October 30, 1891.] 



SCIENCE. 



245 



and Constitution ; " " The Earth as a Planet ; " " Mercury, Venus, 

 and Mars;" "Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune;" "The 

 Satellites of the Planets; " and " Asteroids, Meteors, and Comets." 

 The second of the series will deal with the stellar systems, and 

 will consist of "The Geography of the Heavens; " "The Relation 

 of the Solar System to Surrounding Space;" "The Stars, their 

 Magnitudes, Distances, and Motions ; " " The Stars, their Spectra 

 and Constitution: Variable and Multiple Stars;" "Nebulae and 

 the Evolution of Stai-s; " and " The Constitution of the Universe." 

 The third or advanced course will include " General Laws that 

 Govern the Universe ; " " Gravitation and the Perturbations of 

 Planets; " " Light and its Analysis, — How Used as a" Means of 

 Investigation;" "Astronomical Photography;" " Electric and 

 Magnetic Forces and their Application in Astronomy;" and " The 

 Measurement of Time." The series will conclude with a course of 

 three single lectures, on "The History of Astronomy;" "The 

 Great Astronomers; " and "Recent Progress in Astronomical Re- 

 search." Each of these lectures will be illustrated by lantern 

 photographs. The courses are subject to alteration to meet spe- 

 cial requirements. The institute will conduct these courses of 

 lectures on the so-called "university extension" plan, under the 

 title of "Institute Extension Lectures." Each lecture will be 

 preceded by a conference on the subject of the previous lecture. 

 A syllabus of each course of lectures, together with directions for 

 reading and study, will be provided. Those who desire may pre- 

 sent themselves for examination at the close of a course, by giv- 

 ing ten days' notice. Certificates will be issued by the institute to 

 those who pass a satisfactory examination. 



— According to Nature, an interesting experiment has been 

 lately made by M. Chabry of the Societe de Biologie, with regard 

 to the pressure which can be produced by electrolytic generation 

 of gas in a closed space. While the highest pressure before real- 

 ized in this way was 447 atmospheres (Qassiot), M. Chabry has 

 succeeded in getting as high as 1,200; and the experiment was 

 broken off merely because the manometer used got cracked (with- 

 out explosion). The electrolyzed liquid was a twenty-five per 

 cent soda solution. Both electrodes were of iron : one was the 

 hollow sphere in which the gas was collected, the other an inner 

 concentric tube. The current had a strength of one and a half 

 amperes, and was very constant during the experiment, which 

 was merely one preliminary to a research in which very high 

 pressures were desired. 



— During the coming winter and spring a course of lectures, 

 under the auspices of the New York Academy of Sciences, will be 

 delivered in Hamilton Hall, Madison Avenue and 49th Street, this 

 city. The lectures will be as follows : Oct. 26, Paraguay, the 

 Land and the People, by Dr. Thomas Morong; Nov. 1 6, Woman's 

 Part in the Earlier Civilizations, by Professor Otis T. Mason; Dec. 

 21, Mountains, their Origin and History, by Professor H. L. Fair- 

 child; Jan. 18, The Lochs and Crannogs of Scotland, by Professor 

 Franklin W. Hooper; Feb. 15, Street Scenes in Cairo and Glimpses 

 of the Nile, by Professor H. Carrington Bolton ; March 21, Con- 

 tributions of Organic Chemistry to Modern Medicine, by Professor 

 Arthur H. Elliott ; April 18, Elves of the Air, by Dr. A. A. Ju- 

 lien; May 16, Color, by Professor Ogden N. Rood. 



— At the twenty-fourth annual meeting of the Kansas Acad- 

 emy of Science, held at Ottawa, Oct. 14, 15, and 16, the following 

 papers were read. " The Evolution of the Human Face," by A. 

 H. Thompson; ' Experiments made in 1891 on the Dissemination 

 of the Chinch-Bug Diseases," F. H. Snow; "A New Erythronium 

 (E. mesochorum)," by E. B. Knerr; "An Inexpensive Reagent 

 Bottle for Use in Microscopic Work,'' by E. B. Knerr; " A Partial 

 List of the Plants of Franklin County," by W. E. Castle; "Geo- 

 graphical Distribution of Common Western Plants" and "List of 

 Rocky Mountain Plants collected in 1889," by M. A. Carlton ; 

 "On Solanum Rostratum," by L. E Sayre and W. S. Amos; " Is 

 the Rainfall in Kansas increasing?" and " Seven-year Periodicity 

 in Rainfall," by E. C. Murphy; " A Simple Method for the Deter- 

 mination of Equivalent Weights of Metals, as Compared with Hy- 

 drogen,'" E. B. Knerr; " Have Meteorites Magnetic Polarity ?" by 

 L. I. Blake; "A Revised List of Kansas Minerals,' by G. H. 

 Failyer and E. H. S. Bailey; "The Effect of Scientific Studies 



upon the Imagination," by Olin Templin; " Restoration of Pter- 

 anodon," by S. W. Williston; "Notes on Some New Kansas 

 Cephalopods," by Robert Hay; " Some Statistics Relative to the 

 Health of College Women," by Gertrude Crotty; "List of Dip- 

 tera. Collected by F. H. Snow at Manitou Park, Col., August, 

 1891," by F. H. Snow and W. A. Snow; "New Western Diptera," 

 by W. A. Snow; " Characteristic Flora " (second paper), "Some 

 Prairie Plants of Eastern Colorado," and " Variations in Dominant 

 Species of Plants,'' by M. A. Carlton; " " Doniphan Lake, forma- 

 tion of, in 1891," by E. B. Knerr; "Contributions to a List of 

 Kansas Hymenoptera," by E. A. Popenoe; " On the Therapeutic 

 Value of Some Recently Introduced Chemicals," by L, E. Sayre; 

 " An Astronomical Lantern," by E. B. Knerr; " On the Corrosive 

 Action of Fruit Juices on Tin Cans," by E. H. S. Bailey and E. 

 C. Franklin; "Selective Absorption in Leaves," by A. G. Mayer; 

 ' ' Probable Temperature of Summer at Lawrence, Kan.," by E. C. 

 Murphy; "Nesting of the Pied-billed Grebe" and "Two Rare 

 Birds of Kansas, the White- faced Glossy Ibis, and Clark's Nut- 

 cracker," by A. M. Collett. 



— The correspondent of the London Kmes at Alexandria, Egypt, 

 states that three colossal statues, ten feet high, of rose granite, 

 have just been found at Aboukir, a few feet below the surface. 

 The discovery was made from indications furnished to the govern- 

 ment by a local investigator, Daninos Pasha. The first two repre- 

 sent in one group Rameses II. and Queen Hentmara seated on the 

 same throne. This is unique among Egyptian statues. The 

 third statue represents Rameses standing upright in military 

 attire, a sceptre in his hand and a crown upon his head. Both 

 bear hieroglyphic inscriptions, and both have been tlirown from 

 their pedestals face downwards. Their site is on the ancient Cape 

 Zephyrium, near the remains of the Temple of Venus at Arsinoe. 

 Relics of the early Christians have been found in the same lo- 

 cality. 



— The marine laboratory of biology and zoology, which is to be 

 instituted at Bergen next year, Nature states, will be open to any 

 foreign investigators who may desire to study the marine fauna 

 of that part of Scandinavia. 



— Professor N. S. Shaler has been appointed Dean of the Law- 

 rence Scientific School of Harvard University, from which posi- 

 tion Professor Chapin recently resigned to accept the directorship 

 of Washington University, St. Louis, Mo. 



— Professor Traill Green, M.D., LL.D., dean of the Pardee sci- 

 entific department, and head of the chemical department ot 

 Lafayette College, at Easton, Pa., has retired from active service 

 in the institution owing to advanced years. He has been made 

 professor emeritus of the chemical department. 



— Among other articles in the November itagazine of Ameri- 

 can History are "One Hundred Years of National Life; the Con- 

 trast between 1789 and 1889," by Dr. Patton; " Introduction of 

 the Negro into the United States," by Rev. Dr. StaUely; and 

 "The Historic Games of Old Canada,'' by Or. Prosper Bender. 



— Of the " Creole Studies," by Professor Hugo Schuchardt of 

 Gratz in Styria, the latest issue is the ninth in the series, and deals 

 with the Malayo-Portuguese medley language of Batavia and 

 Tugu, on the island of Java. His serial is published in the octavo 

 memoirs of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, Vienna, and in 

 view of the rising intprest paid to the studies of foreign languages 

 has attracted a good deal_of attention. Among the medley lan- 

 guages, Schuchardt has taken up those that originated from the 

 mixture of Romanic languages with those of the negroes, Malays, 

 and other inhabitants of the African, Asiatic, and American 

 coasts. In this line we mention his studies on the Negro-Portu- 

 guese of Annabom (West Africa), on the Annamito-French dia- 

 lect, on the Indo-Portugueseof Mahe andCannanore, and of other 

 similar dialects of southern India, and on the Negro-Purtuguese 

 of Ilha do Principe (Quit of Guinea). The ninth pamphlet of the 

 series is, like the others, richly illustrated with vocabularies, pop- 

 ular songs, and other texts; the translation being added on the 

 same page, we are enabled to judge more thoroughly upon the 

 degree of mixture that has taken place between the European 

 tongues and the native dialects. 



