840 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. II., No. 47. 



articles of food and drink will tinjs be exemplified; 

 and, so far as the perishable nature of the articles 

 ■n-ill admit, fiili illustrations will be given of the vari- 

 ous descriptions of foods tlii'inselves. In'the second 

 group, dress, chiefly in its relation to health, will be 

 displayed. Illustrations of the clothing of the princi- 

 pal peoples of the world m,ay be expected; and a part 

 of this exhibition, which, it is anticipated, will be 

 held in the galleries of the Royal Albert Hall, will be 

 devoted to the history of costume. In the tliird, 

 fourth, and fifth groups will be comprised all that 

 peitains to the heaitlilul construction and fitting of 

 the dwelling, the school, and the workshop, not only 

 as respecis the needful arrangements for sanitation, 

 but also the fittings and furniture generally in their 

 effect on the hcalih of the inmates. The most im- 

 proved methods of schocd construction will be shown; 

 and the modes of combating and preventing the evils 

 of unheallhy trades, occupations, and processes of 

 manufacture, will form portioms of the exhibition. 

 The sixlh group will comprise all that relates to pri- 

 mary, technical, and art educati<m, and will include 

 designs and models for school-buildings, apparatus 

 and appliances for teaching, diagrams, text-books, 

 etc. Special attention will be directed to technical 

 and art educalion, to the results of industrial teach- 

 ing, and to the introduction of. manual and handi- 

 craft work into schools. 



— The members of the polar meteorological station 

 which Denmark maintained at Godthaab in Green- 

 land have just returned to Copenhagen. According 

 to Nature, the chief of the expedition, Lieut. A. 

 Paidsen, reports, that, having left Copenhagen on 

 May IS, 1SS2, in the sailing-ship Ceres, they arrived 

 at Godthaab on June 14. On the voyage out, obser- 

 vations of the temperature of the sea and air were 

 made every hour. On the arrival ont, the expedition 

 had to select the most. suitable spot for the erection 

 of the four wooden buildings brought with them, in 

 which the mai;netic and astronomical observations 

 were to be made. A small mountain ridge near the 

 church in the colony was chosen for this, as the pre- 

 liminary researches in its neighborhood showed that 

 the influence of iron strata on the magnetic current 

 was here very small. The buildings were then 

 erected, and the pillars raised on which the transit 

 instrument, the great astronomical clock, .and the 

 eight different magnelical instruments, were mounted, 

 and simultaneously the instruments for the meteoro- 

 logical observations- were also placed ; so that the 

 weathercock and the anemometers, as well as the 

 thermometer hut, were situated as free as possible. 

 On Aug. 1 the meteorological observations could be 

 commenced, but the magnetic ones were through an 

 acciilent delayed until the 7ih. From that date com- 

 plete observations were made in exact accordance 

 with the internal i(mal programme, without inter- 

 ruption, every hour until Aug. 31 this year; and the 

 expeilition has thereby fully accomplished its object, 

 viz., of ol)taining a full year's magnelical and me- 

 teorological observations in this locality. A num- 

 ber of other scientific researches have also, been 

 pursued, of which those on the aurora borealis 



should particularly be mentioned. This phenome- 

 non was frequently observed and studied during 

 the winter, while some exceedingly valuable statis- 

 tics were obtained as to the altitude of the aurora 

 borealis above the earth's surface by measurements 

 effected simultaneously in various places by light- 

 signals. The measiuements of atmospheric electri- 

 city have also led to valuable results. It is staled 

 to have been the best equipped polar expedition 

 ever despatched fi-om Denmark. 



— M. Langier, at a meeting of the Acad(!mie des 

 sciences held on Oct. 22, described a method of disin- 

 fecting plants for exportation, practised by himself 

 and Dr. Koenig at Nice. Some branches of vine in- 

 fected with phylloxera were treated with a solution 

 of sulphocarbouate of ethyl, the eggs and phylloxera 

 being completely destroyed. The plants submitted 

 to the trial do not seem in general to have suffered 

 from it. For the first trials in disinfecting leaves and 

 twigs, gaseous hydrocyanic acid w.as used, as pro- 

 posed by Dr. Koeuig; and for the roots and surround- 

 ing earth, sulphocarbonate of potassium in weak 

 solution. Their experiments, they believe, will be of 

 great service to the flower-cultivators of the Riviera. 



— The distinguished French geodesist, 51. Antoine 

 d'Abbadie, writes to the editor of Nature, regarding 

 units of angular measure, as follows: — 



" Wl' probably owe our degrees cither to tlie cirlier i 

 year of 3b0 d:iys, or to the fuct that this number has inuny di- 

 visors, although such divisors afford no practical advnmage. 

 When trigonometrical functions were subsequently discovered,. 

 it Tvas found that the natural unit is not the circle, hut the quad- 

 rant or right angle. Our system of numeration being decimal, 

 it was then most convenient to divide tlie quadrant decimally; 

 and the circle is thus considered as composed of four, forty, four 

 hundred, etc., parts, according to the degree of exactness re- 

 quired. This was i)i-oposed by Briggs when preparing his loga- 

 rithms, which are based oti deeimal.s; but unfortunately it was 

 then set aside. Revived a long time after by Lagrange, it was 

 acted upon by Laplace in his Mecanique celeste. Nowatlays deci- 

 mal divisions of the quadrant are the only ones used by I^'rench ge- 

 odesists. ... In Italy two geodesisls were instructed to observe 

 and calculate, in both Ihe centesimal and the sexagesimal systems, 

 the same large lot of angles. It was then found that the use 

 of decimals gave a saving of two-sevenths of time, either in 

 observation or in caleul.-Uion. This result was unknown to Sir 

 George Airy; but he judged rightly that the conversion of all 

 sexagesimal angles into decimal ones would materially lighten' 

 his labors, and he actually did so when calculating all the lunar 

 observations previously made at Greenwich." 



— Prof. H. G. Van de Sande Bakhuyzen, the di- 

 rector of the observatory at Leiden, announces the 

 completion of a new catalogue of star-places (began 

 by lloek, and continued by Dr. Kam, and contained 

 in the first sixly-six volumes of the AUronoinische 

 naclirichien). The catalogue will contain nearly five 

 thousand stars, reduced to the epoch 1S5.5.0, with the 

 data pertaining to the observations, and the usual 

 elements for carrying forward the star positions. 



— The last expedition of Lessar toward the Oxus 

 was attended with severe hardships. lie lost nearly 

 all his animals; and to save his famished escort, almost 

 destitute of water and provisions in the desert, he was 

 obliged to seek assistance from the Khivans. Worn 

 with three years painful and continual exploration, 

 the explorer thinks of returning to Kurope. 



