Il6 



NA TURE 



\_Dec. 4, 1879 



and a column of water and gas is thrown up to a great height. 

 This occurs at present at regular intervals of thirteen minutes' 

 and the spouting continues for one and a half minutes. The 

 column, according to measurement, varied in height from 10S to 

 13S feet. The gas of the mixture can be readily ignited. After 

 nightfall the spectacle is grand. The antagonistic elements of 

 fire and water are so promiscuously blended that each seems to 

 be fighting for the mastery. At one moment the flame is almost 

 entirely extinguished, only to burst forth at the next instant with 

 increased energy and greater brilliancy. During sunshine the 

 spray forms an artificial rainbow, and in winter the columns be- 

 come incased in huge transparent ice-chimneys. 



We have received the numbers for October and November of 

 the Natural History Journal " conducted by the Societies in 

 Friends' Schools." This journal, continues to sustain its 

 reputation, and several papers in these numbers are highly 

 creditable. 



The Colonics and India states that a new store of guano has 

 lately been discovered in a series of caves about 100 miles east 

 of Cape Town. It is described as being a light -brown powdery 

 mass, in which a number of solid nodules occur. An analysis 

 shows that it contains 6S percent, of ammonia compounds, 16 

 per cent, of phosphates, and 2 per cent, of nitrogen. In the 

 same caves are considerable quantities of salts, forming a 

 crystalline mas=, and containing 33 per cent, of phosphoric acid, 

 II per cent, of sulphuric acid, 15 per cent, of nitric acid, 19 per 

 cent, of potash, and 7 per cent, of ammonia. 



Consul Calvert, reporting on the trade and commerce of 

 Alexandria for 1S78, thus refers to the new fodder plant, the 

 Teosinte [Euchlana luxurious), which has attracted so much 

 attention lately in tropical countries. During the last three or 

 four years experiments have been made at Cairo and attended 

 with complete success, and it is expected that it will eventually 

 prove to be a great acquisition to Egyptian agriculture. The 

 plant attains the height of from thirteen to sixteen feet, and so 

 rapid is its growth that in an experiment made in July at Cairo 

 the plant after having been mown down grew one foot in f nut- 

 days. On analysis the plant is found to contain much saccha- 

 rine matter, and to be much more nourishing for animals than 

 the native clover or verseem (Trifelium alcxandrinum). 



Under the title of "Notes on the Flora of Surrey," a list of 

 plants known to occur in the five adjoining counties, but not 

 really known in Surrey, has been published by Mr. A. Bennett, 

 of 107, High Street, Croydon, who has issued the list "as a 

 first step towards a proposed supplement to the flora of the 

 county, and with the wish that those botanists who may lie able 

 to help will kindly do so, either in confirming by specimens any 

 doubtful plants reported for the county, or by giving the localities 

 where they may be gathered, so that search may be made next 

 season." Mr. Bennett's list is a useful one, though the botanical 

 nomenclature has been very carelessly corrected, if indeed 

 corrected at all. 



Mr. Charles Gilbert, of Bedford Street, has published 

 "Tables of Metric Measures and their English Equivalents," by 

 G. M. Barns, for use by engineers, architects, contractors, and 

 others. 



We some time ago announced the death of the librarian of the 

 "Leopoldino-Karolinische" Academy for Natural Sciences, Dr. 

 Behn, of Dresden. The statutes of the Academy prescribe that 

 the library must be at the librarian's place of residence. Conse- 

 quently the whole library, consisting of some 40,000 volumes, 

 has been transferred to Halle, where Dr. H. Knoblauch is the 

 new librarian. 



In a lecture delivered at Bristol by Mr. Lant Carpenter, he 

 spoke of his recent visit to the United States, and remarked that 

 amongst the various improvements and things which were being 



tried there, one that struck him as much as anything was the 

 extraordinary development within the last two or three years of 

 the application of electricity to the purposes of practical life. 

 He gave several remarkable examples of the way in which the 

 system is applied in the United States for the protection of safes, 

 vaults, and other valuable property, alarms being rung in a 

 central office whenever a forcible entrance was attempted in any 

 one of, say, 500 vaults, the alarm indicating which one. In many 

 cities and towns in the States, he said, there were district tele- 

 graphs established. From a central office wires ran to every 

 private house in the district which wished to be connected, and 

 by this means you could communicate with the central office, 

 and by a prearranged set of signals on a bell, the inmates of the 

 house could call a cab, a policeman, a messenger, or a doctor, 

 by simply pulling a handle. The lecturer, in speaking of the 

 practical application of electricity to a system of fire alarms, ex- 

 plained the general system pursued in all large towns in the 

 United States, and spoke of the extraordinary rapidity with 

 which fire-engines are turned out ready for use on receipt of the 

 electric signal. Six or eight seconds was the usual time. Electric 

 signal boxes were fixed in the streets, and any person, on be- 

 coming aware of a fire, could turn a handle and communicate at 

 once with the central stations, where the officials would know 

 from which box the signal came. An automatic system was at 

 work in New York, where 500 shops, stores, and warehouses 

 were protected by an apparatus which sounded an alarm in a 

 central office whenever the temperature of any place rose above 

 a given point. Mr. Carpenter stated that in all large towns in 

 the United States of America there was a system of telephone 

 exchanges established. It was a system by which a large number 

 of persons had these telephones in their houses, the wires ot 

 which all converged in a central office, and by such an arrange- 

 ment any one of the subscribers to the exchange could talk to 

 any other person who was also a subscriber through the central 

 office. The wire from each house ended in the central offices, 

 and by simple arrangements any one wire could be readily joined 

 to any other, thus putting two people into communication. The 

 lecturer gave instances of this arrangement, explaining that so 

 perfectly were these telephones constructed that a person's 

 voice could be readily and easily recognised. The lecturer 

 proceeded to comment upon their recent extraordinary and 

 rapid development in every large town in the United States. 

 The subscribers to these exchanges were numbered by thousands, 

 and their uses and advantages were many. Not only were they 

 now connecting different parts of one town by means of these 

 exchanges, but steps were being actively taken to connect towns 

 together by similar means. In conclusion, the lecturer urged 

 that if science, practically applied, was to form so large a portion 

 of our daily life, was not that a very strong argument for so 

 arranging our educational work that every child should be in- 

 structed in the rudiments of science? Dr. W. B. Carpenter, 

 having been invited to address the meeting, said he felt convinced 

 that in the next generation the telephone would become almost 

 as generally used as the telegraph was now, though he did not 

 mean to say the latter would be superseded. 



An interesting Roman structure has recently been discovered 

 at Kegensburg (Ratisbon). It consists of a subterranean aqueduct 

 of some 10 metres in length, ij metres in height, and 60 centi- 

 metres in breadth, built of colossal blocks of stone. 



The additions to the Zoological Society's Gardens during the 

 past week include a Common Wood Owl (Syruium aluco), 

 European, presented by Mr. W. J. Smith ; a Turquoisine Tarra- 

 keet {Euphcma pulchella) from New South Wales, presented by 

 Mr. A. Battescombe ; a Macaqne Monkey (Macacus cynomolgus) 

 from India, a Barbary Falcon (Falco barborus) from North 

 Africa, deposited ; a Reeves's Muntjac (Cervulus reevesi), born in 

 the Gardens. 



