January 1, 1897.] 



SCIENCE. 



33 



SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS. 



THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



The January number, beginning Volume 

 III. of the Fourth Series, opens with an arti- 

 cle on the Worship of Meteorites, by the late 

 Prof. Newton. This article was delivered as a 

 lecture in New Haven some eight years since, 

 but has not before been published. In it the 

 author has brought together a large number of 

 facts showing the superstitious regard attached 

 to meteorites from the very earliest times. The 

 first case mentioned is that of the iron from an 

 altar of an Indian mound in Ohio, which was 

 preserved with other articles evidently regarded 

 as of peculiar value. By some this iron is re- 

 garded as probably the same as that of which a 

 number of masses were found about 1886 in 

 Kiowa county, Kansas. Another case spoken 

 of is that of the stone which fell at Ensisheim, in 

 Alsace, in 1492, which was preserved in a church 

 at that place. A fall of stones some nineteen 

 years later near Milan, in Italy, is also alluded 

 to as having probably been the occurrence re- 

 corded by Raphael by the fireball in his picture 

 of the Foligno Madonna now in the Vatican. 

 The sacred stone of the Mohammedans pre- 

 served in the Kaaba of the mosque at Mecca is 

 also mentioned as perhaps a case in which a 

 meteorite has been selected for long continued 

 worship. The author then goes on to discuss a 

 number of instances recorded in classical litera- 

 ture, and, although it is impossible to say that 

 in each case a meteorite was the object described, 

 in many cases it seems highly probable. The 

 Palladium of Troy, the Needle of Cybele, the 

 original image of the Ephesian Artemis, are 

 some of the cases which the author describes in 

 detail with quotations from the original authori- 

 ties. On a later page of the same number a 

 description is given by "Warren M. Foote, of a 

 new meteoric iron from the Sacramento Moun- 

 tains, in New Mexico. This is a typical siderite 

 and weighed, as found, 237 kilograms (521 

 pounds). It shows the common octahedral 

 structure with unusual distinctness. Two plates 

 accompany the article, one showing the appear- 

 ance of the iron itself, one-eighth the natural 

 size, the other the Widmannstatten figures prin- 

 ted directly from an etched slab. As further 

 bearing on the same subject is to be mentioned 



a catalogue of the meteorites in the Yale Uni- 

 versity collection, which forms an appendix to 

 the number. 



The second article is by John Trowbridge and 

 and T. M. Richards, on the Spectra of Argon. 

 The authors have studied these spectra, the 

 first one of which is characterized by red lines, 

 and the other by blue, by means of a high ten- 

 sion accumulator giving an electromotive force 

 of over 10,000 volts. The advantages of such 

 a source of electricity of high potential as con- 

 trasted with the ordinary induction coil the 

 authors found to be very great. By means of 

 it they were able to study minutely the condi- 

 tions under which each of the spectra mentioned 

 was obtained. The argon employed was a sample 

 of exceptional purity obtained from Lord Ray- 

 leigh, and the tube containing it was prepared 

 with special reference to the work in hand. The 

 authors found that the red glow in the tube was 

 due to a unidirectional discharge, while the blue 

 glow was due to an oscillatory discharge ; the 

 conditions determining the change of the red to 

 the blue glow are described in detail. It appears 

 that an argon tube is extremely sensitive to os- 

 cillatory discharges, and it is suggested that it is 

 likely to be of great use, on this account, in the 

 study of wave motions of electricity. 



George F. Becker discusses at length the 

 hypotheses which have been advanced to ex- 

 plain the difierentiation of rock magmas. The 

 segregation of a homogeneous fluid into dis- 

 tinguishable portions has been regarded as due 

 to molecular flow, as is shown in ordinary dif- 

 fusion or in osmosis. All the processes of mo- 

 lecular flow are shown to be reducible to the 

 movements which are due to dififerences of os- 

 motic pressure. The most important case of 

 molecular flow as regards the subject under 

 discussion (studied by Soret) is that due to the 

 heating of the solution at the top ; this, how- 

 ever, requires a very improbable decrease of 

 temperature with the depth. Furthermore, 

 when the rate of diffusion in two miscible 

 liquids in contact is discussed quantitatively, 

 assuming a rate of diffusion such as that al- 

 ready determined for copper sulphate, it is 

 shown that this rate is extremely slow. Thus, 

 in the case of copper sulphate and water in 

 contact, at the expiration of a million years the 



