278 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XII. No. 294. 



by experts in the Mollineux trial. Some of the 

 bills are as follows : Dr. E. A. Witthaus, 

 chemist, $18,550; E. J. Lederle, chemist, 

 $3800; E. S. Potter, a physician, S2450; Dr. Per- 

 sifor Eraser, handwriting expert, S2181. There 

 are some eight handwriting experts who pre- 

 sent bills each larger than a thousand dollars. 



The annual meeting of the Corporation of 

 the Marine Biological Laboratory was held at 

 "Woods Holl, on Tuesday, August 14th. 



The New York Medical Record contains a 

 cabled report of the 13th International Med- 

 ical Congress which met at Paris from the 2d to 

 the 9th of August. M. Lannelongue, president 

 of the Congress, made an opening address 

 which was followed by speeches by the presi- 

 dents of the National Committees, including 

 Lord Lister, Professor von Bergmann, of Ber- 

 lin, and Professor Kitasato, of Japan. General 

 addresses before the Congress were made by 

 Professor Virchow, of Berlin, Professor Burdon- 

 Sanderson, of Oxford, and Professor A. Jacobi, 

 of New York. The registration at the Congress 

 numbered 6170 of which 412 were Americans. 



We have already called attention to the first 

 International Congress of Physics which opened 

 at Paris on August 6th. The Congress was di- 

 vided into the seven following sections, which 

 met in the rooms of the Societe fran^aise de 

 Physique : (1) general questions, instruction, 

 measurements ; (2) mechanical and molecular 

 physics ; (3) optics ; (4) electricity and mag- 

 netism ; (5) magneto-optics, radio-activity, dis- 

 charges in gases ; (6) cosmical physics ; (7) 

 biological physics. Nature states that among 

 the subjects dealt with by British physicists are : 

 the movements produced in an indefinite solid 

 by the displacement of a material body, by Lord 

 Kelvin ; the constant of gravitation, by Mr. 

 C. V. Boys ; the propagation of electricity, 

 by Professor Poynting ; electric discharges in 

 gases, by Professor J. J. Thomson ; properties 

 of alloys, by Sir W. C. Roberts-Austen ; and 

 the unit of heat, by Mr. B. H. GriflBths. In 

 addition there are contributions by Professors 

 Lorentz, vau't Hoff, Warburg, Voigt, van der 

 Waals, H. Poincare, Cornu, Lippmann, Potior, 

 Becquerel, Arrhenius, Exner, Spring, and 

 others. 



A TELEGRAM has been received at the Har- 

 vard College Observatory from Professor J. E. 

 Keeler, at the Lick Observatory, stating that 

 the following elements and ephemeris of comet 

 1900b were computed by Perrine from observa- 

 tions on July 25th, July 30th and Aug. 4th. 



Time of passing perihelion ^T = Aug. 3.21 

 Perihelion minus node = u = 12° 27' 



Longitude of node = £2 ^ 328° 1' 



Inclination =i= 62° 31' 



Perihelion distance =2^1.0148. 



Ephemeris. 

 1900. 1900. 



Aug. 10, E.A. 3n5°>16=i Deol. + 63° 41' Light 0.83 

 " 14, " 3 34 44 " -f 72 17 

 " 18, " 4 12 28 " +79 11 



" 22, " 5 46 24 " +84 11 Light 0.43 



The U. S. council at St. Gall, Mr. Du Bois, 

 sends to the Department of State the following 

 account of the trial of the Zeppelin air ship : 

 At the invitation of Count Zeppelin, I was pres- 

 ent at the trial ascent of his air ship on the 

 afternoon of July 2d at Manzell, on Lake Con- 

 stance. At 7 o'clock the great ship, 407 feet 

 long and thirty-nine feet in diameter, contain- 

 ing seventeen separate balloon compartments 

 filled with hydrogen gas, was drawn out of the 

 balloon house securely moored to the float. At 

 the moment of the ascent the wind was blowing 

 at a rate of about 26 feet per second, giving the 

 operators a good opportunity of testing the 

 ability of the air wheels to propel the great ship 

 against the wind. The cigar-shaped structure 

 ascended slowly and gracefully to about 30 feet 

 above the raft. The balances were adjusted so 

 as to give the ship an ascending direction. The 

 propellers were set in motion, and the air ship, 

 which has cost considerably over $200,000, 

 started easily on its interesting trial trip. At 

 first, the ship moved east against the wind for 

 about two miles, gracefully turned at an eleva- 

 tion of about 400 feet, and, making a rapid sail 

 to the westward for about five miles, reached 

 an altitude of 1300 feet. It was then turned 

 and headed once more east, and traveling about 

 a mile against the wind blowing at the rate of 

 twenty-six feet per second, suddenly stopped ; 

 floating slowly backwards three miles to the 

 west, it sank into the lake, the gondolas rest- 

 ing safely upon the water. The time of the 

 trip was about fifty minutes ; distance traveled, 



