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NATURE 



[June 4, 1896 



By the will of the late George Yeoman Heath, Professor of 

 :.Surgery in the University of Durham, and President of the 

 Durham College of Medicine, a sum of ^200 is awarded every 

 second year for a surgical essay. We learn from the I.aiiiet 

 that the second award will be given to the writer of the best 

 •essay on "Congenital Deformities, their Pathology and Treat- 

 ment." All graduates in medicine or in surgery of the University 

 o' Durham are eligible to compete for this scholarship, and the 

 essay, which must be type-written or printed, should be delivered 

 to the trustees not later than March 31, 189S. The essay, 

 •together with any specimens, drawings, casts, microscopical 

 preparations, or other means of illustration accompanying it, 

 will become the property of the College, though by permission 

 the essay may be printed for general circulation by the Heath 

 scholar. This is one of the most valuable surgical prizes in the 

 "kingdom, and the competition should be keen. 



The Societe helvetique des sciences naturelles will hold its 

 seventy-ninth meeting from August 2 to 5, at Zurich. This will 

 be the sixth occasion on which the Society has met at that place, 

 and it will do so very appropriately in August next, because the 

 Ziirich Societe des sciences naturelles — the oldest of those exist- 

 ing in Switzerland — celebrates this year the 150th anniversary 

 of its foundation. A number of papers have already been 

 promised in the various sections into which the congress will be 

 divided. All who desire to be present, or to contribute papers, 

 are requested to communicate with the Secretary, Dr. Aug. 

 Aeppli. Kinkelstrasse, Zurich IV., liefore July 15. The Swiss 

 Societies of geology, botany, and entomology will meet at the 

 same time as the Societe helvetique des naturelles sciences. A 

 geological excursion has been organised, under the direction of 

 Prof. A. Heim, and there will also be a botanical excursion. 

 Every one interested in the advancement and unity of science is 

 •cordially invited to attend the meeting. 



At the Electrical Exposition in New York, a few days ago, 

 messages were sent all round the world, and received back in 

 a few minutes. A vast audience hailed with enthusiasm the 

 return of the messages from their long circuits. The first sur- 

 prise was the announcement that a message had been received 

 within four minutes after sending it, having meanwhile twice 

 crossed the continent of America and the Atlantic Ocean. At 

 London the message was rewritten, and sent on to Tokio, and 

 back to New York by a circuitous route, covering 27,500 miles 

 in about fifty minutes. Another message, making another 

 ■circuit of equal length, returned a few minutes later ; while a 

 message sent all round South America, came back in twenty- 

 three minutes. The messages were dictated by Chauncey M. 

 Depew, President of the New York Central and Hudson River 

 Railroad, and Mr. Adams, President of the Niagara Falls Power 

 •Company. Mr. Edison received one or two of them. The 

 messages will be preserved in the Smithsonian Institution, 

 together with copies of all papers throughout the world that 

 published them, so far as they can be obtained. 



A SLIGHT shock of earthquake is reported to have been felt in 

 West Cornwall, at five minutes to seven on Friday morning. 

 May 29. An earthquake shock also occurred in Dumfriesshire, 

 and a noise resembling a distant peal of thunder was heard. 

 Furniture and crockery were agitated by the movement, which 

 lasteil a few seconds, and does not appear to have been attended 

 by any damage of consequence. 



It appears from the annual reports of the six Pasteur Insti- 

 tutes existing in Russia and Poland (St. Petersburg, Moscow, 

 Warsaw, Odessa, Kharkoff, Samara, and Tiflis), that during the 

 year 1892 no less than 28S6 persons applied at the Institutes for 

 anti-rabic treatment, as against 2976 in 1S91. Out of them, 

 2763 persons were put under treatment. The percentage of 

 NO. 1388, VOL. 54] 



deaths was, as usual, very high for wolves' bites, viz. from 2-22 

 'o 37'5 l'«f cent, in the different institutes ; while for dogs' bites 

 the percentage of deaths was insignificant, that is, from 0-5 

 to I -05. 



Among many articles of interest in the May number of the 

 Essex Naturalist, is one by Mr. Henry Laver on " Potash 

 Making in Essex : a lost rural industry." In the beginning of 

 this century the preparation of alkali by the lixiviation, in large 

 iron or copper pots, of the ashes of wood, straw, grasses, and 

 other vegetable refuse, was a very common rural industry in 

 Essex, the " pot-ash" thus produced being frequently converted 

 at once into soap. The decay of this industry must be chiefly 

 attributed to the production on the large scale of the cheaper 

 soda-ash from salt, and to the introduction of coal instead ol 

 wood as fuel. Mr. Laver contrasts the healthful conditions 

 under which the potash was produced a century ago, with those 

 under which soda is produced at the present day ; a contrast 

 much to the disadvantage of the latter. 



I.N' the Coiiiples rendus for May 4, one of Maxwell's early 

 proofs of the "error law" of distribution of velocity in the 

 kinetic theory of gases receives severe criticism in the hands of 

 M. J. Bertrand. In the work referred to. Maxwell claimed to 

 have solved the problem of finding the law of distribution ot 

 speed in a system of molecules without making any assumptions 

 as to the nature of these molecules or the forces between them 

 beyond that, on account of the absence of all regular order, 

 everything was distributed equally in all directions. After com- 

 paring Maxwell's problem to the favourite schoolboy question, 

 " Given the dimensions of a ship, find the age of its captain ?" 

 M. Bertrand points out that the proof in question really involves 

 a very important assumption, and one which he appears to 

 regard as unjustifiable. If j-,/, - be the velocity-components ot 

 a molecule in three dire ctions at right angles, Maxwell states, or 

 rather assumes, that the velocity x has no influence on the 

 velocities _)' and s, their directions being independent, and hence 

 that the number of molecules whose velocity-components lie 

 between the limits (/.r t/j' </: is represented by an expression of 

 the form 



N ,(.(..•) t (jO •<> (z)dxiivdz. 



M. Bertrand considers that the .v component docs influence 7 and 

 s, and that by neglecting this influence, which is great. Maxwell 

 obtained a solution of an insoluble problem. 



The kinetic theory also forms the subject of an article by 

 Prof Boltzmann in IViedeinann s Antialcn, in which he attacks 

 some views recently enunciated by Herr Zermelo. Prof. Boltz- 

 mann regards the Boltzmann-Maxwell Law as a theorem in 

 probability, rather than a principle of abstract dynamics. There 

 is nothing to preclude the possibility of the molecules of a gas 

 behaving at any instant in a totally diflfcrent manner from that 

 indicated by the law, but the greater the number of molecules 

 the more improbable does such a departure from the law become. 



Ix the Botanical Gazette for April, an interesting case of 

 mimicry is described, the seeds of the " Philippine island bean " 

 from the coast near Manila, so closely resembling the quartz 

 pebbles among which they fall, in shape, size, colour, lustre, 

 hardness, and stratification, as to be indistinguishable from them 

 except by a very close examination. The size and shape of the 

 beans are both very variable, ranging from 10 to 23 mm. ; 

 some perfectly resemble well-rounded lieach pebbles, while 

 others mimic pebbles which have been broken across. Their 

 colour varies from moderately dark to light drab, some giving a 

 faint greenish tinge ; others resemble pebbles of chalcedony or 

 of crystallised quartz. Nearly all the specimens show a series of 

 approximately parallel darker lines passing round, very suggestive 

 of stratification. All are quite hard, cut only with difiiculty 



