574 



NATURE 



{April 15, 1 88c 



two for every year. From this, and from shedding the bark as 

 described, and a long series of observations, he concludes that 

 the sap rises tw ice in the year. lie has for many years watched 

 the growth of the trees, and he believes that for the first twenty 

 years the average growth is about one inch in diameter for each 

 year. Out of thousands of trees felled or cut in his mill, he has 

 not found one over sever.ty-five years old, and a very large 

 proportion of the serviceable timber is composed of trees about 

 fifty years of age. Quite recently he has had a very interesting 

 opportunity of verifying these observations. At Ladies' Bay 

 (between Port Esperance and Southport), a paddock on the farm 

 of Mr. D. Rafton was cleared for the purposes of cultivation. It 

 was exactly sixteen years in 1S77-78, since a crop was taken oft it, 

 and was quite overgrown \\ ith saplings, which were all cut down. 

 Mr. Hill, at Mr. Wood's request, wrote to Mr. Rafton, re- 

 questing him to examine the stumps. In his reply he gives the 

 number of rings in the longest saplings as thirty-three; size 

 • across the heart-wood where the rings cease one inch. The 

 rings he observed were not an equal distance from each other, 

 some of them being three times the size of the others. From 

 these facts Mr. Woods thinks we may safely adopt Mr. Hill's 

 conclusion that there are two rings of growth for each year, and 

 that the tallest trees of the forest, the giant timber of Tasmania, 

 range from fifty to seventy-five years old. 



We take the following item of Yankee ingenuity from 

 Industry, commending it to the attention of the Guilds' 

 Technical Institute : — The Bridgeport A r ezvs very cleverly de- 

 scribes an invention, credited to a Bridgeport Yankee, to prevent 

 marketmen from palming off old eggs for fresh ones. The 

 inventor proposes to arrange a rubber stamp in the nest of every 

 hen, with a movable date. This stamp is arranged with a pad 

 that is saturated in indelible ink. When the hen lays an egg, as 

 is well known, she kicks slightly with her hind leg. An electric 

 disk is arranged so that her foot touches it, and the stamp turns 

 over on the ink pad, and then revolves, stamping the date on the 

 egg. The hen then goes off about her business, the farmer's 

 hired girl removes the egg and replaces the stamp, which is then 

 ready for another. On each evening, after the hens have retired 

 to their downy roost with the roosters, the date of the stamp is 

 altered for the next day, and the work goes on. In this way 

 there can be no cheating. You may go to the grocery and ask 

 for fresh eggs, and the grocery man tells you he has some eggs 

 of the vintage of January 29, 1SS0, for instance. You look at 

 them, and there are the figures, which cannot lie. 



The Illustrated Scientific A r cws of New York describes and 

 pictures a remarkable meteorite in the collection of Prof. W. F. 

 Hidden, of the New York Academy of Sciences. It was found, 

 July 19, 1879, on a plantation at Lick Creek, Davison Co., 

 N. Carolina. When found it was covered with a thick scaly 

 crust of oxide. It weighs 1*24 kilos., or 43! ounces avoirdu- 

 pois. It is one of the rare class that does not show the Wid- 

 manstatten figures or lines indicating the characteristic crystalline 

 structure of meteoric irons. A thorough analysis in duplicate of 

 the specimen is now being made. Mr. Hidden has in his cabinet 

 three other undescribed meteorites from the Southern States, 

 which will be noticed in due time. One of these weighs I4'5 

 kilos, or 324 ounces avoirdupois. 



Prof. Silvestria, of the Catania Observatory, the Times 

 Paris correspondent states, reports the fall on the night of March 

 29 of a shower of meteoric dust, mingled with rain. Besides the 

 usual characteristics of colour, chemical composition, and the 

 mixture of mineral and organic particles and minute infusoria, 

 there was a considerable proportion of iron, either in a purely 

 metallic state or in metallic particles, coated with oxide. The 

 size varied from a tenth to a hundredth part of a millimetre, and 

 the form was either irregular or spherical, as if it had undergone 



fusion. This phenomenon, according to the correspondent, was 

 first observed in the Indian Ocean, south of Java, in 1859, and 

 has been corroborated by Prof. Nordenskjold's Arctic observa- 

 tions. 



Mr. Hugh O'Donoghue McCann, of Bedford School, has 

 been elected to an Open Scholarship for Natural Science at 

 Queen's College, Oxford. The scholarship is tenable for five 

 years, and is of the annual value of 90/. There were only two 

 candidates. 



On Tuesday next, A] ril 20, Mr. Robt. H. Scott will give the 

 first of a course of four lectures at the Royal Institution on Wind 

 and Weather. 



The 60th Erganzungsheft of Petermann 's Mitthahtngen C3H- 



sists of an elaborate monograph on the Sea-Fisheries of the 

 World, by Moritz Lindemann. 



The Medical men of New South Wales have decided to form 

 there a branch of the British Medical Association. 



We have received a very favourable report of the progress and 

 present condition of the City Industrial Museum of Glasgow. 



A terrible cyclone occurred, the Sydney Morning Herald 

 states, in New Caledonia and the Society Islands on January 24, 

 resulting, so far as is known, in the loss of fourteen vessels in the 

 vicinity of Noumea and the death of sixteen persons. In Nou- 

 mea and its suburbs the amount of damage done was incalculable. 

 It was certified by old colonists that there was never so severe a 

 hurricane in those regions, or one which caused so much loss. 

 The plantations up the country were destroyed and trees were 

 uprooted or bereft of their branches. In many parts of the 

 town, especially near the wharf, the eye was arrested in all 

 directions by heaps of ruin. During the storm the harbour was 

 completely invisible, owing to the thick fog caused by the rain 

 and the spray of the waves being dashed about by the force of 

 the wind. All the small boats were wrenched from their anchors 

 and swept on to the piers. At sea the disasters were numerous ; 

 no fewer than fourteen vessels either sank or were thrown on 

 some distantcoast. 



With the aid of an improved lantern for the oxyhydrogen 

 light, invented by Mr. Holman, of the Franklin Institute, Mr. 

 Outerbridge, Jun , lecturing lately to the Institute on "Coins 

 and Coinage," made some interesting experiments, projecting 

 enlarged images of ancient and modern coins on the screen with 

 great sharpness and brilliancy, and showing the cupellation ol 

 gold and silver. In this latter a little "cupel "or crucible of 

 calcined bone-ash was held in the focus of the condensing lens ' 

 by means of a ring of thick copper wire, and its image appeared 

 on the screen much enlarged. The cupel was then heated white- 

 hot with an oxyhydrogen blowpipe. A weighed sample of 

 gold alloy containing base metal was inclosed in an envelope of 

 sheet lead pressed into the form of a bullet ; this was dropped 

 into the cupel, and was immediately melted. As the lead 

 became oxidised it was gradually absorbed in the cupel, forming 

 a dark ring at the bottom. A little sheet of light was noticed 

 moving over the surface of the molten metal as the precious 

 metal became exposed ; then, at the moment when the lead was 

 completely absorbed, carrying with it all the base metal of the 

 alloy, the purified precious metal became visible as a brilliant 

 globule, reflecting the light like a mirror. 



The Leadville Herald reports, on the authority of "a gentle- 

 man who has, during the past two years, traversed the mountains 

 in the vicinity of Leadville, and penetrated almost every one of 

 their recesses," the fact of the existence of a veritable glacier, 

 presenting all the characteristics of the Swiss glaciers, both in 

 magnitude and motion, within twenty-five miles of that city. When. 



