42 



NATURE 



\_Nov. II, i! 



the Henry Grace tie Dieu {A.D. 1514) down to fhe'Livadia, 

 many of these models having been lent by the Admiralty. 

 Prefixed to the carefully compiled catalogue is a sketch of the 

 rise and progress of steam navigation, more especially on the 

 River Clyde, by Mr. W. J. Miller, C.E. The success of this 

 exhibiticn is largely due to the energy and tact of the Curator of 

 the Glasgow Industrial Museum, Mr. James Paton. 



"The Journal of the Indian Archipelago," foitnded and 

 edited by the late J. R. Logan, which was published at Singa- 

 pore, and ceased to appear some years since, has always been 

 accepted by ethnologists as a valuable contribution to Malayan 

 literature. Some of the early volumes, especially the first, have 

 long been out of print, but Mr. David Logan, the son of the late 

 editor, who was recently in England, has reprinted the scarce 

 ones, thus enabling complete sets of the work to be obtained. 

 Messrs. Triibner are, we believe, the agents in London. 



The very large and extensive entomological collection made 

 by the late Jno. Miers, F.R.S., has been presented to the 

 Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and is now being studied and 

 incorporated by Prof. Westnood. This collection is particularly 

 rich in Brazilian insects, and thus becomes peculiarly valuable 

 for the Oxford collection, which was, compared with other 

 regions, poor ia the neotropical fauna. 



The British Museum will shortly acquire the splendid ccllec- 

 tion of Heteromerous Coleoptera formed by Mr. Frederick 

 Bates. 



Some unbelievers insisted that the submarine crannog described 

 by Mr. Ussher at Ardmore, Co. Waterford, was only the remains 

 of an old salmon weir ; the late storms however seem to have set 

 this theory at rest; as they have cut out the peat to seaward 

 of the crannog and exposed the ancient kitchen midden, also 

 additional piling not previously known. 



At the last meeting of the St. Petersburg Society of Natu- 

 ralists Prof. Wagner exhibited the hydroids and medusse of the 

 White Sea he has brought home, giving a detailed description of 

 ten species of medusre he has discovered in that sea. 



At the last ir.eeting of the St. Petersburg Horticultural Society 

 M. Wolkenstein exhibited a new variety of vine which grows 

 and fruits at Warsaw and Riga. M. Wolkenstein thinks it 

 might fruit even at St. Petersburg. We notice also a communi- 

 cation by Prof. Regel on apples. 



Prof. Silvanus Thompson has an interesting article in the 

 current number of Brain on " Optical Illusions of Motion." 



We learn from a paper published by M. Goulishambaroff in 

 the Journal of the Russian Physical and Chemical Society, vol. 

 xii. fasc. 5, that the whole of the naphtha region of the Apsheron 

 Peninsula has an area of \'l square miles, which may be 

 divided into two parts : that of Balakhany, which has given 

 naphtha since the oldest times ; and that of Saboitntchi, which 

 was explored only in 1S73. The first part contains forty-seven 

 naphtha-wells, of which only twenty-eight are productive, and 

 yield together 6, 192,000 lb. of naphtha daily. The density of 

 this naphtha varies from 0-855 to 0-885, tl^e average density 

 being 0-8675 ; whilst the naphtha of the Sabountchi region has 

 a density of from o 820 to o-S6o, and is extracted to an average 

 quantity of 6,622,000 lb. The density varies from the most 

 different causes : it varies in different wells, and usually it might 

 be said that in the same bore the density diminishes with the 

 depth ; however, heavy naphtha is received also from very near 

 to the surface ; usually it tecomes heavier when the evaporation 

 of volatile gases is rendered easy by local circumstances. Con- 

 trary to established opinion, M. Goulishambaroff proves that the 

 naphtha of the Apsheron Peninsula contains volatile products of 



a density of 0-62, but no use is made of them because of the 

 imperfect means of purifying. The amount of photogene received 

 varies very much, namely, from 15 to 85 per cent., the naphtha 

 which has a density of o'Sgo to 0-900 giving the lowest, and that 

 of a density of 0-820 giving the highest, percent.ige ; the most 

 usual kinds of naphtha (density 0-863 to 0-870) usually give from 

 35 to 40 per cent, of photogene. It shows, he stated, however, 

 that thorough measurements of the coefficient of dilatation of 

 naphtha having not as yet been made, there remains a certain 

 want of precision in the determinations of its specific weights. 



On the night of the 3rd inst. a magaificent display of aurora 

 was seen from various parts of the country. We have received 

 several communications on the subject. Mr. E. W. Prevost 

 writes from Cirencester that the display was visible there from 

 6 p.m. up to about midnight. " The glow, which extended over 

 an angle of .about 100°, rose upwards to a height of 20", leaving 

 the central portion comparatively dark. Faint streamers occa.- 

 sionally showed themselves, reaching 35' in height. A shifting 

 of the streamers from east to west was noticeable, the illuminated 

 arc being at times extinguished on the eastern side, this extinc- 

 tion progressing slowly towards the centre of the arc, when the 

 light would reappear at the eastern side. At no time, as far as 

 I obsei-ved, did the light disappear on the w-estern side; the 

 colour was of a greenish-yellow and the wind due north.' 

 From Bootham, York, November 3, Mr. J. Edmund Clarke 

 writes: "There is quite a brilliant aurora this evening, first 

 noticed about 6.30 as a diffused light shifting from north-east to 

 south-w-est, with occasional streamers. Now (7.30-8.45 p.m.) 

 it forms a low bright arch of considerable intensity. I said 

 'first seen about 6.30,' but at 4.40 I called the attention of a 

 friend to some sharply-defined red streamers in the north-east, 

 which I then took to be sunlight. On August 12 last, about -i 

 to \ hour after sunset, my attention was called to streamers prc« 

 cisely similar, in every respect like those (of the aurora. But 

 careful observation showed that these were certainly radiating 

 from the sun, and not converging towards the magnetic pole. It 

 is certainly my impression that such was the case to-night, but 

 being busy I did not take any special jains to ascertain. Of 

 course this double coincidence may be a pure accident, but is it 

 not possible that the minute substances reflecting the solar rays 

 are actually modified by the electric field, so as to produce this 

 remarkably distinct variety of rays? P.S. — 8 p.m. Brilliant 

 streamers from the bright arch, with soue corruscations." 

 Prof. Reilly, of the Royal College of Science for Ireland, 

 writes that in Dublin the display was very fine. " The princip.Tl 

 beam appeared as if slowly moving from west to east, and had a 

 direction quite parallel to the pointers of the Great Bear. It 

 reached at the ti-me when seen quite up to the Polar Star. The 

 lights were observed at earlier hours, one person having men- 

 tioned to me 6 o'clock p.m." lu Orkney it showed itself as one 

 of the most brilliant displays of aurora borealis seen for a long 

 time. The whole northern horizon was one dark massuf clouds 

 with a sharply-defined edge, and from these the aurora shot up 

 in beautiful coloured streams to nearly the zenith, covering the 

 clear sky above the clouds from north-east round to north-west. 

 Occasionally the aurora took the form of a gigantic rainbow, 

 and the light was as bright as moonlight. 



A SMART shock of earthquake occurred on the 9th inst. through- 

 out Southern Austria, from Vienna to the Adriatic and the fron- 

 tiers of Bosnia. In the capital a rather violent shock was felt at a 

 quarter to eight . Numerous telegrams have been received by the 

 Meteorological Bureau at Vienna stating that shocks were felt at 

 Serajevo, Derwenta, Brod, Pola, Trieste, Zilli, Klagenfurt, 

 Fiinfkirchen, Odenburg, Marburg, Laibach, and Gross-Kanischa. 

 In Agram, the capital of Croatia, three shocks of earthquake 

 occurred, a period of an hour intervening between the second 



