120 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VIII,, No. 183 



called Ek Balam, or the city of the black tiger. 

 He was obliged to get away very soon, but now 

 that the place is known it can be revisited. On 

 an island about eight leagues north of Campeche 

 he found a Maya burial ground which has never 

 been investigated by a man of science. He lived 

 here about fifteen days, the Indians gradually 

 abandoning the camp for fear of the dead men's 

 retaliation, owing to the death of one of their 

 number. He then returned io Ek Balam, whei'e 

 he remained eighteen days. He is now busy on 

 his report, which will be ready in a few months. 



Greenland. — The information derived from the 

 Danish newspapers in regard to Lieutenant Ry- 

 der's expedition to Greenland is enlarged and cor- 

 rected on the authority of that officer. The party 

 should have left Copenhagen on May 9, and did 

 not expect to return before the autumn of 1887. 

 The commission, besides Messrs. Ryder and Bloch, 

 will comprise the geologist Ussing. The object of 

 the exploration to be made is the little-known 

 coast between Melville Bay and Upernivik, which 

 has never been scientifically surveyed. It is hoped 

 that suitable charts can be prepared when the 

 commission has finished its researches, which will 

 include soundings as well as geographical and 

 geological surveys. 



A newly discovered lake on the Spanish 

 frontier. — Schrader has for some years been en- 

 gaged ujjon surveys among the higher Pyrenees, 

 and recently presented the third leaf of his pro- 

 posed six-leaved chart of the central Pyrenees to 

 the Paris geographical society. On this occasion 

 he called attention to several points of interest. 

 This third leaf represents the Aran valley on the 

 north slope, but which being Spanish territory has 

 not been included in the map of the French gen- 

 eral staff. Part of it has been represented as 

 draming into the Mediterranean, while it really 

 is tributary to the Garonne. In the second place, 

 Schrader's triangulations, made with difficulty 

 amid the fogs and wind-storms of the higher 

 peaks, showed a gap unfilled between two chains 

 of peaks which, approached from opposite sides, 

 he had supposed to form a single range. The ex- 

 plorations of Dr. Jaubernat of the Alpine club, of 

 Toulouse, a zealous botanist and photographer, 

 showed that this gap was filled by a lake, the 

 largest on the whole northern slope of the Py- 

 renees. No one else had ever seen it. So it 

 appears that it is only since the summer of 1883. 

 when Jaubernat took his photographs, that any 

 one has known of the existence of the largest 

 lake on the Spanish frontier. M. Schrader adds 

 that on the south and south-east of the Aran 

 valley, several ranges are to be found, nearly ten 

 thousand feet in height, which as yet have no 



place on any geographical map. It would seem 

 that explorers may still find congenial work, even 

 in Europe. 



LONDON LETTER. 



It is probably known to many readers of Science 

 that a trial has lately taken place in London, the 

 result of which, if not reversed by appeal, will 

 seriously affect the future of electric lighting in 

 this country, so far as incandescencs lamps are 

 concerned. Nobody but Messrs. Edison and Swan 

 may now use the carbonaceous ' filament.' The 

 use of such filaments is decided to be an infringe- 

 ment of the patent granted to Mr. T. A. Edison 

 (Nov. 10, 1879 ; No. 4576), for the use of a ' light- 

 giving body of carbon wire or sheets.' It has just 

 been pointed out by Mr. Mattieu Williams, who 

 himself assisted in the experiments more than 

 forty years ago, that the real inventor of the pro- 

 cess for obtaining light by the incandescence of a 

 strip or wire of carbon was a young American, 

 Mr. Starr, whose patent for it (taken out by Mr. 

 King) was enrolled on May 4, 1846. At the end of 

 a barometer-tube a bulb was blown, into which a 

 platinum wii'e was fused, and to one end of this 

 a stick of gas-retort carbon was fastened, the 

 other wire being carried through the mercury. — i 

 the whole tube being 33 inches long. Mr. Starr I 

 tried platinum, and platino-irridium alloys, in 

 wires and sheets, carbonized threads, cane, etc., 

 before he hit upon gas-retort carbon. The lamp 

 was repeatedly exhibited in action, at the town 

 hall, and the Midland institute in Birmingham, by 

 Mr. Williams. The carbon stick was 0.1 inch in 

 diameter and 0.5 inch long ; and the platinum wire 

 had the same sectional area as the rod. The light 

 was eminently and brilliantly successful ; but 

 funds were exhausted, and none concerned in it 

 were adepts in getting up companies. Moreover, 

 Mr. Starr was engaged in improving the magneto- J 

 electric machine then in use for electroplating, I 

 etc., by Messrs. Elkington of Birmingham ; hence I 

 the matter was not followed up. ' 



A very ingenious primary battery has just been 

 brought into public notice by Messrs. Woodhouse 

 & Rawson. the invention of M. Rene Upward. 

 An outer cell, sealed at the top, holds fragments 

 of carbon, slightly moistened with water ; an 

 inner porous cell contains zinc immersed in water. 

 Chlorine gas is passed through the outer cells, 

 each of which is of course provided with an inlet 

 and outlet pipe, and a vacuum of about 0.5 inch 

 water is maintained in the whole series of outer 

 cells. The electromotive force per cell is 2.4 volts. 

 The battery is entirely free from ' local action ' 

 and 'polarization,' and has been specially de- 

 signed for small electric-light installations. For 



