■620 



residence in the Academy of Sciences, being vociferously cheered 

 on the way by the dense crowds assembled to witness his return. 

 Prof. Nordenskjbld has been created a Baron, and Lieut. 

 Palander and Mr. Oscar Dickson (who so largely contributed to 

 the expense of the expedition) have received patents of nobility. 

 The latter has, in addition, received the Grand Cross of the 

 Order of the North Star. M. Sibiriakoff, another liberal 

 supporter of the expedition, has been appointed Commander of 

 the same Order. 



The long-expected map of Palestine, drawn in twenty-six 

 sheets, on a scale of I inch to the mile, after the surveys of 

 Lieutenants Conder and Kitchener, R.E., is now reported a- 

 complete and ready for publication. It has been photozinco- 

 graphed, under the superintendence of Col. Cooke, R.E., the 

 Director-General of the Ordnance Survey, for the committee of 

 the Palestine Exploration Fund. The first issue will be to the 

 25° holders of the special edition of the memoirs and map, as a 

 first instalment of that work. It will afterwards be forwarded 

 to the general subscribers of this fund, and will then be issued 

 to the public. The survey of the country was accomplished 

 between January, 1872, and September, 1877, since which tiuie 

 the maps have been laid down, the memoirs written, the obser- 

 vations calculated, the hills drawn, and the sheets lithographed. 

 The whole of the work, except the colouring, has been executed 

 by officers and men of the Royal Engineers. The general 

 editors of the maps and memoirs are Major Anderson, C.M.G., 

 R.E., and Prof. E. H. Palmer, of Cambridge. 



Mr. Whymper has succeeded in carrying out part of his South 

 American programme by ascending to the summit of Mount Chim- 

 borazo. Dr. Nachtigal, in reference to this, states at a recent meet- 

 ing of the Berlin Geographical Society, that a Frenchman, Jules 

 Remy, professed to have accomplished the feat in 1856, but it is 

 very doubtful if he actually did. He gave the height as 7,328 

 metres, whereas it is 1,000 m. less. Humboldt observed the 

 height trigonometrically to be 6,530 m., and Reiss, as the result 

 of three measurements, found the highest of the two peaks to be 

 6,310 m., and the other 6,269 m - Humboldt in 1802 attempted 

 the ascent, but only reached a height of 5,878 m., while 

 Boussingault with Hall, in 1831, reached a height of 6,004 m. ; 

 these attempted it from the south side, while Dr. Stiibel, from 

 the north side, reached a height of 5,810 m. After an inspection 

 of ten days Mr. Whymper made three attempts, and on the 

 third succeeded in mounting both peaks. The night before the 

 final ascent he spent at a height of 5,227 m. 



The Voir has received a letter from the Russian Consul at 

 Sydmy, M. S. Paul, dated February 4 (16), in which he states 

 that he had received a letter from Dr. Miclucho-Maclay, of date 

 November 28 (December 10). The explorer was then at Sim- 

 bonn, one of the Solomon Islands, and proposed to visit the 

 Louisiade and Solomon Archipelagos, which would occupy 

 him about six months, when he would return to Sydney. 



The Russian Geographical Society will receive from the 

 Government a subsidy of 14,000 roubles yearly, to found and 

 maintain meteorological stations at the mouth of the Lena and 

 on the islands of New Siberia. 



U Exploration states that early in March Mount Argacns 

 (Ardjieh Dagh), in the Anti-Taurus chain, Asia Minor, 12 

 kilometres from the town of Kaisarieh, broke out in eruption. 

 Its height is estimated at 3,991 metres above the sea. M. A. 

 Synnet, of the Imperial Lycee of Galata-Serai, writing to the 

 Slamboul on the eruption, states that Mount Argacus had its 

 origin in volcanic eruptions which have taken place from the 

 lower tertiary to the fourth century a.d. The surface occupied 

 by the lava is greater than that of the Island of Corsica. The 

 mountain is composed exclusively of dolerite, trachyte, and 

 basalt. Claudius and Strabo speak of the mountain as then 

 active. 



We hear from Washington that the Government printer has 

 been authorised by Congress to put to press a second edition of 

 the " Narrative of the North Polar Expedition of the U.S. Ship 

 Polaris" (noticed in Nature, vol. xvi. p. 225), under the com- 

 mand of Capt. C. F. Hall, as soon as orders for a thousand 

 copies have been received. 



The new Bulletin of the Belgian Geographical Society contains 

 M. Cambier's report to the International African Association on 

 his journey from Tabora to Karema on Lake Tanganyika, 

 accompanied by a sketch map of his route. There is also a 

 report of the recent annual meeting of the Association. 



NA TURE [April 29, 1 880 



The chief paper in the last part of the Transactions of the 

 Asiatic Society of Japan is one by Mr. R. W. Atkinson descrip- 

 tive of a journey through the provinces of Shinshiu, Hida, and 

 Etchiu, during which he visited the mountains known as Vatsu- 

 ga-take, Haku-san, and Tate-Yama. There is also a proposal 

 by Mr. W. G. Aston for the arrangement of the Corean 

 alphabet. 



PHYSICAL NOTES 



PROF. MARANCONI has lately experimented (8iv, Sci. Ind., 

 March 15) on the diathermanous power of films of soapy water. 

 A series of equidistant films (eight to ten) were produced in a 

 wide vertical glass tube, and horizontal heat-rays from a smoked 

 plate having a temperature of about 400" were directed down the 

 tube by means of a metallic mirror, a second mirror below 

 directing them to a thermopile communicating with a Weber 

 magnetometer. The conclusions arrived at from the tabulated 

 numbers are these : I. The first of the films, notwithstanding its 

 great tenuity, absorbs more than half the incident heat, reducing 

 it (as expressed in the magnetometer deflections) from 38 to 18. 

 2. The successive films produce decrements, as theory indicates ; 

 the differences of their logarithms are sensibly constant (on an 

 average 7*5), and the logarithms themselves, after the second 

 film, decrease proportionally to the nu iiber of the films. 3. The 

 diminution of intensity observed must depend very little on 

 reflection, but be due almost wholly to absorption. Indeed the 

 first two films act like a sieve, intercepting, probably, the less 

 refrangible rays in very large propoition, such as would hardly 

 have been expected. 4. A given film becomes more diather- 

 manous the thinner it becomes. 5. When various salts are mixed 

 with the soap solution the diathermanous power is not sensibly 

 affected. All these conclusions are in full agreement with the 

 results of Melloni and with the theory of the phenomenon. 



In a recent paper to the Vienna Academy on- the photo- 

 chemistry of silver bromide, Dr. Eder gives the result of a large 

 number of experiments relating to latent actions of light con- 

 nected with the chemical development. It is first proved that 

 silver bromide behaves differently, as it is brought to an emulsion 

 in an indifferent material (e.g., collodion) or an easily oxidable 

 organic substance [e.g., gelatine); also the influence of this circum- 

 stance and of the presence of variable quantities of silver nitrate 

 or of soluble bromide on the sensitiveness to light is carefully 

 studied, special regard being had to the passage of silver bro- 

 mide into its different modifications and the consequent different 

 photo-chemical behaviour. Oxidising acids are especially pre- 

 judicial to the light-sensitiveness, other acids less so, and still 

 less alkaline chlorides and bromides. Alkalies increase the 

 light-sensitiveness considerably. For a highly sensitive silver- 

 bromide preparation the addition of ammonia to the finely- 

 divided granular bromide of silver modification, in the form 

 of a gelatine emulsion, is recommended. Temperature and 

 moisture have no marked influence on the sensitiveness to light, 

 but the quality of the developer has. The view is expressed that 

 in chemical development of the latent image, electro-chemical 

 processes must have a part. Mechanical pressure (which espe- 

 cially modifies the behaviour of silver iodide to physical deve- 

 lopers), is without action on the behaviour of silver bromide to 

 chemical developers. Dr. Eder cites some other decompositions 

 of silver bromide, which resemble the "latent action " of light, 

 and may be induced by prolonged treatment with weak means of 

 reduction. Lastly, it is pointed out that silver bromide with 

 chemical development is greatly superior to silver iodide, which 

 with physical development exceeds all other silver haloid salts in 

 sensitiveness, and herein it is nearly equalled by silver chloride. 



From recent experiments by a new method on heat -conduction 

 in liquids (a subject on which very conflicting results have been 

 recorded), Herr F, H. Weber concludes that the heat-conducting 

 power stands (without exception) in closest connection w ith the 

 specific heat of unit volume. Comparing the conduction of heat 

 in a metallic liquid (mercury) with that in transparent non- 

 metallic "liquids, he considers it depends on essentially different 

 "moments" in the two cases. In the non-metallic liquids it 

 seems to consist in a simple transference of the kinetic energy of 

 the moved ponderable molecules from layer to layer, whereas in 

 metallic liquids it would appear that the internal radiation from 

 layer to layer is the essential element, the other being here of 

 only secondary importance. This, in Herr Weber's opinion, 

 throws quite a new light on the analogy between the heat 



