98 



SCIEI^CE. 



[Vol. VUL, No. 182 



propriation of fifty thousand dollars to start the 

 work, the entire cost of which is estimated at 

 nearly six hundred thousand dollars. 



— Dr. George L. Fitch has for five years been 

 in charge of the lepers in the Sandwich Islands. 

 He gives it as his opinion, based on careful study 

 and attempts to inociilate the virus into healthy 

 persons, that leprosy is not a contagious disease. 



— A new and interesting form of stereoscope 

 has recently been described by Mr. Stroh, before 

 the Royal society of England. The apparatus 

 consists of two dissolving-view lantei'ns placed 

 side by side, each of which throws a magnified 

 stereoscopic picture on the screen. In front of 

 these lanterns there is a rotating disk, portions of 

 which are cut away, alternately shutting off the 

 picture from each lantern. By so arranging the 

 rotating disk as to permit each eye to see only 

 the view from one of the lanterns during its very 

 brief exposure, a stei'eoscopic effect is produced, 

 the impression of each picture remaining upon 

 the retina of the corresponding eye long enough 

 to appear to be continuous. 



— Prof. Charles Upham Shepard, jun., has de- 

 posited his collection of meteorites in the national 

 museum at Washington. The collection repre- 

 sents nearly two hundred distinct falls, and con- 

 tains many exceptionally fine specimens. The 

 iron from Dalton, Ga., weighing one hundred and 

 seventeen pounds, is the largest meteorite in the 

 display, and is almost perfect. Only a small 

 piece has been cut from the lesser end. 



— Dr. William L. Dudley, late Miami medical 

 college, Cincinnati, has accepted the chair of 

 chemistry in Vanderbilt university, Nashville, 

 Tenn. 



The volume of the Ray society (England) for 



1885 is made up of the late Mr. Buckler's life- 

 histories of British butterflies, with colored plates 

 of their earlier stages. Most of the descriptions 

 have appeared piecemeal before ; but the work is 

 rendered more complete by additions from his 

 note-book, and new observations by his friend and 

 colleague, Mr. Hellins. Seventeen plates, with 

 two hundred and fifty-five figures, are given, and 

 the drawings are better than the average. The 

 industry of Mr. Buckler, who made all the draw- 

 ings, is shown in the remarkable fact that some 

 part, at least, of the history, is given for fif ty-eight 

 of the sixty -three British species. It is a pity that 

 no drawings whatever of eggs are given. 



— The lectures now being delivered at Oxford 

 by Professor Sylvester on his new theory of re- 

 ciprocants will appear in the coming numbers of 

 the American journal of mathematics. The lec- 



tures are presented in quite simple style, and will 

 be exceedingly interesting to all students of the 

 modern algebra, or, more accurately, of the the- 

 ory of invariants. The first eight or nine lectures 

 will appear in the forthcoming number of the 

 Journal, vol. viii. No. 3. 



— 'Solar heat, gravitation, and sun spots,' 

 by J. H. Kedzie (Chicago, S. C. Griggs & Co., 

 1886), is certainly a book which deserves little 

 praise. If one is not convinced by the title alone, 

 he will find, in the rambling speculation of the 

 author, sufficient evidence that he is treating of 

 theories far beyond him, and of the history and 

 development of which he knows nothing. 



— The Sanitary engineer has collected and pub- 

 lished in book form a number of articles which 

 have appeared in that journal upon ' Steam-heat- 

 ing problems.' This collection is published partly 

 because their previous book upon ' Plumbing and 

 house-drainage problems' was well received. The 

 book is intended to be useful to those who design, 

 construct, and have charge of steam-heating ap- 

 paratus. 



— ' Laboratory calculations and specific gravity 

 tables,' by John S. Adriance (New York, Wileij), is 

 intended to aid students and analytical chemists 

 in their calculations. The author has collected 

 those tables which are constantly needed in the 

 laboratory, hai edited them with care, and it is 

 probable that the book will be found to fill its 

 place satisfactorily. 



— Prof. B. O. Peirce of Harvard has recently 

 published ' The elements of the theory of the New- 

 tonian potential function' (Boston, Ginn), as he calls 

 it. The book is made up of lecture-notes used by 

 the author during the last four years, and can be 

 used by those familiar with the first principles of 

 the calculus. The author found it difficult to find 

 in any single English book a treatment of the sub- 

 ject at once elementary enough and at the same 

 time suited tc the purposes of such as intended to 

 pursue the subject further or wished without 

 making a specialty of mathematical physics to 

 prepare themselves to study experimental phjsics 

 thoroughly and understaridingly. The book is 

 divided into five chapters, — on the attraction of 

 gravitation, the Newtonian potential function in 

 the case of gravitation, the Newtonian j)otentiaI 

 function in the case of repulsion, the proiierties of 

 surface distributions (Green s theorem), and elec- 

 tro-statics. There are certainly few better able to 

 produce such a book than Professor Peirce. 



— Messrs. J. B. Lippincott & Co. have in press 

 a 'Manual of North American birds,' by the 

 eminent ornithologist. Prof. Robert Ridgway, 



