April 29, 1880] 



NATURE 



617 



Manufacture of Cake ; " and " Improved Apparatus for Analysing 

 Blast Furnace and other Gases." 



Prof. Humphry, F.R.S., has been appointed Rede Lecturer 

 for this year. 



A rumour has been spread in all the French papers and in 

 some of our English contemporaries, that a war balloon had 

 exploded at Meudon, and an officer with some privates severely 

 wounded. We are happy to be able to state on official authority 

 that this statement has no ground whatever, in spite of its 

 precision. 



M. Bischoffsheim, the well-known Paris banker, a native 

 of Amsterdam, is to be naturalised, without being subjected to 

 the usual formalities, as a compliment for his munificence 

 towards scientific and other objects. 



The elections for the Superior Council of Public Instruction 

 in France took place last week. The Institute sent five dele- 

 gates, one from each class, the College de France two professors, 

 the Museum of Natural II Utory one, the Polytechnic School 

 one, the Normal School two, the Conservatoire des Arts et 

 Metiers one. The other delegates were selected all over France 

 by the several delegations of private teachers voting by categories. 

 The counting of these votes took place at the Ministry of Public 

 Instruction. Amongst the delegates are M. Jules Simon, the 

 former Minister of Public Instruction, M, Bertrand, the Per- 

 petual Secretary of the Academy of Sciences, M. Fremy, the 

 former President of the Academy of Sciences, M. St. Claire 

 Deville, M. Berthelot, M. Herve-Mangon the Director of the 

 Conservatoire of Arts, and M. Laussedat, the former Director of 

 the Meudon Aeronautical School. 



The Daily Nra'S states that we have to thank the heliograph 

 again for an important message received from General Stewart, 

 and announcing the result of an attack on our troops, in which 

 the enemy seems to have suffered severely. The message is dated 

 Camp Ghuzni, April 22, and was received at the India Office 

 the following day. It is very probable that the news could not 

 have been brought so speedily by electric telegraph. The helio- 

 graph does not require the route to be kept open. The line of 

 communication cannot be cut, for the simple reason that the sig- 

 nalling takes place over the heads of the enemy, and the sta- 

 tions required are bnt few and far between. A 10-inch mirror, 

 and this is the diameter of the ordinary field heliograph, is 

 capable of reflecting the sun's rays in the form of a bright spot, 

 or flare, to a distance of fifty miles, the signal at this interval 

 being recognisable without the aid of a glass. That is to say 

 two trained sappers, each provided with a mirror, can readily 

 speak to one another, supposing the sun is shining, with an 

 interval of fifty miles between them, provided their stations are 

 sufficiently high and no rising ground intervenes to stop the rays. 

 The adjustment of the military heliograph is a very simple 

 matter. An army leaves its base where a heliograph station is 

 located, and after travelling some miles desires to communicate 

 with the stay-at-homes. A hill in the locality is chosen, and a 

 sapper ascends with his heliograph, which is simply a stand 

 bearing a mirror swung like the ordinary toilet looking-glass, 

 except that besides swinging horizontally it is also pivoted so as 

 to move vertically as well. Behind the mirror, in the very centre, 

 a little of the quicksilver has been removed, so that the sapper 

 can go behind his instrument and look through a tiny hole in it 

 towards the station he desires 'to signal. Having sighted the 

 station by adjusting the mirror, he next proceeds to set up in 

 front of the heliograph a rod, and upon this rod is a movable 

 stud. This stud is manipulated like the foresight of a rifle, and 

 the sapper again, standing behind his instrument, directs the 

 adjustment of this stud until the hole in the mirror, the stud, and 

 the distant station are in a line. The heliograph is then ready 



to work, and in order to flash signals so that they may be seen at 

 a distance, the sapper has only to take care that his mirror reflects 

 the sunshine on the stud just in front of him. 



An open competition for one situation of Junior Second 

 Assistant in the Herbarium, Royal Gardens, Kew, will be held 

 in London, under the following regulations, on Tuesday, May 25, 

 1880, and following days. No person will be admitted to the 

 examination from whom the Secretary, Civil Service Commis- 

 sion, has not received, on or before May 15, an application on 

 the prescribed 'form. The examination will be in the following 

 subjects, viz : — (1) Handwriting, (2) Orthography, (3) Arithmetic 

 (elementary), (4) Elements of Systematic and Structural Botany, 

 (5) the naming of plants by the British Flora. Candidates will be 

 required to show what preliminary training or technical education 

 they have undergone to qualify themselves for a situation of 

 this nature, and they must satisfy the Civil Service Commissioners 

 that they possess the special qualifications necessary for the office. 

 The salary of the Junior Second Assistant in the Herbarium is 

 IOO/. per annum, rising by annual increments of 10/. to 150/. 

 per annum. 



Shocks of earthquake were felt at Nice at 2 p.m. on Sunday. 



The Municipal Council of Paris have visited the peninsula of 

 Gennevilliers, to ascertain the results of irrigation with the dis- 

 charge from the sewers. These have been found splendid, and 

 the agricultural population of the district is very well satisfied 

 with them. Other lands are to be found for utilising the remain- 

 ing part of the sewage of Paris. The city engineers proposed to 

 irrigate land in the vicinity of the forest of St. Germain, but the in- 

 habitants have sent petitions against the project, and deputations 

 have met the Municipal Council. At all events, it is supposed 

 the opposition] will be overruled by the city authorities, unless 

 Parliament vetoes the further extension of sewage irrigation. 



News has just reached Shanghai respecting the progress of the 

 scheme for establishing a woollen manufactory at Lanchow-fu, 

 in the extreme north-west of China Proper, to which we alluded 

 about a year ago. Mr. Hagge, one of the foreigners employed 

 at it by the Chinese Government, has just returned to Hankow 

 and Shanghai ; he states that no difficulty is experienced by the 

 natives in working the machinery, and that the sheep's wool sup- 

 plied is of the finest quality, a great deal of camels' wool also being 

 used. It is perhaps worthy of note that the Chinese in that 

 region live almost entirely on meat and wheat flour. Mr. 

 Hagge's journey from Lanchow-fu to Hankow occupied fifty- 

 two days. 



FROM the Japan Htraldwe gather some particulars respecting 

 the earthquake at Yokohama on February 22, the most serious 

 one which has occurred in Japan since 1855. The Government 

 some years ago, established the necessary apparatus at Tokio for 

 registering the duration, force, &c, of earthquakes, by which it 

 appeared that the first shock took place at oh. 49m. 22s. a.m., 

 and lasted fourteen seconds ; the second was at oh. 50m 

 19s., and lasted only six seconds, but it was far more severe 

 than the first, and did much damage. There was a third and 

 less violent shock thirty seconds later, but no record is given 

 of its duration. The index of the stenograph showed that the 

 second shock was from N.N.W. to S.S.E., and the force of the 

 shock was registered at 79 degrees. 



The Rtfort of the Geological Association for 1879 complains, 

 like the recent reporls of other societies, of the few additions to 

 its membership during the past year, no doubt mainly owing to 

 the general depression. The Society now numbers 415 members. 



From Tokio, Japan, we have received a little pamphlet on 

 "Japanese, Metric, and English Weights and Measures," by 

 Mr. Edward Kinch, compiled for the use of the students of the 



