January 3, 1890.] 



SCIENCE. 



working speed, but the machine is sometimes speeded up to 28,000 

 revolutions per minute. The magnolia anti-friction metal, men- 

 tioned recently in these columns, is used for bearings, which per- 

 mits this high speed to be maintained for ten hours a day without 

 heating the journals. 



— In a recent pamphlet on petroleum-fields, Mr. Charles Mar- 

 vin states that the oil- fields of Canada cover upward of a hundred 

 thousand square miles. There are also extensive oil-fields, com- 

 paratively undeveloped, in South Africa, New Zealand, South 

 Australia, and Burmah. As the South African oil-fields underlie 

 the diamond and gold mining districts, it would seem to be assured 

 of a speedy development, fuel costing nearly a hundred dollars a 

 ton there. 



— Mr. Loubat, a member of the New York Historical Society, 

 as we have already noted, has given to the Academic des Inscrip- 

 tions et Belles-Lettres of Paris, a fund with an annual income of 

 1,000 francs for the giving of a prize of 3,000 francs every third 

 year. This prize is to be given to the best printed work on history, 

 geography, archaeology, ethnography, linguistics, or numismatics 

 of North America. The academy fixes 1776 as the latest date to 

 which, the works are to apply. The prize will be awarded in 1892, 

 and any work will be open to the prize if published after July i, 

 1889, whether in Latin, French, English, Spanish, or Italian. 



— In the manufacture of one or two proprietary articles, Mr. 

 James Gresham of Brooklyn has found it necessary, according to 

 the Oil, Paint, and Drug Reporter, to use beeswax, from which 

 he extracts the saccharine and gelatine matters, leaving a fine 

 powder containing all of the other principles of beeswax. This 

 latter substance has always been considered a waste product until 

 lately, when experiments demonstrated its value for polishing fine 

 surfaces, such as furniture, silver, glass, etc. The discovery is 

 considered important, and will no doubt be turned to industrial ac- 

 count instead of the by-product being destroyed, as formerly. 



— The Maryland Historical Society has published in a handsome 

 volume the first instalment of the "Calvert Papers," recovered 

 after years of fruitless search, and acquired by the society some- 

 what more than a year ago. These papers consist of about one 

 thousand documents relating to the Calvert family and to the prov- 

 ince of Maryland ; and they extend chronologically from the 

 reign of Elizabeth to about ten years before the American Revolu- 

 tion. A large numbtr are of great historical importance and in- 

 terest. This volume, besides a selection from these documents,, 

 gives an account of their recovery and presentation to the society, 

 and a complete calendar, carefully prepared by Mr. J. W. M. Lee, 

 of all the papers recovered. A handsome blazon, in colors, of the 

 arms of Cecilius Calvert, as given in Gwillim, forms the frontis- 

 piece. 



— At a largely attended meeting in Edinburgh on Tuesday, Dec. 

 3, it was resolved, we learn from Nature, that Mr. George Reid, 

 R.S.A., should be commissioned to paint a portrait of Professor P. 

 G. Tait, to be placed permanently in the rooms of the Royal So- 

 ciety of Edinburgh. A committee was appointed to carry out the 

 resolution, including, among others, Mr. John Murray (" Challen- 

 ger " expedition), convener ; Mr. Gillies Smith, honorary treasurer; 

 Lord President Inglis ; Lord Kingsburgh ; Lord Maclaren ; Sir 

 William Thomson; Sir Arthur Mitchell; Professor Robertson 

 Smith; Professor Chiene ; Dr. Alexander Buchan ; Mr. Robert 

 Cox ; and Mr. William Peddie. It was proposed that an etched 

 engraving of the portrait be prepared for distribution among the 

 subscribers, the plate to be destroyed after the required number of 

 copies have been thrown off. It was further resolved that all the 

 fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the professor's old pu- 

 pils, and others, be afforded an opportunity of taking part in this 

 public recognition of Professor Tait's eminent services to science. 



— Italy, France, and the United States of America were repre- 

 sented in the elections to foreign membership of the Royal Society 

 of London on Thursday, Dec. 5, according to Nature. Profes- 

 sor Stanislao Cannizzaro of Rome was elected on the ground of 

 his researches on molecular and atomic weights ; Professor Chau- 

 veau of Paris, for his researches on the mechanism of the circula- 

 tion, animal heat, nutrition, and the pathology of infectious diseases ; 



and Professor Rowland of Baltimore, for his determination in abso- 

 lute measure of the magnetic susceptibilities of iron, nickel, and 

 cobalt, for his accurate measurements of fundamental physical con- 

 stants, for the experimental proof of the electro-magnetic effect of 

 electric convection, for the theory and construction of curved dif- 

 fraction-gratings of very great dispersive power, and for the effec- 

 tual aid which he has given to the progress of physics in America 

 and other countries. 



— French colonization and development companies are making 

 encouraging progress in creating new oases in the Algerian part of 

 the Desert of Sahara. One company have sunk nine artesian wells, 

 reaching water-bearing strata at a depth of 230 feet, giving a steady 

 flow of about five thousand gallons per minute. The water is 

 brackish, and unfit for drinking, but it answers very well for irriga- 

 tion. This company have about fifty thousand palm-trees under 

 cultivation, the date-palm being the principal variety. Henna and 

 madder are also cultivated profitably, and experiments are in 

 progress with cotton, flax, tobacco, grape-vines, wheat, and barley. 

 Rye-grass and lucern grow abundantly, the latter especially flour- 

 ishing in the palm-tree plantations. This company began opera- 

 tions in 1882, and they now have upwards of nine hundred acres 

 of productive land reclaimed from the desert, watered by twenty- 

 five miles of irrigating canals. These are very interesting experi- 

 ments, and it is to be hoped they will be commercially successful, 

 if not extremely profitable. 



— The committee on building fund of the Natural Science As- 

 sociation of Staten Island, appointed to consider the possibility of 

 obtaining a fund for a meeting hall, museum, and library, state 

 that they have succeeded, by informal personal solicitation, in ob- 

 taining a pledged subscription for that purpose of $100 from each 

 of the following gentlemen : Capt. A. L. King, Eberhard Faber, 

 L. F. Whitin, Dr. N. L. Britton, Aaron Vanderbilt, Henry R. 

 Kunhardt, L. P. Gratacap, Arthur Hollick, and K. B. Newell. The 

 following active members have agreed to become life members (by 

 the payment of $50 each) in order to assist the fund : Dr. Fred- 

 erick Hollick, Dr. William C. Walser, W. B. Kunhardt. From the 

 above it will be seen that more than $1,000 is definitely pledged at 

 the present time. It was thought best to secure some such 

 amount, as a guaranty of earnestness and good faith, before mak- 

 ing a general appeal to the public. The gratifying success has 

 determined the committee to push on with the work, and to 

 publish and distribute a general appeal to the public at an early 

 date, probably during the first part of next month. The sum esti- 

 mated as necessary to be raised is $7,000. 



— A street-railway about a mile and a half in length, on an en- 

 tirely new principle, is being constructed in Washington, D.C., by 

 the Judson Pneumatic Railway Company of this city. In this sys- 

 tem, power is to be transmitted by compressed air from a central 

 station to a series of motors placed beneath the track at intervals 

 of about fifteen hundred feet. In a conduit between the rails, 

 similar in construction to a cable-railway conduit, revolves a 

 smooth cylinder, or series of cylinders coupled together at the ends 

 about six inches in diameter. These cylinders are to be kept in 

 continuous rotation by the compressed-air motors. An adjustable 

 blade or arm projecting from the bottom of the car, and passing 

 through the narrow slot into the conduit, carries at its end a group 

 of friction-wheels, which may be pressed down forcibly upon the 

 upper quarter of the revolving cylinder. The plane of revolution 

 of these friction-wheels may be changed by an ingenious device 

 controlled by a lever, to be operated by the driver of the car. 

 While the friction-wheels revolve in the same plane as the cylinder, 

 the frame supporting them is at rest, but the moment the axes of 

 the wheels are thrown out of line with that of the cylinder, by a 

 movement of the lever, the frame is driven along the cylinder by 

 the diagonal travel of the wheels, which is similar to that of the 

 travelling ink-distributer on some of the old-fashioned printing- 

 presses. The speed of the car is regulated by the angle of inclina- 

 tion of the friction-wheel axles, the cylinder revolving continuously 

 in one direction at a uniform speed. The feasibility of this system, 

 which at first glance would seem doubtful, has been demonstrated 

 to the satisfaction of those interested by the successful working of 

 a full-size model on a two-hundred-foot track in this city. 



