July 26, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



103 



presented before the meeting, among which 

 may be mentioned as of general scientific 

 interest an address by Professor George 

 HempI, of the University of Michigan, who 

 exhibited some ' American speech maps' 

 showing the geographical distribution of 

 various dialectical peculiarities, and a de- 

 scription by Professor Schmidt-Wartenberg, 

 of Chicago, of Eowsselot's phonetical ap- 

 paratus which, it is hoped, will facilitate 

 the study of speech from a physical stand- 

 point. The report of the committee ap- 

 pointed at the Philadelphia meeting last 

 winter to take steps toward some practi- 

 cal outcome of the following resolution : 

 " That in the opinion of the American 

 Philological Association, in any programme 

 designed to prepare students for the class- 

 ical course, not less than three years of in- 

 struction in Greek should be required," was 

 presented. The action of the committee in 

 drawing up and widely distributing an ad- 

 dress on this subject was approved by the 

 Association. 



The next meeting will be held at Provi- 

 dence, E. I., on July 7, 1896. 



GENERAL. 



Professor W. Eamsay read a paper be- 

 fore the Chemical Society of London on 

 June 20th, in which he stated that there is 

 no doubt but that argon and helium contain 

 as a common ingredient a gas not hitherto 

 identified, two lines in the spectra in the 

 newly discovered elements being identical. 

 The atomic weight of the new gas would be 

 about 10. In the issue of Nature for July 

 4th Professor Eamsay states that he has 

 demonstrated the presence of both argon 

 and helium in a meteorite from Augusta 

 Countj', Virginia. The characteristic spec- 

 trum of argon is almost completely masked 

 by the presence of a few parts per cent, of 

 nitrogen or of hydi-ogen, and that of helium 

 is similarly affected, though to a less degree. 

 In so far as the lines of the argon spectrum 



have not been identified in the spectra of 

 stars it is probablj' because thej'' are masked 

 by the spectra of hydrogen and carbon. 



In the American Naturalist for July an ac- 

 count is given of the Hopkins Seaside Lab- 

 oratory. The laboratory is located at Pa- 

 cific Grove, a seaside resort on the southern 

 shore of Montery Bay, about four hours dis- 

 tant by train from San Francisco. The 

 coast line at this point off'ers every variety 

 of rocky and sandy sliores, and the variety 

 and abundance of marine life is exception- 

 ally great. The original building contains 

 three general laboratories, a store room and 

 seven private rooms for investigators; the 

 new building contains a general lecture and 

 library room, a general laboratory, ten pri- 

 vate rooms for investigators and a dark 

 room for photographic work. The base- 

 ment is designed for large aquaria. The 

 buildings are supplied with running water, 

 both salt and fresh. The session (which is 

 the fourth) began on Jvine 17th, and the 

 regular course of instruction continues till 

 July 17th, but investigators and students 

 not requiring instruction may continue their 

 work during the summer. 



According- to the Genie Civile, quoted in 

 the Scientific American, the Geographical So- 

 ciety of Toulouse has for some years been 

 studying the possibility of the application 

 of the decimal system to the measurement 

 of time and angles. As a result of these 

 studies, a scheme has been devised which is 

 to be presented to the coming Geographical 

 Congress in London. It is proposed to di- 

 vide the circle into 100 ' cirs ' (abbreviation 

 of circulus), with decimal subdivisions of 

 ' decirs,' ' centicirs,' ' millicirs ' and ' dimi- 

 cirs.' The letter X (initial letter of Greek 

 xox'Aoz) is chosen to represent the cir, and 

 an angle of 7 cirs, 77 centicirs and 51 dimi- 

 cirs would, therefore, be written 7''7751. 

 For the decimal measurement of time, 

 the day, from midnight to midnight, is di- 



