528 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IV. No. 93. 



ence of cold water. The crystals are color- 

 less and small, though easily visible with a 

 lens. The tension of dissociation at 0° is 

 about 105 atmospheres, at + 8° 210 atmos- 

 pheres. 



An account of the Jubilee of the Chemi- 

 cal Society of London, in 1891, has just 

 been published by the Society in book form. • 

 It contains a record of the proceedings of 

 the Jubilee meeting and also a full history 

 of the Society. Abstracts are given of all 

 the presidential annual reports, the subjects 

 of all lectures before the Society, and the full 

 text of the first Faraday Lecture, which 

 was given in 1869 by Dumas, and which 

 had never before been printed in the So- 

 ciety's publications. The whole volume, 

 which includes 292 pages and gives the full 

 history of one of the most important scien- 

 tific societies of the world, will be found of 

 value to all who are interested in chemistry. 



A SERIES of experiments has been carried 

 out by Messrs. Dixon and Baker, having 

 for their object the determination of the 

 chemical activity of the Eontgen rays. 

 Carbon monoxid and oxygen (dry and 

 moist), hydrogen and oxygen, carbon mo- 

 noxid and chlorin, hydrogen and chlorin, 

 and dry hydrogen and sulfid and sulfur 

 dioxid, were exposed half an hour to the 

 rays ; sparks were passed through dry car- 

 bon monoxid and oxygen, both with rays 

 falling on the mixture and when they were 

 not. In no case could any chemical effect 

 of the rays be detected, hence the authors 

 conclude that if there is any chemical activ- 

 ity of the rays it is too small to be meas- 

 ured. The action of the rays on the photo- 

 graphic plate they attribute to the fluores- 

 cence of the glass behind the film. 



J. L. H. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 

 The attendance at the Liverpool Meeting of 

 the British Association was 3,181, distributed 

 as follows : Old life members, 330 ; new life 



members, 31 ; old annual members, 383 ; new 

 annual members, 139 ; associates, 1,384 ; ladies, 

 873 ; foreign members, 41. As had been al- 

 ready arranged, the meeting for next year will 

 be at Toronto under the Presidency of Sir John 

 Evans, beginning August 18th, The meeting 

 in 1898 will be at Bristol and in 1899 at Dover. 

 The sum of £1,355 was appropriated in grants 

 for scientific purposes. 



In addition to the lecturers in connection 

 with the sesquicentennial celebration at Prince- 

 ton, already announced, the exercises will be 

 attended by a number of distinguished men of 

 science as delegates from foreign universities. 

 The names have not as yet been published, but 

 include M. Henri Moissan, the eminent chem- 

 ist from the University at Paris, and Prof. E. 

 B. Poulton, professor of zoology at Oxford, and 

 personally known to many Americans from his 

 previous visit. 



We learn from Die Natur that elaborate ar- 

 rangements are being made in Portugal to cele- 

 brate the 400th anniversary of Vasco da Gama's 

 discovery of the sea route to India. The 8th, 

 9th and 10th of July of next year are to be 

 made national holidays and a number of expo- 

 sitions and congresses are to be held at Lisbon, 

 including agriculture, ethnography, fisheries 

 and hydrography. The event will also be cele- 

 brated by the Geographical Society of Vienna, 

 before which an address will be made by Prof. 

 Wilh. Tomaschek. 



The Jubilee of the discovery of anaesthesia 

 will be celebrated in France in connection with 

 the meeting of the French Surgical Congress 

 beginning October 18th. The event will also 

 be celebrated in London and in Boston. The 

 first surgical operation under ether was carried 

 out by Dr. J. Collins Warren in the Massachu- 

 setts General Hospital on October 16, 1846. 

 The anaesthetic was administered by W. T. G. 

 Morton, who about two weeks before had ex- 

 tracted a tooth from a patient under the influ- 

 ence of ether. 



It is stated that Lieut, Joseph E, Maxfield, 

 Chief Signal Officer of the Department of the 

 Missouri, and now stationed in Chicago, will 

 soon make an ascent on a man-carrying kite, to 

 be built by Octave Chanute. The ascent will 



