1002 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXV. No. 652 



hereditary. Alfred W. G. Wilson gives some 

 interesting accounts of ' Cliubs Nests,' prob- 

 ably made by Semotilus corporalis. These 

 ' nests ' are small mounds of pebbles and some- 

 times reach a diameter of five or six feet 

 and a height of 14 to 24 inches. In 

 correspondence Dr. Jordan alludes to the 

 flying-fish problem, stating his opinion that 

 the fins are not moved. But when a flying- 

 fish is laid on a vessel's deck the fins are 

 flapped vigorously, and why not in the air? 



The Museums Journal of Great Britain for 

 April notes that the eighteenth meeting will 

 be held in Dundee. F. A. Bather dis- 

 cusses ' Interchangeability in Cases,' with 

 special reference to those in the geolog- 

 ical department of the British Museum. 

 It is soothing to find that Dr. Bather 

 has met the ever-occurring irritating facts 

 that the cabinet-maker shows a diabolical 

 ingenuity in frustrating the work of the de- 

 signer, and that no carpenter with any proper 

 pride will make a drawer or a shelf that will 

 run freely. The interchangeability of large 

 cases is rather a difiicult matter, but was to 

 a great extent applied by Dr. Goode in the 

 U. S. National Museum. Dr. O. Lehmann 

 describes some interesting features in ' The 

 Altona Museum Exhibit at Dresden, 1906,' 

 wherein he so arranged the specimens as to 

 give the visitor the idea that nature works in 

 much the same manner as the artist and that 

 the form is the shortest artistic expression of 

 the whole life of the animal. From this and 

 previous articles it is evident that Dr. Leh- 

 mann has expended much thought in making 

 his museum attractive and instructive to the 

 ordinary visitor. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 



THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OP SCIENCES — SECTION 

 OP ASTRONOMY, PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY 



A JOINT meeting with the Physics Club of 

 New York City was held at the American 

 Museum of Natural History on Friday eve- 

 ning, March 22. The following demonstra- 

 tions were given: 



F. J. Arnold: Finding the weight of an 

 irregular body by means of its center of 



gravity. An irregular body consisting of a 50 

 cm. wooden rod with a bar of metal attached 

 at one end to give the combination a low 

 center of gravity. Location of center of 

 gravity, fulcrum and known force marked on 

 paper strip fastened to bar and lever arms 

 measured directly by means of these points. 



R. H. Cornish: (1) Method of projection 

 on screen of lines of force surrounding a con- 

 ductor carrying a current. (2) Mechanical 

 illustration of beats in sound. 



J. Stewart Gibson : New piece of apparatus 

 for showing the relation between intensity of 

 illumination and distance. 



W. E. Pyle : (a) Dip-needle demonstration. 

 (i) Magnetizer for magnets. 



E. E. VON Nardroff: An apparatus for de- 

 termining the moment of inertia in gm.-cm.' 

 units. 



Chas. Forbes: (a) The osmosescope. (h) 

 The centrifugal railway. 



W. M. Campbell read a paper on the effect 

 of pressure on magnetization of iron. The 

 paper referred briefiy to the Kirchoif theory 

 on the effects' of stress deduced from the 

 strains due to magnetization, to the experi- 

 mental work done by Wassmuth, Tomlinson, 

 Nagaoka and Honda and Miss Frisbie, and the 

 contradictory results they obtained. Then 

 followed a description of the apparatus used 

 by the writer, the method of conducting the 

 experiment and the results. Higher pressures 

 were used in magnetizing fields stronger than 

 those used by other investigators. Keeping 

 the pressure constant and changing the field, 

 the results showed an increase in intensity up 

 to about eighteen units of field, then a de- 

 crease with a change of sign at about H ^ 90 

 units, and a continual decrease with increase 

 of field. 



J. Stewart Gibson read a paper on the re- 

 sults of a series of experiments on the critical 

 angle; its effect on vision from underneath 

 the surface of water. 



At a meeting of the section held on Monday 

 evening. May 20, F. M. Pedersen read a paper 

 on the influence of molecular structure upon 

 the internal friction of the vapors of certain 

 isomeric ethers. The viscosity coefficients of 



