November 12, 1886.] 



SCIENCE. 



431 



cashire and Yorkshire, and have never been 

 properly described ; while the liberality of several 

 American paleontologists, especially Mr. Charles 

 Wachsmuth of Burlington, has enabled the authors 

 to make their work a nearly complete monograph 

 of the group. They recognize nineteen genera, 

 which are arranged into six families, and these fall 

 into two orders, the Regulares and Irregulares. 

 The latter contains the singular Devonian genus 

 eleutherocrenies, which was so well described by 

 the late Dr. Shuniard, together with two equally 

 aberrant types from the carboniferous of England 

 and Ireland respectively. These three genera dif- 

 fer altogether from the familiar Pentremites in 

 having no trace of a stem and in the asymmetry 

 of the calyx. 



The reports recently made to the local govern- 

 ment board by public analysts indicate in a very 

 striking way the good effected by the adulteration 

 act of 1875 as regards food and drugs. When 

 public attention was first directed to this question 

 (by the Lancet), one- half the samples of food 

 analyzed were found to be adulterated. The re- 

 turns for a twelvemonth, just published, show 

 that only 13.3 per cent had been thus tampered 

 with. The adulteration seems greatest in spirit?, 

 being 537 out of 2.321, or 28.1 per cent. Butter 

 comes next, with 18.8 per cent. Then follow in 

 order, coffee, mustard, and milk. The adultera- 

 tion of bread has almost ceased, only 31 samples 

 out of 1,168 tested (not 3 per cent) being faulty. 

 Confectionery and beer are practicallv unadulter- 

 ated, while not a single suspicious case occurred 

 among the numerous samples of flour, sugar, 

 pickles, tinned vegetables, jam, and wine, which 

 were examined. 



There are many signs that the electric lighting 

 industry, so long under a cloud, has at last taken 

 a very decided turn in the right direction, not- 

 withstanding the fact that the removal by parlia- 

 ment of the legislative restrictions imposed upon 

 it by the electric lighting act of 1882 seems as far 

 off as ever. Numerous celebrations are projected 

 in connection with the jubilee year of the acces- 

 sion of Queen Victoria, in many of which the 

 electric light is to play a very prominent part. 

 The battle of the patents still continues in connec- 

 tion with incandescent lamps, a monopoly in the 

 manufacture of which is claimed by the Edison 

 company, and is stoutly opposed by a number of 

 manufacturers, headed by Messrs. Woodhouse and 

 Rawson, who, beaten in the first trial, have ap- 

 pealed against the judgment of the courts, and 

 will probably carry the matter, if necessary, up to 

 the house of lords. That great competitor of 

 the electric light, the gas industry, is now seriously 

 hampered by the difficulty in disposing of its tar. 



The quantity of coal carbonized for gas-making in 

 the United Kingdom is about 8,450,000 tons per 

 year ; and if the yield of tar be taken at 12.5 

 gallons per ton, specific gravity 1.165, it foUows 

 that 558,780 tons of tar are annually produced. 

 Attention, therefore, is being directed to the best 

 conditions under which tar can be burnt as fuel ; 

 and its injection into the furnace by means of 

 steam, with an atomizing apparatus, is found to 

 be one of the best methods. Such ' tar-steana * 

 evaporates 10.7 pounds of water per pound of 

 fuel, as against from 7 to 8 pounds evaporated by 

 1 pound of coal. W. 



London, Oct. 13. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



Cornell university, taking up the plan out- 

 lined by President Adams last spring, will estab- 

 lish a law school, with a course of study extend- 

 ing over two years. The faculty will consist of a 

 resident dean, a professor and an assistant pro- 

 fessor, together with non-resident professors of 

 special subjects. Ttie faculty will be chosen in 

 January, 1887, and a formal announcement of 

 the new school will be made at that time. Cor- 

 nell reports this fall 33 graduate students and 304 

 freshmen. The total enrollment is 794. 



— Dr. Wiedermann. so long the ardanuensis and 

 pupil of von Ranke, is in an asylum near Berlin. 

 He suffered so much from overwork on the last 

 volume of Ranke's history, and from the nervous 

 excitement attending the last illness and death of 

 his master, that his mental powers became un- 

 settled. 



— The first of the Lowell free courses of lec- 

 tures in Boston this winter given under the au- 

 spices of the Teachers' school of science of the 

 Boston society of natural history, wiU be by Prof. 

 W. M. Davis of Harvard college, on ' Problems in 

 physical geography.' The program is as follows : 

 — first and second lectures, ' Geographical classi- 

 fication,' illustrated by the classification of lakes 

 according to the mode of origin of their basins ; 

 thu'd lecture, ' Geographical evolution,' illustrated 

 by the development of plains, plateaus, and their 

 derivatives ; fourth and fifth lectures, ' Geographi- 

 cal evolution, as seen in the volcanic series of 

 geographic forms, all structures consisting of 

 rock thrust up while molten from a deep subter- 

 ranean source may be considered under this head- 

 ing ; the characteristic series of topographic forms 

 developed during their wasting-away will be de- 

 scribed. The lectures will be illustrated by maps, 

 diagrams, and models : they will be given, as usual, 

 in Huntington hall, at the Massachusetts institute 

 of technology, beginning on Nov. 6. 



