Fuly 16, 1885 | 
A TELEGRAM from Cooktown to Berlin, July 8, announces 
the arrival there of the New Guinea Company’s steamship 
Samoa, with Dr. Finsch on board, who is returning to Europe 
from his recent exploring expedition along the unknown por- 
tions of the coast of Kaiser Wilhelm’s Land (New Guinea) 
which are situated between Astrolabe Bay and Humboldt Bay. 
Dr. Finsch reports the discovery of several good harbours and 
of a navigable river. The land is suitable both for agriculture 
and stock-raising. The natives were friendly. 
THE Comptroller-General of patents, designs, and trade marks 
has issued, in the form of a Parliamentary paper, his report, the 
second since the passing of the Act of 1883. That the new Act 
has worked well in the interest of inventors may be seen from 
the fact that the number of applications for patents, which had 
risen, with some variations, almost constantly in the course of 
thirty years, from 1211 in the year 1852, to 6241 in 1882, leaped 
with a bound to 17,110 in 1884. The increase is, in fact, as 
between the years 1883 and 1884, no less than 195 per cent. 
Seventy-nine per cent. of the applications were made by persons 
resident in the United Kingdom—namely, 12,356 being resi- 
dents in England and Wales, 901 in Scotland, and 254 in 
Treland. Of the rest the largest numbers were from the United 
States, 1181, from Germany 89c, and from France 788. Resi- 
dents from twenty-seven other countries also made application to 
the office, thirteen such countries being British possessions, from 
which 175 applications were made, and three, it may be added, 
were made from Egypt. Only three appeals were made in the 
course of the year against the decision of the Comptroller, so 
that it may be taken that his decision is almost invariably satis- 
factory to applicants. The receipts of this office amounted to 
103,827/., of which 88,9967. were for patents’ fees, 3477/. for 
designs’ fees and stamps, 70142. for trade-marks’ fees, and more 
than 4ooo0/. for the sale of publications. The chief payments 
made were 36,225/. for salaries—all of which are set forth in 
detail in the report—and 17,000/. to Messrs. Eyre and Spottis- 
woode for printing. There was a surplus income of nearly 
40, 000/. 
THE International Telegraph Congress, which meets in Berlin 
on August Io, will be attended by delegates from all the Euro- 
pean states, and from Brazil, British India, Dutch India, Egypt, 
Algeria, Cochin China, Japan, Natal, New Zealand, Persia, 
Siam, Cape Colony, South Australia, and Victoria, as well as 
from allthe great cable companies. The chief subjects of de- 
liberation will consist of various technical questions, including | 
more especially a general reduction of tariffs. 
THE Council of University College, London, have instituted 
a Professorship of Electrical Engineering, and have appointed 
Dr. J. A. Fleming thereto. Dr. Fleming retains his connection 
as advising electrician with the Edison and Swan Electric Light 
Company. 
WE give the following extracts from Prof. Adams’s report 
to the Senate as to the proceedings in the Cambridge Observa- 
tory for the year ending May 26, 1885 :—The total number of 
observations made with the transit circle during this interval, for 
determinations of right ascension and north polar distance, is 
3253. These include 658 observations of clock stars made on 
152 nights ; 69 observations of Polaris at the upper transit in- 
volving 151 circle readings, and 73 observations at the lower 
transit involving 180 circle readings ; 11 observations of stars 
compared with Wells’s Comet ; and 2442 observations of zone 
stars made on 100 nights, the greater number at five or seven 
wires, and all, without exception, read off with four microscopes. 
For instrumental adjustment the Nadir Point was observed 203 
times, the level 203 times, and the collimation 207 times. 
Twenty pairs of observations for flexure of the transit telescope 
NATURE 
253 
made June 18 to 23, 1884, give for the coefficient —0"*651 ; this 
will need confirmation, as it differs considerably from the former 
determination, —0'"936. The observations of clock stars and 
those of Polaris are completely reduced, and the mean places for 
January 1 obtained up to the end of 1884. The true apparent 
places of all the other stars observed in 1884 is also obtained 
both in Right Ascension and North Polar Distance. As regards 
the observations of former years :—The mean R.A. and N.P.D. 
of the Zone Stars are obtained up to December 12, 1877, and 
the true apparent R.A. and N.P.D. to the end of 1882, and the 
reductions are far advanced in1883. The reductions from mean 
to‘apparent place at date are calculated to the end of 1882. The 
means of transits and microscope readings are deduced up to the 
present time. The intervals of R.A. wires used in the reduc- 
tions for 1884 were obtained from 63 observations of Polaris 
made January 18 to July 10, 1884: (1), by taking the mean of 
the intervals for Polaris and the mean of the declinations, and 
using the formula sin Z = sin Pos 8; (2) by deducing the 
equatorial intervals from each individual observation, and taking 
the mean of the results. The intervals by the two methods 
almost exactly agreed. The meteorological observations are 
communicated daily by telegraph to the Meteorological Office. 
The sunshine recorder has been regularly employed, and the 
records sent at intervals to the office. 
Cou. PRJEVALSKY telegraphed to St. Petersburg from Kiria, 
in Khotan, on June 20, that during April and May he and his 
party had explored the region between Lob Nor and Kiria, and 
that, leaving stores at the latter place, he was about to go into 
the neighbouring Tibetan mountains, whence he would return 
to Kiria at the end of August, and then come back to Russia. 
Pror. THALEN, whose classical researches on the spectra of 
the metallic elements have won for him such wide renown, has 
recently published a new memoir on, and a revised list of, the 
lines of iron, presented to the Royal Society of Upsala last 
September (published by Berling, Upsala). The new work has 
been done by means of a gramme dynamo, and much higher dis- 
persion than that employed in 1864. An upper carbon pole being 
rejected on account of the spectrum of ‘‘ acetylene,” about which 
we have heard so much in this country, and which we now know 
to be due to carbon vapour, three tubes of iron 15 mm. in external 
diameter were used to prevent fusion of the points. The size of 
the laboratory did not permit the use of a lens, but the poles 
were placed in a horizontal position. The spectroscope em- 
ployed had six and sometimes nine prisms of flint of 60°, the 
focal length of the object-glasses of collimator and telescope 
being 81cm. and magnifying power 62. The wave-lengths 
have also been re-determined by a process which he gives. 
Bulletin No. 8 (1885) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture 
(Division of Entomology) is occupied by a particularly interesting 
memoir by Prof. C. V. Riley on the occurrence of ‘‘ Periodical 
Cicada”’ (C. septendecim). This insect is one of the marvels of 
entomology, because ordinarily a period of seventeen years elapses 
between the deposition of the egg and the appearance of the 
perfect Cicada, and practically all but a few weeks of that period 
are passed in the preparatory underground larval condition. But 
even such a Methusaleh amongst insects is liable to have its 
development hastened (and its whole life thereby shortened) by 
temperature, for Prof. Riley discovered that (principally in the 
Southern States) there is also a thirteen-year brood of the same 
species, although each condition impinges on the domain of the 
other. That the larva sometimes penetrates to a great depth is 
shown by the fact that the perfect insects, true to time, once 
came through the floor of a cellar 5 feet deep, a building having 
been erected over the site of their underground quarters ; in 
another instance the larvee were found 1o feet below the surface. 
