August i6, 1889.] 



SCIENCE 



113 



marked murexide re-action, when evaporated with nitric acid, and 

 afterwards treated with ammonia or potash. The common brim- 

 stone butterfly yields somewhat less than a milligram of pigment 

 from each insect : larger foreign species, such as those belonging 

 to the species Callidryas, may yield as much as four or five milli- 

 grams. Examination of the pigment reveals its near relationship 

 to mycomelic acid, a yellow derivative of uric acid ; and the author 

 Suggests that it may possibly be a condensation product of uric and 

 mycomelic acids. 



— The International College, Spring Grove, not far from Lon- 

 don, England, which twenty-five years ago was much talked about 

 and seemed to be full of promise, ceases to exist at the end of this 

 month. The college was brought into existence through a sugges- 

 tion of'the late Richard Cobden, made soon after the French treaty 

 of commerce was concluded in i860. The intention of the pro- 

 moters, as given in The Educational Times, was to found three 

 proprietary colleges, — one in England, one in France, and a third 

 in Germany, — which should follow the same curriculum, so that 

 students could spend part of their time in each of the colleges, the 

 change of residence being effected without any break of continuity 

 in their studies. There was probably involved in the notion a 

 dream' that the international intimacies which such a system would 

 necessarily bring about would tend to put an end to wars and ru- 

 mors of wars. Indeed, we find it suggested in one of the earlier 

 prospectuses of the college, that, " if the boys of these nations were 

 taught each other's languages in these colleges, when they became 

 men the connection would be made still closer ; and it was hoped, 

 that, if this principle were extended to other nations, it might in 

 time have the effect of lessening the number of wars." The Conti- 

 nental members of the triangle were never fairly started, but Mr. 

 Cobden and his friends succeeded in establishing the English col- 

 lege. 



— It is claimed that in the new Bookwalter process for convert- 

 ing crude metal into malleable iron or steel, the air-blasts are 

 brought into contact with every portion of the metal, thereby secur- 

 ing a uniformity of structure throughout the entire mass, which 

 has not always been secured with other processes. The main por- 

 tion of the process is thus outlined by its inventor, Mr. J. W. Book- 

 waiter of Springfield, O. : " Having ascertained that the tendency ■ 

 to form local currents or vortices is much greater when the air- 

 blasts enter the metal near the surface than when they enter at a 

 greater depth below the surface, I devised means whereby to 

 secure a continuously uniform action of the air upon limited uni- 

 form quantities of the metal at one time, feeding the metal gradu- 

 ally to the air within a fixed or limited space. By this means 

 small portions of the metal as they are fed to the air are driven 

 thereby out of the zone of violent agitation of the air and metal, 

 and thereafter are thrown back toward the greater body of metal 

 while a new portion of the latter is being brought under the in- 

 fluence of the air, that portion of the metal which is submitted to 

 the action of the air being the purest portion of the body, — that 

 is, having combined with it less scoria than any other portion, — 

 and the greater body of the metal which is not under the direct in- 

 fluence of the air being comparatively stationary, and free from 

 currents or vortices." 



— In a letter to Nature under date of Cambridge, Mass., July 1 5, 

 Dr. H. A. Hagen writes, " Having studied Sir J. Lubboc4i's inter- 

 esting book, I remembered a fact observed by me, which, though 

 it is not conclusive, seems worth mentioning. I was amused some 

 years ago to observ^ the feeding of the young in a sparrow-house 

 near an upper window of my house. The old sparrow alighted 

 upon the small veranda of the sparrow-house with four living can- 

 ker-worms in his beak. Then the four young ones put out their 

 heads with the customary noise, and were fed each with a cater- 

 pillar. The sparrow went off, and returned after a while again with 

 four living canker-worms in his beak, which were disposed of in the 

 same manner. I was so interested and pleased with the process 

 that I watched it for some time and during the following days. A 

 fact which I have not seen noticed here in the extensive sparrow 

 literature, is that for a number of years sparrows begin to build 

 nests of dry grass and hay at the top of high trees. The first I 

 saw were large irreuglar balls placed on the tripod of twigs. The 



entrance was on the inner side near the lower end of the balls. 

 Last year I observed another form of the nests. A strong rope 

 formed of dry grass, as thick as a man's wrist and as long as the 

 fore-arm; is fastened only with the upper end to strong branches at 

 the top of high trees. The rope's end has a rather large ovoid shape, 

 with the entrance to the inside near the end. Of such nests I saw 

 last winter about a dozen on the elms here in Main Street, near the 

 college grounds, and similar ones in Putnam Avenue and other 

 streets. A long pole near my house strongly covered by a vine 

 {Celastriis scattdcns) had such a nest for three years, used every 

 year. In the sparrow-houses around my lodging the sparrows stay 

 throughout the winter, commonly one male and three females in 

 every house, till in spring the superfluous females are turned out." 



— At the thermometric bureau of the Yale College Observatory 

 during the last year the comparison of thermometers has continued 

 to be made by Mr. C. B. Peck. The number received for verifica- 

 tion during the year ending June i, 1889, was 7,475, being 249 in 

 excess of the preceding, the maximum year. It is perhaps well to 

 call public attention to the fact, not new, but continually overlooked, 

 that the most accurate thermometers may be made to give false 

 testimony by misinterpretation of their language. Although every 

 certificate issued from this observatory, for other than clinical 

 thermometers, contains a statement of the only conditions under 

 which the correction therein given can be truthfully applied, they 

 are continually called upon to explain, especially in the case of 

 high-temperature thermometers, that, when only the bulb is im- 

 mersed in a liquid of high temperature, the indicated temperature 

 is too low by an amount depending upon the number of degrees of 

 the mercury in the cooler stem and the difference between the 

 temperatures of the bulb and stem. They have been called upon 

 to show frequently that this error, which is independent of any 

 correction due to the thermometer, may be as much as eight or 

 nine degrees in the case of high-temperature oils, as their tempera- 

 tures are generally measured. A simple remedy for this indefinite- 

 ness of measurement would seem to be a special form of thermom- 

 eter in which nearly all the mercury should be immersed. Of the 

 same nature is the correction of possibly o°.i to be applied to 

 clinical thermometers of the " Indestructible Index " form, when 

 the detached column of mercury constituting the index is quite 

 long (expressed in degrees), and is read after removal to a much 

 cooler atmosphere ; but the probable error on this account does 

 not exceed the probable error of reading. 



— Recent reports to the United States Hydrographic Office 

 regarding the seeming failure of certain fog-signals render it desir- 

 able to give the conclusions of an expert in this subject. We 

 extract the following from a paper read before the Philosophical 

 Society of Washington, October, 1881, by Mr. Arnold B. Johnson, 

 chief clerk of the Lighthouse Board : " When approaching from 

 windward, the fog-signal is picked up earliest aloft ; from leeward, 

 on deck. Do not assume that you are out of hearing distance be- 

 cause you fail to hear the signal, nor that you are at a great dis- 

 tance because the sound is faint, nor that you are near because you 

 hear it plainly. Do not assume that you have or have not reached 

 a given point in your course because you do or do not hear the sig- 

 nal with the same intensity as on some former occasion. Do not 

 assume that the signal has ceased sounding because you fail to 

 hear it even when within easy earshot. Do not assume that the 

 aberrations of audibility are the same in different fog-signals. Do 

 not expect to hear the signals as well as usual when the upper 

 and lower air-currents run in different directions, or when wind 

 and tide do so, or during a time of electric disturbance, or when 

 the sound must reach you from over an island or point of land. 

 When there is a bluff behind the signal, be prepared for irregular 

 intervals in audition, as would follow were the sound to ricochet 

 like a cannon-ball. Thus you might hear it at 2, 4, 6, 8, etc., miles, 

 and lose it at i, 3, 5, 7, etc., miles, or at any other combination of 

 distances, regular or irregular. Lentil the laws governing these 

 aberrations are evolved and a method is discovered by which the 

 irregularities can be corrected, you will do well, when you do not 

 get the expected sound of a signal, to assume that you may not 

 hear the warning that is nevertheless faithfully sounded, heave 

 your lead, and use other means to make sure of your position." 



