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SCIENCK 



[N. S. Vol. IX. No. 227. 



lections made by the expeditions of the yacht 

 Princess Alice. It will contain not only exhibi- 

 tion rooms, but also laboratories for the use of 

 men of science who wish to work upon the col- 

 lections. The Museum will, in addition, repre- 

 sent the relations of meteorology to navigation. 



The conferences established three years since 

 by Professor Milne- Edwards for the instruction 

 of explorers and travelers have been resumed 

 in the Paris Museum of Natural History. A 

 number of the professors of the Museum take 

 part, explaining the methods of collecting and 

 preserving plants, animals, etc., of making maps 

 and photographs, hygienic precautions, etc. 



The Critic of May publishes, over the name of 

 Professor O. C. Marsh, the portrait of Professor 

 F. A. March, of Lafayette College, the eminent 

 philologist. The account of the late Professor 

 Marsh accompanying the portrait opens as fol- 

 lows : " This excellent portrait of the distin- 

 guished paleontologist, whose unpaid service at 

 Yale College did so much to strengthen the 

 position of that University in the educational 

 world, was made in this city only about a year 

 ago. Professor Marsh himself was greatly 

 pleased with it." 



At the last monthly general meeting of the 

 Zoological Society, London, Lieutenant-Colonel 

 L. H. Irby in the chair, it was stated that there 

 were 83 additions made to the Society's menag- 

 erie during March, amongst which special no- 

 tice was directed to a kiang, or wild ass of 

 Tibet (Equus hemionus). Only two examples of 

 this scarce animal had been previously exhibited 

 in the Society's gardens — namely, in 1859 and 

 1885. There had also been received an example 

 of Pel's owl (Scotopelia peli), a rare species of 

 owl from the Niger territory, presented by 

 Lieutenant E. V. Turner, R.E., and a Cape 

 jumping hare {Pedetes coffer), presented by Mr. 

 William Champion, F.Z.S. 



In an important paper read by Mr. Charles 

 Heycock before the Royal Institution, recently, 

 a study of the method of union of the constitu- 

 ents of alloys is followed which indicates that 

 the same laws control as in solutions. Gold, 

 for example, dissolves in melted silver, and the 

 temperature of solidification is reduced in pro- 

 portion to the weight of gold introduced, until 



a limit is approximated with twenty per cent, 

 gold. This ' law ' is verified in the case of a 

 number of alloys mentioned, but not with a few 

 others (as Sb in Bi). The rate of lowering of 

 temperature in the cases illustrating solution 

 is inversely proportional to the molecular 

 weights of the dissolved metal. 



SiGNOR Marconi has successfully communi- 

 cated from the South Foreland, Kent, to the 

 French armed despatch vessel Ibis while sailing 

 in the English Channel. 



The scientific library of the late Dr. Stain- 

 ton, F.E.S., the entomologist, has been sold at 

 auction at London. The following works were 

 included : ' Annals de laSoci6t6 Entomologique 

 de France,' from the beginning in 1832 to 1892 

 —£35 ; J. Curtis, ' British Entomology,' 1824-39 

 — £11 5s.; Transactions of the Entomological 

 Society of London, from the beginning in 1836 

 to 1892, 38 volumes— £32 ; P. Milliere, ' Incon- 

 ographie et Description de Chenilles et Lepi- 

 dopteres Inedits,' 1859-74— £10 5s; G. A. W. 

 Herrick-Schaflfer, ' Systematische Bearbeitung 

 der Schmetterlinge von Europa,' 1843-56 — £27 

 10s.; and J. Hiibner, ' Sammlung Europaischer 

 Schmetterlinge,' Augsburg, 1805, etc., £24. 



In his presidential address before the Chem- 

 ical Society, London, Professor Dewar, as re- 

 ported in the London Times, discussed the 

 means that might be used for measuring the 

 range of temperature between the critical point 

 of hydrogen and the zero of absolute tempera- 

 ture. The electrical resistance thermometer 

 was of great delicacy, but it depended on a 

 knowledge of the law connecting resistance 

 and temperature and involved the necessity of 

 extrapolation. At such temperatures, however, 

 conditions occurred which could not be antici- 

 pated, and hence no confidence could be put in 

 the results given by the curve. Platinum, for 

 instance, which was frequently used for the 

 construction of such thermometers, approached 

 its zero of resistance when immersed in liquid 

 hydrogen, and theoretically only required to 

 be cooled five or six degrees further to become 

 a perfect conductor of electricity. Such a re- 

 duction should be effected by making the hy- 

 drogen boil under exhaustion, but, in fact, the 



