548 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIV. No. 1405. 



says the eommotion in the water was like a 

 line of breakers coming from due south toward 

 the island, but with field glasses it was easy to 

 determine the real cause of the disturbance. 

 Mr. Kunder estimated the number of seals in 

 the herd at 8,000 to 10,000. 



On March 10, 1917, Mr. Kunder witnessed a 

 similar phenomenon. This herd appeared at 

 about five o'clock in the evening, in the same 

 locality, and its movements, appearance, and 

 course were about the same as with the 1920 

 herd. The 1917 herd was, however, consider- 

 ably larger than that of 1920, the number of 

 seals in it being estimated by Mr. Kunder at 

 15,000. Mr. Kunder says he has never seen 

 any single fur seals or small groups in the 

 vicinity of the island. 



So far as I am aware this is the first record 

 of the occurrence of the fur seals in large com- 

 pact herds anywhere in the open sea ; they have 

 hitherto been observed or reported only in more 

 or less scattered numbers. 



Barton Warren E^^rmann 



California Academy of Sciences 



the physical museum of the university 



OF WISCONSIN 



So much interest has been shown in this 

 little museum that a brief description of it 

 in the columns of Science seems worth while. 

 It is the outgrowth of an attempt to build up 

 on a small scale, for the benefit of our stu- 

 dents, a collection of simple demonstration 

 experiments such as is exhibited in, say, the 

 Urania of Berlin. When our new laboratory 

 was built some four years ago we arranged 

 for a room, in size about 18 X 40 feet, paral- 

 lel to the main corridor and separated from 

 it by a glazed partition. In this we have 

 gradually accumulated some forty " exhibits,'' 

 each with an explanatory card setting forth 

 the theory as simply as is consistent with 

 scientific accuracy. "While many of the ex- 

 hibits are of the fi:sed variety, e.g., the parts 

 of an ammeter, various stages of lamp bulb 

 construction, transparencies and the like, the 

 most interesting demonstrations, needless to 

 say, are those which " work." 



First and foremost, of course, is the Fou- 



cault pendulum, which in this case is 1440 

 cm. long and occupies a special well. It is 

 started every morning at 8 o'clock and swings 

 over a card graduated in hours (for this 

 latitude). It is accompanied by a small 

 rotating table of the usual demonstration 

 variety with a miniature Foucault pendulum. 

 A large electrically driven gyroscope mounted 

 in a box which may be wrestled with, gives 

 a striking demonstration of gyroscopic re- 

 actions. A loop-the-loop model, ball on stream 

 of water, probability board (shot), Kater 

 pendulum and simple air-pressure demonstra- 

 tion are among the other mechanics exhibits. 

 There is also a conservation-of-angular-mo- 

 mentum rotating platform (contrived with 

 the aid of a Ford front-wheel bearing) on 

 which one may stand with a dumbbell in each 

 hand and perform this somewhat startling 

 experiment. 



The Melde experiment, various Foucault 

 current phenomena and certain magnetic ef- 

 fects are all susceptible of easy demonstra- 

 tion, as are also simple thermo-electric effects. 

 One of the most interesting and simple opti- 

 cal arrangements is a pair of plane mirrors 

 set at a right angle. In these one may — pos- 

 sibly for the first time — " see himself as 

 others see him," while reflected printed mat- 

 ter is reado.ble. The explanation is almost 

 obvious. Our two most recent and pretenti- 

 ous exhibits — an oscillating audion circuit 

 and a vacuum discharge demonstration — have 

 attracted considerable attention. 



The interest shown in the museum has been 

 very gratifying. Just now, although this is 

 its third year, the attendance is in the neigh- 

 borhood of two hundred visitors a day. It 

 is very unusual to find less than half a dozen 

 trying the experiments and sometimes the 

 room is literally crowded full. The wear on 

 certain pieces of apparatus shows grapliically 

 the thousands of times they have been 

 handled. Wliile drawn mostly from the stu- 

 dent body the visitors frequently include the 

 casual outsider who comes to take a " one- 

 hour course in physics." 



It is very difficult to estimate just what 

 good " results " may be claimed for such a 



