840 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. III. No. 75. 



has raised the building fund to over §300,000, 

 and it is probable that work will be begun on 

 one wing of the structure this summer. 



At the recent Conversazione of the Royal 

 Society, according to the report in the London 

 Times, Prof. Koberts-Austen showed several 

 curious experiments, which are modifications 

 of one recently described by Margot, of Geneva. 

 A fine wire of aluminium is heated to no less 

 than 400 degrees above its melting point, but 

 the wire, nevertheless, remains intact. This is 

 owing to the formation of a fine film of alumina 

 on the surface of the wire, and the metal, being 

 very light, does not run into globules, as it 

 might be expected to do. The molten wire 

 has, moreover, a current passing through it and 

 "will, if approached by a similar wire or by a 

 magnet, enable all the effects of mobile con- 

 ductors carrying currents to be illustrated. 

 One experiment showed that the molten wire 

 can even be twisted on itself without rupture, 

 and the effects of a tenacious thread of molten 

 metal moving in response to electrical influ- 

 ences are very singular. 



M. MiiLiNE, who is Minister of Agriculture 

 as well as Premier of France, has directed the 

 professors of agriculture to suspend their lec- 

 tures and to go through the rural districts in 

 order to advise farmers to meet the failure of 

 the hay crop by sowing vetches, maize and 

 other fodder, as also by utilizing oilcake, straw, 

 bran and corn. 



At a recent meeting of the British Astronom- 

 ical Association, Dr. Gill, astronomer in charge 

 of the Royal Observatory at the Cape of Good 

 Hope, according to the report in the London 

 Times, gave an account of the work in 

 ■which he had been engaged. He mentioned 

 first the completion of his investigation on the 

 solar parallax and the mass of the moon, de- 

 rived from observation of minor planets on a 

 programme which he had prepared and which 

 had been carried out at Newhaven, Leipsig, 

 Gottingen and Bamberg, as well as at the Cape. 

 The details of these results would be presented 

 to the Congress of Directors of Nautical Ephem- 

 «rides, which would assemble in Paris in May, 

 and he would urge at that meeting the adoption 

 ■of these constants for general use by astrono- 



mers. Dr. Gill also stated that the work of the 

 geodetic survey of South Africa, which he had 

 directed since 1885, was completed and printed, 

 and that the report would be presented to the 

 Cape Parliament in May. The first volume of 

 the Cape Diirchmusterung had been passed 

 through the press. The whole of the latter 

 work would consist of three volumes containing 

 the places and magnitudes of 450,000 stars be- 

 tween latitude 18 deg. south and South Pole ; it 

 would be complete as far as magnitude 9.3 or 

 9.4, and would contain most of the stars as far 

 as the 10th magnitude. A fundamental star 

 catalogue for the equinox, 1890, containing the 

 results of the Cape transit circle observations 

 during the past ten years, was far advanced to- 

 wards completion. Dr. Gill also mentioned 

 that Mr. M' Clean's splendid gift of a powerful 

 equatorial would now divert his efforts more to 

 the field of astrophysics. 



The Washington Star states that a large in- 

 voice of plants for the department of botany has 

 just been received at the Catholic University 

 from Rev. Father Langlois, of Louisiana. This 

 is the third donation of the kind Father Lang- 

 lois has made to the University this year. Dr. 

 Greene will leave for California shortly to collect 

 specimens for his herbarium. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 



The United States Senate has passed the bill 

 to charter the National University. 



The trustees of the College of New Jersey 

 at Princeton, commonly called Princeton Col- 

 lege, have filed in the County Clerk's office a cer- 

 tificate changing the name of the institution to 

 Princeton University. 



At a meeting of about fifty friends of the 

 Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, on 

 May 26th, the sum of $138,750 was subscribed 

 toward meeting the deficit caused by the fail- 

 ure of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad to pay 

 dividends on its stock. It is hoped that $50,000 

 a year for five years may be subscribed. 



Mt. Holyoke College has received $7,000 

 by the will of Miss Hitchcock, of Springfield. 



The twenty-fifth anniversary of President 

 Angell's administration will be celebrated at the 



