July 20, 1888.] 



SCIENCE 



35 



:schoo!s : (i) Chinese, where a purely Chinese education is given ; 

 {2j Romanized Chinese, in whicii a European education is given in 

 the Chinese language ; (3) Portuguese, where a European educa- 

 tion is given in the Portuguese language only ; (4) Anglo-Chinese 

 schools, numbering eight, with 1,160 scholars; (5) English schools, 

 numbering six, with 688 scholars, in which the children are taught 

 in the English language only. The Government Central School 

 presented 384 boys for the annual examination, and of these 375 

 passed; that is, the very high percentage of 97.65. At this latter 

 school the subjects taught are reading, dictation, arithmetic, Chi- 

 nese into English, English into Chinese, grammar, geography, map- 

 drawing, composition, Euclid, algebra, mensuration, history, and 

 Latin. 



— Nature is authority for the statement that on April 29, when 

 off the Westman Islands, Iceland, the captain of the Danish mail- 

 steamer ' Laura' threw overboard a letter written in Danish. On 

 May 6 the letter was found in the stomach of a cod caught by a 

 French fisherman off Reykjanaas, about one hundred and twenty 

 miles distant. The man showed it to the French consul at Reyk- 

 javik, who submitted it to the captain of the ' Laura.' It was much 

 decomposed, but still readable. 



— There being no provision in this country for the accurate com- 

 parison of electrical standards and apparatus, it has been decided 

 to provide means for such measurements at Johns Hopkins Univer- 

 sity. The work will be under the general direction of Professor 

 Rowland and under the immediate supervision of Dr. Duncan. 

 The comparisons will be made by G. A. Liebig, Ph.D., who has 

 been appointed assistant in electricity. The importance of such 

 provision for the comparison of standards has been for some time 

 recognized. Such representative bodies as the American Associa- 

 tion for the Advancement of Science, and the National Electrical 

 Conference, held in 18S4 at Philadelphia, have discussed the possi- 

 bility of a bureau of standards, and have favored its establishment. 

 It is not probable that the government will take any steps in the 

 matter, at least for the present, and, as time goes on, the need be- 

 comes more pressing. There is needed some laboratory where in- 

 struments can be compared with standards of undoubted correct- 

 ness, by accurate methods and careful observers, under uniform 

 and determinate conditions. These requirements are filled by the 

 standards and apparatus in the possession of this university, and by 

 the facilities and experience that the laboratory offers. 



— A new and greatly improved edition of the photographic map 

 of the normal solar spectrum, made by Prof. H. A. Rowland, e.x- 

 tending from the extreme ultra-violet down to and including B to 

 wave-length 6950, is now being printed. The old map, published 

 in 1886, was made by means of a grating ruled on the old dividing- 

 engine, which was originally intended for only small gratings. 

 Furthermore, it was not printed in a sufficiently careful manner ; 

 and the negatives, which were originally none too good, soon be- 

 came broken or defaced, so that many of the prints, especially the 

 later ones, were not satisfactory. The whole work has now been 

 gone over again. A new dividing-engine to rule large gratings has 

 been constructed, and has proved to be superior in every way to the 

 old one, although the old one is almost equal to it for small-size 

 gratings. Several concave gratings of 6 inches diameter and 21^ 

 feet radius have been ruled with 10,000 or 20,000 lines to the inch, 

 giving definition hitherto undreamed of. Professor Rowland has 

 devoted years to the making of dry plates, simple and orthochro- 

 matic, and is thus better prepared than before for the work of mak- 

 ing the map. He has also revised his list of standard wave-lengths, 

 and extended them into the ultra-violet, and has placed the scale 

 upon the photographs with greater care than before. 



— Bulletin No. 4 of the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station 

 discusses some elaborate experiments in preventing curculio injury 

 to cherries, and treats in a practical way the best midsummer 

 remedies for the chinch-bug, which has lately appeared in de- 

 structive numbers in Ohio. In the cherry experiment, which was 

 conducted by the station entomologist, Clarence M. Weed, 22,500 

 cherries were individually cut open and examined, and the conclusion 

 reached that three-fourths of the cherries liable to injury by the 

 curculio can be saved, without danger to the user, by spraying with 



a solution of London purple soon after the blossoms fall. This 

 bulletin will be sent free to any Ohio farmer who will address 

 Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station, Columbus, O. 



— At a meeting of the Paris Academy of Sciences, July 2, there 

 was presented a series of drawings of the planet Mars made by M. 

 Perrotin, director of the observatory at Nice. In the discussion 

 which followed, M. Fizeau offered an explanation of the singular 

 canals observed on the surface of Mars, which resemble slightly 

 canals used for irrigation. The explanation which he gives is, that 

 on the surface of Mars there must be large glaciers similar to those 

 which exist on the earth, but of an extent far greater, and that the move- 

 ments and crevasses are much more pronounced. This hypothesis, 

 as M. Fizeau claims, accords perfectly with our present knowledge 

 of the planet. We know, first, that the seasons are twice as long 

 as on the earth ; second, that the force of gravity is feeble; third, 

 that the temperature is probably much lower than that of the 

 earth ; and, fourth, that the atmosphere is less developed than that 

 of the earth, less extended, and consequently less able to absorb 

 and preserve the solar heat. 



— The Royal Society of New South Wales offers its medal and 

 a money prize for the best communication (provided it be of suffi- 

 cient merit) containing the results of original research or observa- 

 tion upon each of the following subjects : — to be sent in not later 

 than May i, 1889, 'On the Chemistry of the Australian Gums and 

 Resins ' (the society's medal and ^^S). ' On the Aborigines of 

 Australia' (the society's medal and ;^25), 'On the Iron-Ore De- 

 posits of New South Wales ' (the society's medal and £zi), ' List 

 of the Marine Fauna of Port Jackson, with Descriptive Notes as to 

 Habits, Distribution, etc' (the society's medal and _£25) ; to be 

 sent in not later than May I, 1890, 'Influence of the Australian 

 Climate, General and Local, in the Development and Modification 

 of Disease' (the society's medal and ^25), 'On the Silver-Ore 

 Deposits of New South Wales ' (the society's medal and ^25), ' On 

 the Occurrence of Precious Stones in New South Wales, with a 

 Description of the Deposits in which They are found ' (the society's 

 medal and £2^). The competition is in no way confined to mem- 

 bers of the society, nor to residents in Australia, but is open to all 

 without any restriction whatever, excepting that a prize will not be 

 awarded to a member of the council for the time being ; neither 

 will an award be made for a mere compilation, however meritorious 

 in its way. The communication, to be successful, must be either 

 wholly or in part the result of original observation or research on 

 the part of the contributor. 



— Senator Hoar, in his recent oration at the Marietta centennial, 

 spoke of the Ordinance of 1787, by which the North-west Territory 

 was established, as " one of the three little deeds of American con- 

 stitutional liberty." " It belongs," he said, " with the Declaration of 

 Independence and the Constitution." Yet how many Americans, 

 even good scholars, have ever read the Ordinance of 17S7 } Few 

 would know where to look for it, and, looking, would probably find 

 it only in the appendix to some obscure and dusty volume. Many, 

 therefore, at this time will be glad to know that the directors of 

 the 'Old South Studies' have incorporated it in their new general 

 series of ' Old South Leaflets,' which are published for schools and 

 the trade by D. C. Heath & Co., Boston, and that it is now ready 

 for distribution. These ' Old South Leaflets,' which sell for the small 

 price of five cents a copy or three dollars per hundred, are the 

 means of bringing a great number of important original documents 



into the service of our historical students. Ginn & Co. will 



publish shortly a ' Manual of Astronomy,' by Prof. C. A. Young of 



Princeton College. The first number of a new monthly journal 



devoted to physics was published in St. Petersburg in May. The 

 object of this journal is to give each month a rlsiimi of progress in 



the science. E. & J. B. Young & Co. will publish shortly ' The 



Last Journals of Bishop Hannington." The volume will be some- 

 what a continuation of the ' Memoirs of Bishop Hannington,' 

 though, of course, treating altogether of the later years of his life, 

 and of his work in Africa. G. P. Putnam's Sons have in prep- 

 aration ' Omitted Chapters of Historj' Disclosed in the Life and 

 Papers of Edmund Randolph. Governor of \'irginia. First Attorney- 

 General United States. Secretar\- of State, etc.," by Moncure D. 

 Conway. The volume will contain copies of a large number of 



