Feb. 3, 1 88 1 ] 



NATURE 



J2I 



official visit the other day to the schools of apprenticeship esta- 

 blished at the expense of the City of Paris in the rue Herold 

 and the boulevard of La Villette. The time required for 

 the scientific education of the young workmen is three years. 

 During the first year the pupils are trained in worliing wood as 

 well as iron. The choice of the speciality is only made at the 

 beginning of the second year. No work is executed without a 

 drawing having been made, so that the workman is enabled to 

 understand the use of the object he is manufacturing. Regular 

 courses of lectures are given in the establishment on scientific 

 subjects. Meanwhile experiment^ are conducted in three different 

 primary schools, to determine whether it is possible to join 

 manual to mental training in all the city schools. 



Prof. Hull has published a fourth edition of his "Coal- 

 Fields of Great Britain " (Stanford). This edition has been 

 largely rewritten, and contains an entirely new chapter on Car- 

 boniferous Plants, by Prof. Williamson, F.R.S. The Classifi- 

 cation of the Carboniferous Series of Beds has been modified in 

 accordance with the views enunciated in Prof. Hull's paper on 

 this subject read before the Geological Society in 1877. Various 

 other modifications have been made iu accordance with the 

 results of recent geological research, and the statistical portions 

 have been brought down to 1878. 



Messrs. Longmans and Co. send us the fourth edition of 

 Prof. Atkinson's " Natural Philosophy for General Readers and 

 Young Persons," translated and edited from Ganot's French 

 work. To this edition have been added twenty- five pages of 

 new matter and sixteen additional illustrations. 



Mr. E. S. Baker, photographer of Bristol, sends us a photo- 

 graph of a jar, which is a fine illustration of the fact that water 

 expands on freezing. During the recent frost the water in the 

 jar froze, and the ice is seen protruding from its mouth to a con- 

 siderable distance like a well-shaped cork. 



Mr. C. V. Riley of 1700, Thirteenth Street, Washington, 

 writes to us that, having been obliged to cease the publication of 

 the Avierican Eniomoloiiisl, he has a few full sets of vol. iii., 

 just closed, to dispose of, and has concluded to send the full 

 volume to all former subscribers who may want it, or to any 

 Library, Natural History Association, or editor of journal, 

 postage prepaid, at the reduced price of $1.50. The information 

 in the magazine, Mr. Riley states, is of permanent interest, and 

 the volume will be of value to any one interested in entomology 

 in any of its bearings. 



M. Ch. Jolv has republished as a pamphlet a paper which 

 he lately contributed to the fournal of the National Plorticultural 

 Society of France, under the title of "Note sur une Exposition 

 de Geographic botanique et horticole, organisee par la Societe 

 Centrale d'Horticulture de Nancy." 



New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia have 

 agreed to jointly bear the expense of exterminating the Phylloxera 

 vastatrix, the alai-ming extension of w^hich in Victoria has 

 threatened the destruction of the %vine industry. 



We have received the three first numbers for this year of the 

 Chicago Field, which seems modelled on a small scale after its 

 well-known English contemporary. 



The Revite Seieiitijiijtie of January 29 contains a lecture 

 recently given at the Sorbonne by M. F.aye, on the Volcanoes of 

 the Moon. 



At Cracow a new Polish review for literature, science, and 

 art is now being published fortnightly. Its title is Museum, 

 and its editor Dr. Thaddaeus Rutowski. 



The works in the Arlberg tunnel are progressing. On the 

 Tyrolese side the lower shaft has been pushed to a distance of 



340 metres, by help of the boring machines, and in spite of the 

 hardness of the rock the daily progress is two metres. The 

 upper shaft is some 100 metres behind. 



A number of Roman antiquities were found last year during 

 some military earthwork operations near Metz, close to the 

 Lunette d'Ar^on. It appears that the place was one of the most 

 important burial-places of Roman Metz. The Metz Geo- 

 logical and Archjeological Society gave the details at its last 

 December meeting. Some thirty-five vases, four metal objects, 

 three coins, and two tombstones with inscriptions are mentioned. 

 Of human remains four skulls were found, one of which was 

 lying upon a square stone plate, besides carbonised (cremated?) 

 bone remains in a round stone urn. The inscriptions were 

 epitaphs ; of the three coins, one dated from the year 41 (when 

 Claudius commenced to reign), another from the year l6o (reign 

 of Antoninus Pius). Prof. Schaaffhausen of Bonn states that 

 three of the skulls found belong to three different tribes. One 

 belonged to a German, another to a Frisian, the owner of the 

 third came from so far a country as Lapland. 



A remarkable discovery of Russo-byzantine antiquities was 

 made near Kiew some weeks ago, when a canal for the water- 

 works of the city was being excavated. They consist principally 

 of twenty gold and enamelled lockets, three buttons of the same 

 materials with heads of saints upon them, gold rings, agraffes 

 and studs, all dating from the fifteenth or sixteenth century; 

 they doubtless served as ornaments upon the costumes of the 

 grand princes. Besides these some thirty-four silver coins were 

 found, al'o a highly original bronze vessel in the shape of a 

 fabulous qu.adruped. The metal value of all the antiquities is 

 estimated at 1000 roubles (150/.). The Archzeological Com- 

 mission has taken possession of them. 



OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN 

 The Observatory of Harvard College, U.S. — We 

 have received the Annual Report presented to the Visiting Com- 

 mittee of this Observatory by Prof. Pickering on December 6. 

 The year has been one of unusual activity in the establishment, 

 funds which had been liberally forthcoming from its friends 

 having enabled both the equatorial and meridian circle to be 

 regularly employed, and further having allowed of many 

 researches of importance being conducted with the smaller 

 instruments. With the large equatorial Prof. Pickering claims 

 that he has succeeded in making a more extensive series of 

 observations for position of the satellites of Mars at the last 

 op|5osition than was obtained elsewhere, and states that Deimos 

 w-as last seen at Harvard Observatory ; the number of observed 

 angles of position of Deimos was S25, and of Phobos 27S, and 

 that of observed distances 245. In addition to measures for 

 posiiion photometric observations were made, which appear to 

 show that if the satellites possess a capacity for reflecting sun- 

 light equal to that of the planet, Deimos may have a diameter 

 of about six and Phobos of seven miles. It was noted at various 

 observatories that Deimos appeared somewhat brighter in 1879 

 than at the preceding opposition in 1877, and in both years Prof. 

 Pickering states it seems to have been brighter measured photo- 

 metrically, and to have been seen more easily when it followed 

 than when it preceded Mars. 



Photometrical determinations of the times of eclipses of 

 Jupiter's s.atellites, commenced in the summer of 1878, have 

 been continued during the year, and it is considered with reason- 

 able hope that these phenomena may be more accurately 

 observed than hitherto by this method. Observations of planetary 

 nebula: described in the previous Report have been nearly 

 completed. 



With regard to spectroscopic observations, Prof. Pickering 

 says the most remarkable discovery is that the spectrum of No. 

 176S1 of Oeltzen's Catalogue, the place of which for 1880 is in 

 R.A. iSh. ini. 17s., N. P. D. in' l', possesses a peculiar cha- 

 racter. "The light of this star is principally concentrated in 

 two points of the spectrum, one in the blue, the other in the 

 yellow, a little more refrangible than the D line. A faint 

 continuous spectrum is also seen." 



