October 9, 189'.] 



SCIENCE. 



201 



that the barometer fell 37.95 inches at Fort de France. At St. 

 Pierre the wind blew a hurricane frooi the north-east, from 7 to 

 8.15 P.M., when the rain suddenly stopped and it fell calm, the 

 sky becoming clear. This marked the passage of the centre. At 

 8.-30 the hurricane recommenced from the south-west, and blew 

 with great fury until 9.30, the barometer rising and the wind 

 shifting to the south-east. At 10.30 there were still strong squalls 

 from the south-east, but the storm was practically over. 



— Professor Frank H. Eigelow, at one time professor of mathe- 

 matics and astronomy at Racine College, has been appointed a 

 professor in the United States Weather Bureau. 



— The Salisbury expedition to the Galapagos Islands, headed 

 by Dr. Baur of Clark University, has returned to Worcester, 

 Mass. It brings a large collection of scientific specimens. 



— Dr. Alfred S. Holies, superintendent of the Pennsylvania 

 Bureau of Statistics at Harrisburg, and editor of the Bankers' 

 Magazine, has been elected lecturer in mercantile law and bank- 

 ing in the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. John I. Reese has 

 resigned the chair of medical jurisprudence and toxicology in the 

 same university. In .the Wharton School of Finance, Mr. L. K. 

 Stein of Johns Hopkins University has been elected assistant, Dr. 

 Sydney Sherwood, a Princeton graduate, becomes instructor in 

 finance, and Dr. Frederick W. Moore of Yale, instructor in soci- 

 ology. 



— An instrument for optical comparison of transparent liquids, 

 named a •' liquoscope," has been recently devised by M. Sonden of 

 Stockholm (Nature, Sept, 17). Two hollow prisms holding the 

 liquids are separated by a partition at right angles to the refracting 

 angle. The whole is placed in a vessel filled with glycerine, and 

 which allows of vision in a horizontal direction through plane 

 glass plates. The deflection of the light rays through the prisms is 

 thus compensated. So long as the two liquids have the same 

 optical action, one sees a distinct mark (say a black paper strip on 

 a window) as a straight connected line; but its halves are rela- 

 tively displaced if the liquids have different refractive powers. The 

 amount of displacement gives a measure of the difference, the posi- 

 tive or negative nature of which also appears from the direction 

 of displacement. The author recommends his apparatus for chemi- 

 cal purposes, especially comparison and testing of fats and oils, 

 analysis of glycerine, etc., and detection of margarine in butter, 

 margarine greatly lowering the index of refraction. 



— In a paper published in the current number of tbu Journal 

 of the Anthropological Society, Mr. J. J. Lister refers to the great 

 development of the arms and chests of the natives of Fakaofu 

 (Bowditch Island, Union Group). According to Nature, he thinks 

 it may be due to the fact that they are obliged to go about so 

 much in canoes. Sir Joseph Lister, who took part in the discus- 

 sion which followed the reading of this paper, remarked that he 

 would not have expected the frequently repeated action of pad- 

 dling to produce lengthening of the arms, although he could un- 

 derstand its resulting in increased size of chest. He pointed out 

 that the natives of Tonga were also accustomed to use canoes, and 

 hence it was not clear that the phenomenon could be traced to the 

 cause assigned. Mr. Lister replied that, although the Tongans use 

 canoes, canoe work is not so essential a part of their lives as it is 

 in the case of the natives of Fakaofu. The natives of the island 

 of Tongatabu have many avocations quite apart from the sea, for 

 thty live on an island twenty two miles long, and many villages 

 are situated some distance from the water. The natives of 

 Fakaofu, on the other hand, live crowded together on a small islet 

 situated on a ling of reefs, and to meet almost every need of their 

 lives they must do more or less paddling. 



— Herr Fleitmanu's experiments in soldering iron with nickel 

 have yielded some important results with regard to the volatility 

 and atomic penetration of the former metal, says Iron. The ad- 

 hesion of the two metals was so intense that it became impossible 

 to separate them by mechanical action, and chemical analysis 

 proved a perfect assimilation, although the soldering had been 

 effected at a temperature of from 500° to 600° below the fusing 

 point. Other tests established the volatility of iron when heated 

 to cherry redness. Two plates of iron and nickel, superposed, 

 were submitted to the same degree of heat; the iron passed into 



the nickel to a not^ible extent without soldering or adhesion of 

 the surfaces resulting. On the whole surface of the sheet of 

 nickel an alloy with the iron was formed, which, in the case of 

 one-millimetre sheets, penetrated to five one-hundredths of their 

 thickness, and contained on the average twenty-four per cent of 

 that metal, the proportion being naturally stronger on the sur- 

 face. An important fact is that the passage of the iron to the 

 nickel is not reciprocal. While the combination disclosed itself 

 on the surface of the nickel plate by the argentiferous lustre of an 

 alloy of iron with fifty per cent of nickel, the iron plate remained 

 intact, and preserved the sombre ai^pearance which it had re- 

 ceived from the scaling. 



— In 1857 Wilhelm Struve, founder of the Pulkova Observatory, 

 entered into negotiations with Prussia, Belgium, and England, 

 with a view to the measurement of an arc of parallel of latitude 

 stretching across the four countries. The Governments named 

 consented, in 1863, to communicate the results of their measure- 

 ments to Otto, son and successor of Wilhelm Struve, in order that 

 he might co-ordinate them with the Russian triangulatiou. The 

 measurement of the arc is not yet completed, but some particulars 

 concerning the work have been published in a recent issue of the 

 Scottish Qeographical Magazine. The parallel chosen is that of 

 52" north latitude, and the angular extension of the arc is 59° 30'. 

 The portion which lies within the bounds of Russia in Europe 

 measures rather more than 1,682 miles in length, and gives the 

 average length of a degree of longitude as about 42.68 miles. The 

 geodetic measurements proved beyond a doubt that the length of 

 a degree is not always the same, that, in fact, the parallel of 53° 

 is not a circle, but is composed of elliptical arcs. Bases of 4 to 9 

 versts have been measured with such care as to reduce the limit of 

 error to the hundredth part of a millimetre, yet the lengths of a 

 degree of longitude in diEFerent parts of the parallel show differ- 

 ences ranging up to 410 feet. It is expected that the measurement 

 will be continued across Siberia to the Pacific. 



— Nature states that Herr Hufner has lately pointed out some 

 of the biological bearings of the fact (observed in experiment along 

 with Herr Albrecht) that long hght- waves are much more strongly 

 absorbed by water than short ones. If the lower marine animals 

 had, like man, the liveliest light-perception with yellow rays, and 

 a certain intensity of light were nece.ssary to them, they must live 

 at a less depth than if their visual organs were most strongly 

 affected by short- waved rays. Thus, e.g., if they needed as much 

 yellow light as that of the full moon, they could not live deeper 

 than 177 metres (say, 590 feet). Yet they are found at all depths 

 where food, oxygen, and a suitable temperature exist. On the 

 other hand, the existence of plants having chlorophyll depends on 

 light, and we might expect that the distribution of non-parasitic 

 plants would be very limited, which is the case, no plant-organisms 

 being found under 300 fathoms. Green plants assimilate best in 

 yellow light; and supposing plants to assimilate in moonlight they 

 would find their limit at the above depth (177 metres). But while 

 yellow is here weakened to 0.0000016 of its brightness, indigo blue 

 has still 0.007829 of its original strength, and the assimilation with 

 blue rays will be 6B0 times as strong as with yellow. Different 

 colored marine plants react differently according to the color of 

 light, and they have accordingly different distribution in depth. 



— The American Press Company of Baltimore announces a 

 work entitled "The Builders of a Great Country." It will be a 

 book of representative Americans. The proposed work will con- 

 tain biographies and portraits of those who are recognized as the 

 representative Americans of the age in church and state, politics 

 and commerce, science and manufactures, literature and art, 

 press and progress. 



— An important work on the science and practice of medicine 

 is announced by the Librairie G. Masson, Paris, under the editor- 

 ship of Doctors Charcot, Bouchard, and Brissaud. " Le Traite 

 de Medecine" will form six volumes, to be published within a 

 maximum period of two years. The first volume, just ready, in- 

 cludes general infectious pathology, diseases of nutrition, diseases 

 common to man and animals, and infectious diseases. The sec- 

 ond volume will treat of fevers, cutaneous affections, diseases of 

 the blood, and intoxication. 



