798 



SCIENCE. 



[X. S. Vol. VIII. No. 205. 



lated upon having brought out in these latter 

 days such a virile volume. 



Conway MacMillan. 



SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS. 

 American Chemical Journal, November : ' On 

 the cause of the retention and release of gases 

 occluded by the oxides of metals :' By T. W. 

 Richards. The author has studied the condi- 

 tions under which the gases are given off and 

 suggests a theory to account for the observed 

 facts. ' New experiments on the quantitative 

 synthesis of water :' By E. H. Keiser. The 

 author has weighed the hydrogen and oxygen 

 used and the water formed, and obtained figures 

 which gave an atomic weight of 15.88 for oxy- 

 gen if hydrogen is taken as 1. 'On the meta- 

 phosphimic acids:' By H. N. Stokes. The 

 homologous series of compounds of the general 

 formula (PNCl2)„ when saponified yield acids ; 

 hut the higher members do not yield acids of 

 the same general structure as the lower ones, a 

 fact for which the author suggests an explana- 

 tion based on the Baeyer ' tension theory.' 

 ' The ethers of toluquinone oxime and their 

 bearing on the space isomerism of nitrogen :' 

 By J. L. Bridge and W. C. Morgan. ' On the 

 claims of davyum to recognition as a chemical 

 element:' By J. W. Mallet. The evidence 

 seems to be against the existence of this ele- 

 ment. J. E. G. 



The American Naturalist for November opens 

 with a paper by Professor Henry S. Williams 

 entitled 'Variation versus Heredity,' maintain- 

 ing the views previously described by him iu 

 Science ; Professor William Patten contributes 

 an article on the theory of color vision described 

 by him at the American Physiological Society 

 in 1897 and the American Morphological So- 

 ciety in 1896 ; Professor W. J. Beal gives ex- 

 amples of peculiar dispersion of seeds and fruits, 

 and Professor 0. B. Davenport summarizes 

 the advance of biology iu 1896 from the Annee 

 biologique. 



The first number of the second volume of the 

 American Journal of Physiology, issued on No- 

 vember 22d, contains the following articles : 



' On the Excretion of Kynurenic Acid :' By La- 

 fayette B. Mendel and Holmes C. Jackson, Ph.B. 



'On the Modification of Rigor Mortis resulting from 

 Previous Fatigue of the Muscle, in Cold- Blooded Ani- 

 mals :' By Caroline W. Latimer, M.D. 



' On the Relation of the Blood to the Automaticity 

 and Sequence of the Heart-Beat :' By W. H. Howell. 



' On the Relation of the Inorganic Salts of Blood to 

 the Automatic Activity of a Strip of Ventricular 

 Muscle:' By Charles Wilson Greene. 



Messrs. Robert Aikmann & Co., Man- 

 chester, announce the publication of a new peri- 

 odical, 'Science IFbrfc,' edited by Mr. Walter 

 Jeffs. It will be issued monthly and is intended 

 to do for science what the Review of Reviews is 

 doing in a wider field. The annual subscrip- 

 tion is only 2/6 — 60 cents. 



At the winter meeting of Section H, Ameri- 

 can Association forthe Advancement of Science, 

 held at Ithaca, December 28, 1897, a commit- 

 tee was appointed to found a journal designed 

 to promote the interests of anthropology in 

 America. The committee held several meetings, 

 conferred with publishers, and reported to Sec- 

 tion H at the Boston meeting of the Association. 

 It has been decided to undertake the pviblica- 

 tion, provided a sufficient number of persons 

 indicate their willingness to support the move- 

 ment by subscribing for the first volume. The 

 journal will be issued ip quarterly numbers of 

 about two hundred octavo pages, forming an 

 annual volume of about eight hundred pages, 

 the first number to appear in January, 1899. 

 The subscription price will be $4. It will em- 

 brace : (1) papers pertaining to all parts of the 

 domain of anthropology, the technical papers 

 to be limited in number and length ; (2) scien- 

 tific notes and news pertaining to anthropology, 

 and (3) a current bibliography of anthropology. 

 The new journal will succeed the American An- 

 thropologist, of the Anthropological Society of 

 Washington, and the name of this journal may 

 be adopted or a new name selected — 'American 

 Journal of Anthropology'' and 'Anthropology.'' 

 The journal will be published by Messrs. G. P. 

 Putnam's Sons and conducted by the following 

 editorial board : Dr. Frank Baker, Dr. Franz 

 Boas, Dr. Daniel G. Brinton, Dr. George M. 

 Dawson, Dr. George A. Dorsey, Professor W. 

 H. Holmes, Major J. W. Powell, Professor F. 

 W. Putnam ; F. W. Hodge, Secretary and 

 Managing Editor. 



