Feb. 5, 1880] 



NATURE 



329 



construction would confer greater sensitiveness, and it is 

 probable that this method of observation can be advan- 

 tageously applied in the construction of instruments for 

 measuring moderate currents. It is, however, evident 

 that this form of the electro-dynamometer is particularly 

 suitable for large currents. We have 



S : S' :: \'w : <Jw'. 

 That is, as the current increases, the corresponding 

 weights increase more rapidly and greater accuracy and 

 minuteness are attained. 



Thus, as the instrument I have experimented with has 

 been arranged, a current of 



20 webers requires a weight of 530 mg. 



21 „ „ „ 580 „ diff. 50 mg. 



49 „ ». » 3,i65 ,. 



50 „ „ „ 3.295 n dlff - 130 mg. 



80 „ „ „ 8,230 „ 



81 „ „ „ 8,440 „ diff. 210 mg. 

 while a difference of 10 mg. is sharply indicated. 



My best thanks are due to Prof. John Trowbridge, of 

 Harvard, for advice and the use of his apparatus. 



NOTES 

 The Committee appointed by the French Minister of Public 

 Instruction has awarded the Prix dc Volta — 50,000 francs — to 

 Graham Bell 



A translation of "The Skies and Weather Forecasts" of 

 Aratus, by Mr. E. Poste, M.A., of Oriel College, Oxford, will 

 shortly be published by Messrs. Macmillan and Co. The-e 

 poems, apart from a certain charm in the treatment of the sub- 

 ject, are not without interest as belonging to the literature of 

 infant astronomy and infant meteorology. The meteorology of 

 Aratus is of course merely a specimen of the popular weather 

 wisdom of his day. But the faith it shows in the possibility of 

 a science, and the sense of the importance of such a science, 

 gives him a certain claim to the attention of modern scientific 

 men. The notes to Mr. Poste's translation will be addressed 

 merely to novices in astronomical knowledge. 



The New York Times announces the death at Waukegan, 111., 

 on January 6, of Mr. James W. Milner, at the age of thirty-nine. 

 When barely arrived at man's estate he travelled through Min- 

 nesota and the adjoining States, engaged in making collections. 

 At Waukegan Mr. Milner made some remarkable discoveries in 

 the peat-beds, and the remains of an elk which he exhumed 

 were exhibited for quite a number of years in the Chicago 

 Academy of Sciences, until they were destroyed by fire. Such 

 papers as Mr. Milner had written on these remains and on other 

 topics of a a similar character, from their singular terseness and 

 excellence, attracted the attention of the Smithsonian Institution. 

 A correspondence, ensuing between the Smithsonian and Mr. 

 Milner eventually led to his engagement by the present secretary, 

 Prof. Spencer F. Baird, and, in i87i,Mr. Milner was appointed 

 Deputy United States Fish Commissioner, with the particular 

 duty of studying the habits, food, method of breeding, and 

 atching of the white-fish. From these labours in what some 

 six or seven years ago was quite unknown ground, resulted a 

 work of the most thorough and exhaustive character, which may 

 be cited as a model of patient and elaborate research. From the 

 period of his entrance into the United States Fish Commission 

 his labours were incessant. In the study and development of 

 practical fish-culture, as understood in its widest sense, Prof. 

 Milner may be said to have done more for it than any one else in 

 the United States. His ingenuity and adaptiveness, combined 

 with his thorough grounding in natural history, permitted him to 

 solve many things in fish culture which before his time had been 

 as problems. The wonderful successes he achieved soon made 

 him a leading authority on these subjects, both at home and 

 abroad. 



The death is announced, at the age of sixty-three years, of 

 Mr. David Thomson, Professor of Natural Philosophy in the 

 University of Aberdeen. 



M. Walferpin, the inventor of the minimum thermometer, 

 died at Paris at the end of January at the age of eighty-five, after 

 a protracted illness of many years' duration. He was one of the 

 members of the Constituent Assembly of 1848. Since that time 

 he devoted all his leisure to scientific and artistic pursuits. 

 He collected almost every picture drawn by Fragonard, one of 

 the most celebrated French artists of the end of the eighteenth 

 century. He sold his gallery to an English nobleman about 

 twenty years ago, on condition that he should be appointed 

 during his lifetime keeper of the gallery, with a salary of 500/. 

 a year, and that the gallery should be exhibited at his own 

 rooms. This precious collection will shortly come to England. 



We regret to state that General Morin, the well-known director 

 of the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, is lying in a very pre- 

 carious state in consequence of a severe cold. Great anxiety 

 is felt for him at the Institute, of which he is one of the most 

 respected and popular members. The General is aged eighty- 

 five years. 



On Monday Prof. W. K. Parker, F.R.S., 'commences a series 

 of nine lectures at the Royal College of Surgeons, on the Struc- 

 ture and Functions of the Vertebrate Skeleton, to be continued 

 on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, to the 27th inst. Prof. 

 Flower, in continuation of previous courses, begins his series of 

 nine lectures on the Comparative Anatomy of Man, on March I, 

 to be continued as above to March 19. 



We are glad to leam that the College of Surgeons have seen 

 their way to the purchase of the Barnard Davis Anthropological 

 Collection, and that Prof. Flower is superintending the removal 

 of the collection to the museum of the College. 



The death is announced of Sir Dominic Corrigan, the well- 

 known Dublin physician, at the age of eighty years. 



On Tuesday afternoon the problem set by the accidental 

 explosion of the 38-ton gun on board the Thunderer was solved 

 by the explosion of the sister gun with a double loading. The 

 gun was carefully loaded, and then a diagram v. as painted out- 

 side the gun showing the positions of the two charges and their 

 projectiles. First was rammed home the Palliser cartridge of 

 no lbs. of pebble powder, next the Palliser shell of no lbs., 

 and the papier-mache wad. The second charge followed— 

 namely, 85 ibs. of powder, a common shell, and another wad, 

 and the double loading was complete. As marked on the outside 

 of the gun, the S5 lbs. of powder lay just in the position where 

 the gun swells in thickness to strengthen the powder chamber. 

 After the firing the little dark cell was found strewn with 

 fragments of the gun, the breech end only of which remained on 

 the carriage, resembling with marvellous fidelity its unfortunate 

 companion now exhibited in the Royal Gun Factories. 



We notice in the January number of the Archives des Sciences 

 Naturclles an interesting letter by Col. Ward, on the meteorology 

 of the high regions of Switzerland during December la-t. Whilst 

 the valleys were covered with a thick fog, and the sun was visible 

 only for very short intervals, bright sunshine glowed about 

 Rossinicres (a small town close by Chateau d'Oex, altitude abour 

 3,240 feet) ; here the sun was seen daily for twenty-seven days, 

 and twenty-one days were absolutely cloudless. On December 

 25 Col. Ward climbed Mont Cray, a mountain 6,793 f eet '''si' 1 

 situated between Rossinieres ami Chateaux d'Oex. The view 

 from the top was never so clear and wide ; it readied as far as 

 seventy miles in each direction ; the mountains of Lake Con- 

 stance, the Bernese Oherland, Monte Rosa, Mont Blanc, the 

 Vos^es, and even the Black Forest, were quite disti-iguishable, 

 as well as the plateau north of Mont Cray, with the tuu ers of 

 Friburg and Romont. On the contrary, a thick fog covered 



