August 12, 1892,] 



SCIENCE. 



the hypothecation of actual molecular structural form — con- 

 figuration, according- to Wunderlich's proposed term to ex- 

 press stereo-chemical relations. The subject of molecular 

 configuration is comparatively new ; still we are becoming 

 familiarized with diagrams and models intended to represent 

 such relations. Many of us may have been at first indis- 

 posed to accept these views as anything more than visionary 

 and fantastic; but the more we have pondered them, the 

 more have we been impressed with their significance and 

 beauty. Shape, form, and volume must be attributed to 

 molecule as well as to mass; the only trouble has been in 

 regard to the former, the apparent audacity and hopelessness 

 of any attempt to penetrate matter to such depths. The new 

 and most refined sense furnished to us by the use of polar- 

 ized light, makes us aware of isomers identical in every re- 

 spect, save their response to this delicate physical agent. 

 Optical isomers have given rise, under the crucial investiga- 

 tions of such men as van t'Hoff, LeBel, Wunderlich, and 

 V. Meyer, to the hypotheses of the asymmetric carbon atom, 

 and the tetrahedral arrangement of the valence-bond, and 

 the saturating atoms or radicals. The simple and symmetri- 

 cal tetrahedron of methane must be accepted as the perfect 

 analogue of a crystal of the same geometric form ; and the 

 optical isomers resulting from the different arrangements of 

 the same atoms or residues around an asymmetric carbon 

 atom, may, in like manner, be taken as the analogues of 

 eaantiomorphous crystals, as of quartz, right-handed and 

 left-handed ; the pairs iu each case being perfectly equivalent, 

 but not superposable. 



Cbemlcal Laboratory, Tulane University, New Orleans, La. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



The cause of the terrible disaster at St. Gervais is now being 

 investigated by several men of science. There can be no doubt 

 that it originated in the small glacier called the Tete Rousse, 

 ■which is nearly 10,000 feet above sea-level. According to a cor- 

 respondent of the London Times, who writes from Lucerne, Pro- 

 fessor Duparc is of opinion that the habitual drainage of this 

 glacier had for some reason or other became either totally blocked 

 or obstructed; the water gradually accumulated in its natural 

 concavity or bed ; and the ever-increasing volume had exercised 

 such an enormous pressure as to force a passage and carry away 

 a portion of the face of the glacier with it. The mass of ice and 

 water rushed down the rocks which dominate the glacier of Bion- 

 nassay, not in a single stream but in several, and then reunited 

 into one enormous torrent at the foot of the Bionnassay glacier. 

 A different theory is held by Professor Forel, of which the corres- 

 pondent of the Times gives the following account : Professor Forel 

 does not see how a quantity of water sufficient to force away so 

 large a portion of the glacier could possibly accumulate in so 

 «mall a body as the Tete Rousse, which has a total superficies of 

 less than one hundred acres. It slopes freely on three sides; it is, 

 in fact, one of the most abrupt of the whole chain of Mont Blanc ; 

 and, in a glacier of this description, witii an altitude of nearly 

 10,000 feet, there are none of the conditions of a great accumula- 

 tion of water. In his opinion, therefore, we must look for the 

 main cause of the disaster in the natural movement and breaking 

 up of the glacier. He estimates the volume of ice which fell at 

 between one and two million cubic metres. The mass, first in 

 falling and then rushing down the rapid slope, became transformed, 

 for the most part, into what he calls a lava of ice and water. The 

 ravine, he says, through which this avalanche rushed shows no 

 traces of any great evacuation of water; in the upper portions of 

 its transit there is no mud and no accumulation of sand, but, 

 on the other hand, there are great blocks of glacier ice strewn 

 ■everywhere, and at several points he found poriions of pow- 

 dered ice mixed with earth. Then, again, if this had been sim- 

 ply a torrent of water falling;, it would have found its way 



down the more violent inclines, instead of, as in this case, 

 passing straight over the frontal moraine at the foot of the 

 glacier. In this higher region, therefore, all the evidence 

 points to an avalanche of ice, which, starting at an altitude of 

 nearly 10,000 feet, and descending at an incline of 70 per cent 

 for 5,000 feet, was pulverized by its fall, a large portion of it 

 being melted by the heat generated in its rapid passage and con- 

 tact with matters relatively warm. It rushed into the ravine by 

 the side of the glacier of Bionnassy and joined the waters of the 

 torrent which issues therefrom, and, further aided by the stream 

 of Bon Nant, it became sufficiently liquid to travel down the 

 lower portions of the valley at the slighter incline of 10 per cent, 

 and yet retained sufficient consistency to destroy everything in its 

 passage. That this torrent was not composed merely of mud and 

 water is proved, he says, by the fact that it did not always maintain 

 the same height when confined to the narrower ravine, and that 

 the remains on the sides of the rock show it to have been a viscous 

 substance rather than fluid. 



— At a meeting of the London Chamber of Commerce on July 

 25, as we learn from Nature, Mr. J. Ferguson read a paper on 

 "The Production and Consumption of Tea, Coffee, Cacao (Cocoa), 

 Cinchona, Cocoa-Nuts and Oil, and Cinnamon, with reference to 

 Tropical Agriculture in Ceylon." He referred to the position of 

 Ceylon, its forcing climate, its command of free cheap labor, and 

 its immunity from the hurricanes which periodically devastated 

 Mauritius, from the cyclones of the Bay of Bengal, and from the 

 volcanic disturbances affecting Java and the Eastern Archipelago. 

 The plantations of Ceylon afforded, he said, the best training in 

 the world for young men in the cultivation and preparation of 

 tropical products, and in the management of free colored labor. 

 The cultivation of cane-sugar, although tried at considerable out- 

 lay on several plantations forty and fifty years ago, proved a fail- 

 ure. More recently experiments by European planters with 

 tobacco had not been a success, notwithstanding that the natives 

 grew a good deal of a coarse quality for their own use. Although 

 cotton growing had not been successful, the island had proved a 

 most congenial home for many useful palms, more particularly 

 the coconut (spelt without the a to distinguish it and its products 

 from cocoa — the beans of the shrub Theobroma cacao) and pal- 

 myra, as also the areca and kitul or jaggery palms. Within the 

 past few years Ceylon had come to the front as one of the great 

 tea-producing countries in the world, India and China being the 

 other two, with Java at a respectable distance. Mr. Ferguson 

 said one of the chief objects of his paper was to demonstrate which 

 of the products of the island it was safe to recommend for extended 

 cultivation in new lands, and which were already in danger of 

 being over-produced, and he had arrived at the conclusion that 

 coffee, cacao, and rubber-yielding trees were the products to plant, 

 while tea, cinnamon, cardamoms, cinchona bark, pepper, and even 

 palms (for their oil) did not offer encouragement to extended cul- 

 tivation. Statistics relating to the total production and consump- 

 tion were given in an appendix. 



— A third edition, largely rewritten, of " The Microscope and 

 Histology," by Simon Henry Gage, associate professor of physi- 

 ology in Cornell University, has been issued by Andrews & Church, 

 Ithaca, N. Y. This volume contains much useful information, 

 systematically arranged, and will, no doubt, be appreciated by 

 those who are learning to use the microscope and desire to famil- 

 iarize themselves with the most approved microscopical methods. 

 Chapter L relates to "The ROcroscope and its Parts;" Chapter 

 II. to "The Interpretation of Appearances," which will be of 

 special value to beginners ; Chapter III. gives detailed informa- 

 tion with reference to " Magnification, Micrometry, and Draw- 

 ing; " Chapter IV. treats of " The Micro-Spectroscope and Micro- 

 Polariscope ; " Chapter V. of "Slides, Cover- glasses, Mounting, 

 Labelling," etc. 



— B. Westermann & Co. will publish in September the third 

 volume of Conway and Crouse's translation of Karl Brugraann's 

 " Comparative Grammar of the Indo-Germanic Languages." The 

 fourth and concluding volume, with a full index, will be issued 

 next year. 



