October 18, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



519 



light, assist us. By means of its light, we 

 obtain a knowledge of internal organs and 

 parts by which we are enabled to treat them 

 far more satisfactorily than we could with- 

 out its aid. It has been proved that the 

 effect of the electric light on plants is to 

 stimulate their growth and improve their 

 condition. This being a fact, it is reason- 

 able to suppose that it might have the same 

 effect on animal life, and, indeed, recent 

 experiments with the electric light bath 

 upon the bodies of patients have shown this 

 to be the case. It is in the diseases of the 

 nervous system that it finds one of its most 

 useful spheres of influence. Not only is it 

 valuable in determining the site of disease, 

 but it gives us most healthful aid in neu- 

 ralgic affections and paralj'sis. Above all, 

 it is one of the safest and best general 

 tonics at our command." 



The jury of awards of the Atlanta Expo- 

 ition, with President Gilman at the head, 

 will assemble in Atlanta on October 15. 

 Among the members of the jury are the fol 

 lowing : 



Gen. Henry L. Abbot, United States Engineers, 

 ' Engineering, and Public Works. ' 



President C. K. Adams, of the University o£ Wis- 

 consin, ' Liberal Arts. ' 



Prof. N. Murray Butler, of Columbia College, 

 ' Education. ' 



G. Brown Goode, of the Smithsonian Institution, 

 ' Fisheries. ' 



Morris K. Jesup, President of the American Mu- 

 seum of Natural History, New York, ' Museums, 

 Parks, etc' 



President T. C. Mendenhall, of the Worcester Tech- 

 nological Institute, ' Machinery. ' ' 



Prof. Simon Newcomb, F. R. S., 'Instruments of 

 Precision. ' 



Prof. Ira Eemsen, Baltimore, ' Chemistry. ' 



Prof. Henry A. Rowland, F. E. S., Johns Hopkins 

 University, 'Electricity.' 



The State Geological Survey of New York, 

 according to the Engineering and Mining 

 Journal, has been busily at work this sum- 

 mer. Prof. Charles W. Comstock, one of 

 the professors of engineering at Cornell 



University, who has done excellent work 

 on the surveys in Colorado, is in charge 

 of work on the upper Hudson district with 

 numerous able assistants. Prof. C. Well- 

 man Park, recently in charge of the de- 

 partment of physical science at the Eens- 

 selaer Polytechnic Institute, has charge of 

 the survey work in Franklin county, with 

 a large corps of men engaged in making 

 surveys of large tracts of State land on 

 township 24, etc., near the Saranac Lakes. 

 Mr. Monroe Warner, recently a United 

 States Deputy Surveyor for South Dakota, 

 is at work with a party in townships 1 and 

 2 of Totten & Crossfield's purchase in the 

 county of Hamilton, near Scandago Lake 

 and Lake Pleasant. Mr. Solomon Lefevre, 

 formerly an assistant on the New Jersey 

 Geological Survey under Prof. Cook, is in 

 charge of surveys in the district of the In- 

 dian River and West Canada Creek, Vroo- 

 man's patent, Herkimer county. Perhaps 

 one of the most important results of the 

 work accomplished of general interest will 

 be some computations made by Prof. Olin 

 H. Landreth, formerly of Vanderbilt Uni- 

 versity, Nashville, Tenn., now professor of 

 mechanics and engineering at Union Uni- 

 versity. 



Macmillan & Co. announce a translation, 

 by Mr. A. J. Butler, of Professor Frederick 

 Eatzel's History of Mankind, to be published 

 in thii-ty monthly ]3arts. There will be 

 a preface by Professor E. B. Tylor and the 

 work will be elaborately illustrated. 



Me. E. H. Griffiths opened a discussion 

 at the recent meeting of the British Associa- 

 tion on Heat Standards. He said the ther- 

 mal capacity of water had been taken as a 

 standard since the time of Black, but caused 

 many inconveniences. The different heat 

 units proposed were: (1) the specific change 

 per degree centigrade of the product of 

 pressure and volume of a gramme of hydro- 

 gen, by Macfarlane Gray; (2) the latent 



