SCIENTIFIC NEV^^S. 



[Feb. 10, i8 



and studied under Alexander Braun, at Berlin. He 

 became early eminent as an original and successful 

 inquirer, and held in succession the Botanical chairs at 

 Freiburg, Halle, and Strassburg. Since 1867 he has edited 

 the Botanische Zeitimg. His attention was mainly, per- 

 haps, turned to i\ie fungi, upon whose life-history he has 

 thrown a new light, both theoretically and practically. 

 His masterly researches on the potato-disease first saw 

 the light in 1861. He subsequently proved that the 

 accidiiim of the barberry is one particular stage in the 

 development of the puccinia of wheat-rust. His grand 

 work, " Morphologie and Physiologic der Pilze, Flechten 

 und Myxomyceten" appeared in 1866, and must be con- 

 sidered merely a fraction of his labours. 



On February ist died Dr. John Thomas Irvine 

 Boswell, another of the foremost botanists of the time. 

 He was for many years curator to the Botanical Society 

 of London, and occupied the chair of Botany at the 

 Charing Cross and at the Middlesex Schools of Medicine. 

 He re-wrote Sowerby's great work on Botanj', in twenty 

 volumes, a task which occupied him for as many years. 



The Non-Poisonous Character, of Nickel. — There 

 seems little, if any, reason to object to the use of nickel 

 in cooking utensils. Van Hamel Roos gave a dog in the 

 course of 34 days 255 grains of acetate of nickel, with- 

 out any injury being occasioned to the animal. It was 

 afterwards killed, and the liver and kidneys — the parts 

 where mineral poisons are especially apt to accumulate 

 were carefully analysed. The quantity of nickel found 

 in them was too small to be determined. The only point 

 to be insisted on is that nickel articles which have 

 to come in contact with food should be perfectly free 

 from arsenic. 



SCIENTIFIC TABLE TALK. 



By W. Mattieu Williams, F.R.A.S., F.C.S. 

 The writer of the interesting essay on "Will-o'-the-wisp," 

 which appeared in Nos. i, 2, and 3 of this magazine, 

 says, in conclusion, that " in all probability several dis- 

 tinct phenomena have been confounded under the name 

 of ignis fahms, and careful observation is needed for 

 their respective discrimination." I fully agree with him, 

 one reason being that my own experience diifers con- 

 siderably from all the accounts he quotes, while these 

 differ so widely from each other. 



In the course of along walk through Italy, from the Alps 

 to Calabria, I was benighted near Pietra Santa on my 

 way between Carrara and Lucca. Was told that I 

 should find an osteria a mile further on, and after walk- 

 ing about four miles saw before me the lights of what I 

 supposed to be a village in the distance. I walked on 

 quite a mile further with the lights of the village still 

 before me, but no nearer. Then I halted, and soon per- 

 ceived that the apparently distant lights were but twenty 

 or thirty yards ahead, and were faint and fluctuating. I at 

 once understood the illusion, exarnined it carefully, and 

 then discovered that whichever way I turned the 

 shivering phantoms were before me, and equidistant in 



every direction. I was evidently surrounded by an 

 undulating phosphorescent atmosphere. My theory of 

 the uniform apparent distance of the waving luminosity 

 is that the light was too faint to be visible unless its 

 thickness in the line of vision became considerable ; as 

 I have since learned by experiment that half a dozen 

 equal flames placed behind each other shine through 

 each other, giving six times as much light as either one, 

 i.e., they are transparent to their own radiations and thus 

 present the sum of their luminosities, not by the in- 

 creased brilliancy of the light nearest to the eye, but by 

 the luminosity of the whole. Thus a flame too faint to be 

 visibly luminous, if but one foot deep, might become; 

 visible with a thickness of twenty feet. 



This experience illustrates rather strikingly the power 

 of the imagination in shaping such phantoms. I was 

 eagerly looking for the lighted windows of the promised 

 inn, and will-o'-the-wisp accordingly assumed the 

 expected shape. Had I believed in the popular tradition 

 I should probably have seen the lanthorn of the jeering 

 imp, or any other expected luminosity, the actual phos- 

 phorescence being sufficiently weird, indefinite, and 

 uncanny to suggest anything. 



At last I reached the little town of Viareggio, where I 

 learned that I had taken a wrong turning, and had 

 walked some five miles over the Maremma. On retrac- 

 ing this distance next morning I learned that this 

 Maremma is a perfectly flat monotonous marsh, planted 

 with rice, and then covered with a thin layer of water. 

 The road being broad, straight, and well built, I had 

 kept it safely. This wide expanse of uniform marsh 

 explained the complete uniform surrounding of the 

 phantom lights. 



The date was 30th November, which I mention, as 

 much must depend upon the season. In this case the 

 rotting of rice-stems left behind from the recent harvest 

 was in full progress, and probably had much to do with 

 the luminous atmosphere. I need scarcely add that the 

 region is most pestiferous, the malaria being commonly 

 fatal to those who pass a night there in the summer 

 time. 



The Duke of Argyll has been very severely handled 

 in the course of his controversy with the geologists in 

 " Nature." He cannot complain of any " conspiracy of 

 silence " in reference to himself. The outspeaking 

 has been very plain indeed. Mr. J. W. Judd, for 

 example, says in reference to the statements which the 

 Duke refuses to retract, " These charges have each and 

 all of them been shown to be absolutely destitute of 

 foundation. The Duke of Argyll must judge for himself 

 if the principle of noblesse oblige should not lead him 

 not only to retract the charges, but also to apologise for 

 having made them. But his Grace may rest assured 

 that, until he does so, the ground for the deep indigna- 

 tion at his conduct, which is so strongly felt both at 

 home and abroad, will still remain." 



Reviewing the whole controversy, without leaning to 

 either side, it appears to me that the Duke of Argyle had 

 some grounds for complaining of "silence," but has failed 

 to show any evidence of " conspiracy." There has been 

 no conspiracy, nor deliberate " malice aforethought," in 

 ignoring Mr. Murray's researches on the coral reefs. It 

 is a libel on men of science to assume the probability of 

 such conspiracy ; but still there is a good deal of human 

 nature even in the scientific world, and official human 

 nature remains more or less official in spite of science. 

 There are Bumbles even among the " Fellows " at 



