they are superposed, but they do not produce it. 



GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

 Mr. Leigh Smith, during his Arctic craise in his yacht 

 Eira, has evidently done some very good work this summer. 

 After cruising about the east coast of Greenland and in the 

 neighbourhood of Spitzbergen, finding the ice-pack too dense 

 and too far south to get far north without danger — although he 

 reached 79° 40' N. in 46° 50' E., the farthest point yet reached 

 in that direction — Franz-Josef Land was reached on August 14. 

 Here much exploring work was done. Land was found stretch- 

 ing away west and north-west from that discovered by the 

 Aiistrians. A fine harbour, called after the Eira, was found in 

 So" 5' 25" N., 48° 50' E., and several excursions were made from 

 (his basis, among the numerous fjords that pierce the mainland 

 north and north-west. From the point named by the last Dutch 

 expedition Barentz Hook, land was traced westwards some no 

 miles, and from the extreme north-west point reached land was 

 sighted forty miles further north-west. In the sea between were 

 several large and small islands, all covered with glaciers and 

 snow-fields, with blufl!' black headlands on the southern exposure, 

 covered with vegetation. Several Arctic flowers were collected 

 and brought home ; a number of soundings and dredgings were 

 made, yielding interesting results, and two bears which were 

 caught have been sent to the Zoological Gardens. Evidently 

 there is here a considerable archipelago, if not continuous stretch 

 of land, giving some support to Petermann's theory that the 

 Pole is probably surrounded by numerous islands. It is stated 

 that Mr. Leigh Smith goes back next year ; we trust he will 

 reacli Eira Harbour early, and be able to still further extend our 

 knowledge of these new Arctic lands. 



The October number of Petermann^s Mittheilungcn contains 

 several [good papers. There is an interesting account of the 

 progress of the Japanese trading station in Corea/which now con- 

 tains about 2,000 Japanese inhabitants. Important information 

 is given as to the results of Dr. O. Finsch's voyage in the Pacific. 

 During a stay in the Sandwich Islands he made considerable 

 additions to our knowledge of their natural history ; thence he 

 went to Jabut (Bonham) in the south of the Marshall Group, 

 where his collections and observations in all directions \\ere 

 numerous and of great value. Thence he proceeded to the 

 Gilbert or Kingsmill Group, and afterwards to the Carolines. 

 Some idea of the results so far may be obtained from the fact 

 that he has sent to Europe something like thirty boxes of collec- 

 tions ; the materials collected in ten months embrace 70 mammals, 

 180 birds, 800 reptiles, 1,200 fishes, 15,000 molluscs, 800 crus- 

 taceans, 400 spiders, 1,400 insects, and about 150 other animals, 

 besides 700 plants, and two boxes of minerals. In anthropology 

 there are 50 skulls and 55 casts of faces, representing the peoples 



