FOR GENERAL READERS. 



Vol. I. — No. 2. {New Series.) 



JANUARY 13th, li 



rWeekly, Prlca 3d. 

 L By Post, Sid- 



CONTENTS. 



Current Events 



The New Chromomictor {illus.) 



Fire from Nitric Acid 



The Mechanism of the Flight o£ Birds 

 (illus.) ... 



Animal Tannin 



GeneralNotes 



Household Experiments in Heat (illus.) 

 The Petroleum Gas Candle («//««.) 



A Large Meteorite 



Dust Traps 



Natural History: 



Birds of Paradise (;7/«j.) 



Feeding Grounds of the Herring 

 and Salmon 



Mice as Butter-Testers 



Elephants at Work in Rangoon ... 



PAGE 



• 25 



• 27 

 . 28 



Will-0 the-Wisp.— II 



The Time it takes to Think 



The Growth of Raindrops 



Reviews: — 



A Sketch of Geological History ... 

 Handbook of Ants, Bees, Dragon- 

 Flies, etc 



Weather 



Experimental Chemistry 



Chemistry and Heat 



The Effect of Light on Plants 



Abstracts of Papers, Lectures, etc : 



Royal Institution ... 42 



Geological Society 42 



Royal Society of Edinburgh ... 43 



Royal Meteorological Society ... 44 



PAGE 



• 37 

 ■ 38 



• 38 



39 



39 



39 

 40 

 41 

 41 



Zoological Society ... 



Birmingham and Midland Institute 



Entomological Society 



Technical Education Notes 



Correspondence : 



Water Snails in an Aquarium. — The 



Effect of Bayonets on Rifle-Firing. 



— British Species of Viper. — A 



Curiosity in Calculation. — Mean 



Velocity of the Wind 

 Pumping by Electricity... 

 Recent Inventions 

 Announcements ... 

 Diary for Next Week 

 Sales 



Exchanges ... ,_ 



Books Received ... 



PAGE 



44 

 45 

 45 

 45 



48 



CURRENT EVENTS. 



Profe-ssor Huxley on Technical Education. — In 

 the course of an address delivered at the Town Hall, 

 Manchester, in support of the National Association for 

 the Promotion of Technical Education, Professor Huxley 

 said that the system of our primary education had the 

 defect which was common to all the educational systems 

 which we had inherited. It was too bookish and too 

 little practical. The child was brought too little into 

 contact with actual facts or things, and, as it stood at 

 present, it constituted next to no education of those par- 

 ticular faculties which were of utmost importance in in- 

 dustrial life — the faculties of observation of accurate 

 work and of dealing with things instead of with words. 

 He laid great stress on the teaching of drawing for chil- 

 dren. They might take the commonest objects and lead 

 a child from them to truths of a higher order. He 

 ■thought that the training of ordinary school-teachers was 

 not favourable to the production of good science and 

 technical masters. 



Higher Education in Russia and its Difficulties. 

 — Strikes and lock-outs are unhappily not strange to us 

 in Britain, though they have not extended to our Univer- 

 sities, What might be the case if the students here were 

 treated as they are in Russia it would be easy to imagine. 

 Trifling ebullitions, which would have signified little if the 

 offenders had been treated with a little of the lenitcr in 

 modo, have assumed formidable dimensions. At present 

 all the Universities in Russia proper, with the exception 

 of KiefF, have been closed, and the entire undergraduate 

 class is in revolt. The Technical, Agricultural, and 



Veterinary Institutions are in the same condition. It 

 appears that at one time the Czar Nicholas contemplated 

 suppressing the Universities in his dominions. His 

 successor, Alexander II., was less jealous of mental 

 cultivation. Under the present Czar restrictions have 

 been again multiplied. The rectors, curators, and pro- 

 fessors are compelled to play the part of spies and beadles. 

 The result of the struggle will be sad enough for the 

 unfortunate youths engaged or supposed to be concerned 

 with it, and will immensely strengthen the hands of the 

 Nihilists. 



The Isolation of Fluorine. — After three years of 

 incessant labour, M. Moissan has at last succeeded in ob- 

 taining fluorine in the free or uncombined state. The 

 existence of this element has been known for nearly a 

 century, and it is interesting that its properties, as de- 

 scribed in the Annates de Chimie, agree exactly with the 

 predictions made concerning it on theoretical grounds. 

 It is, when in the free state, a permanent gas, occupying 

 the first place in the so-called halogen series, where it is 

 followed by chlorine, bromine, and iodine. Its affinities 

 are more energetic than those of any other known ele- 

 mentary substance, and this circumstance has been the 

 chief cause of the difficulty attending its isolation, since 

 it at once combined with the reagents employed and 

 corroded and destroyed the apparatus. With hydrogen 

 it combines, even in the dark, and at the temperature of 

 23°C., with a violent detonation. 



The Manufacture and Storage of Picric Acid. — 

 In consequence, doubtless, of the serious explosion 



