November 18, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



689 



itself. Long Island Sound is easily reached 

 from the laboratory and excursions have 

 been made on the launch of the laboratory 

 to the rocky shores of Connecticut. A two 

 hours' ride on the bicycle over good roads 

 brings one to the Great South Baj', which 

 contains certain oceanic animals not found 

 at Coldspring, e. g., Cyance, Aurelia and 

 Zygodactyla. This great bay is almost a new 

 field for the biologist. The few attempts at 

 dredging there, made during the past sea- 

 son, indicate that it will be a fruitful field 

 for exploration. Finally, the eastern end 

 of Long Island, with its extensive bays, can 

 best be studied from the Coldspring Harbor 

 laboratory as a base. 



The general outlines of our fauna and 

 flora are already sketched. This much 

 knowledge is necessary as a basis for fur- 

 ther work, whether in the way of instruc- 

 tion or in the way of research in anatomy, 

 embryology or physiology, or in such sj'stem- 

 atic study as shall reveal more completely 

 the kinds of organisms living here and the 

 conditions which determine their occur- 

 rence. 



Chas B. Davenpoet. 



CoLDSPBiNG Harbor, August 8, 1898. 



Nernst accomplishes by placing it in the focus 

 of a refiecter ( C) as seen in Fig. I. On the 

 inner side of the reflector is a spiral wire of 



THE NERNST LAMP. 



The Frankfurter Zeitung contained re- 

 cently a very interesting account of Pro- 

 fessor Nernst's new electric lamp. As in- 

 formation on this subject has heretofore 

 been so difficult to obtain, a brief abstract 

 from this article may be of interest to the 

 readers of Science. 



As has been previously announced. Pro- 

 fessor Nernst employs magnesium oxide for 

 the illuminating material which at ordinary 

 temperatures is a nou-conductor, but when 

 heated to a sufficiently high degree (and 

 herein lies Professor Nernst's discovery) 

 becomes a perfect conductor and emits a 

 brilliant white light. The preliminary 

 heating of the magnesia (J.) Professor 



platinum (i)) which, when brought to in- 

 candescence by a current, produces heat 

 sufiicient to render the magnesia a con- 



ductor; a current is then passed directly 

 through the oxide by the wire (£) and 

 that in the spiral is shut off. A com- 

 plicated form of lamp is seen in Fig. II. 

 Here the magnesia {A') is placed within a 

 cj'linder (0), which also incloses a plat- 

 inum spiral (-D). As soon as the incan- 

 descent spiral has heated the magnesia 



