May 1, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



673; 



one case a missionary intending to remove to 

 Angola -^as not permitted to carry her pur- 

 chased pupils with her ; ' thus has a negro gov- 

 ernment interfered to prevent a white mission- 

 ary from taking native children 2,000 miles 

 from their parents and kindred, in accordance 

 with the plans of a missionary bishop ' (page 

 43). The text contains comparatively little of 

 ethnic interest save in scattered morsels, for, 

 as is usual in evangelizing and civilizing en- 

 terprises, it is considered that no good thing 

 can come from the Nazareth of the primitive ; 

 but some of the mechanically reproduced photo- 

 graphs illustrate the features, costume and 

 customs of the natives, the appearance of their 

 barricaded towns, etc., while the numerous cuts 

 give faithful pictures of flora and landscape, 

 and admirably supplement the simple and 

 modest description in depicting Liberia as it is. 



It is announced that the society, though re- 

 taining its original name, long since gave up 

 its adherence to any scheme of colonization, as 

 such, and now confines its activities to educa- 

 tion and practical questions. A note indicates 

 that additional copies of the report can be ob- 

 tained by applying to Charles T. Geyer, Secre- 

 tary, 19 William street. New York City. 



W J McGee. 



Washington, D. C. 



SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS. 



AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



The May number opens with an article by 

 John Trowbridge, discussing the probable pres- 

 ence of carbon and oxygen in the sun. This is 

 in the line of work earlier done (1887) by the 

 same author in combination with C. C. Hutch- 

 ins, in which they showed that the carbon bands 

 could probably be detected in the sun's spec- 

 trum, although nearly obliterated by the over- 

 lying absorption lines of other metals, particu- 

 larly those of iron. Some quantitative experi- 

 ments have been now carried out by the author 

 to show what relative proportion of iron mixed 

 with carbon dust was required in order to pro- 

 duce this effect of obliterating the carbon bands. 

 Pencils, made of carbon dust and iron (reduced 

 by hydrogen) uniformly distributed through it, 

 were employed. The solar spectrum near the 

 carbon band at wave-length 3883.7 was then 



photographed, also below on the same plate 

 the pure carbon banded spectrum, and finally, 

 immediately below this, the spectrum of the 

 mixture of iron and carbon. It was found that 

 from twenty-eight to thirty per cent, of iron, in 

 combination with seventy-two or seventy per 

 cent, of carbon, almost completely obliterated 

 the peculiar banded spectrum of carbon. This 

 proportion, therefore, of iron in the atmosphere 

 of the sun, were there no other vapors of metals 

 present, would be sufficient to prevent our see- 

 ing the full spectrum of carbon. The author 

 then goes on to consider the case of oxygen and 

 remarks that the question whether oxygen ex- 

 ists in the sun is closely related to questions in 

 regard to the presence of carbon, when the 

 temperature and light of the sun are considered. 

 The regions in the solar spectrum where the 

 bright lines of oxygen should occur if they 

 manifest themselves have been carefully exam- 

 ined in order to see if any of the fine absorption 

 lines of iron in the spectrum of iron were ab- 

 sent, for it is reasonable to suppose that the 

 bright nebulous lines of oxygen would obliterate 

 the faintest lines of iron. The result is to prove 

 that the faintest iron lines are not obliterated 

 in the spaces where the oxygen lines should 

 occur. 



The author concludes by remarking that, al- 

 though he has not succeeded in detecting oxygen 

 in the sun, it seems to him that the character of 

 its light, the fact of the combustion of carbon in 

 its mass, the conditions for the incandescence 

 of the oxides of the rare earths which exist, 

 would prevent the detection of oxygen in its 

 uncombined state. Notwithstanding the nega- 

 tive evidence brought forward, he adds that he 

 cannot help feeling strongly that oxygen is pres- 

 ent in the sun and that the sun's light is due to 

 carbon vapor in an atmosphere of oxygen. 



An extended article by Harold Jacoby gives 

 a minute mathematical discussion of the deter- 

 mination of the division errors of a straight scale. 

 T. Holm, gives the results of studies upon the 

 Cyperaceee, with reference to the monopodial 

 ramification in certain North American species 

 of Carex. It is shown that the monopodial char- 

 acter is especially well represented on this side 

 of the Atlantic and may indeed be said to be 

 prevalent among our sylvan forms. The article 



