5oS 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. X. No. 255 



uted free of charge to all citizens of the State who apply for them. 

 Specimens of agricultural products, when of public interest, are 

 examined and reported upon free of charge. The board of directors 

 is as follows : H. P. .A.rmsby. Ph.D.. director; William Frear, Ph.D., 

 xnce-director and chemist ; William A. Buckhout, M.S., botan- 

 ist ; George C. Butz, B.S., horticulturist ; William C. Patterson, 

 superintendent of farm. Correspondence is invited, and inquiries 

 upon agricultural matters will be answered as far as possible. -Ad- 

 dress Agricultural Experiment Station, State College, Centre 

 Count)', Penn. 



— We learn from Nature that in a Russian paper of Oct. 22 last, 

 appears a preliminar)- report of the examination by Latschinof and 

 Jerofeief, professors of mineralog)- and chemistry respectively, of a 

 meteoric stone weighing four pounds, which fell in the district of 

 Krasnoslobodsk, Government of Pensa, Russia, on Sept. 4, 18S6. 

 In the insoluble residue, small corpuscles showing traces of polari- 

 zation were obser\-ed. They are harder than corundum, and have 

 the density and other characters of the diamond. The corpuscles 

 are said to amount to one per cent of the meteoric stone. Carbon, 

 in its amorphous graphitic form, has been long known as a constitu- 

 ent of meteoric irons and stones. Lately, small but well-defined 

 crystals of graphitic carbon, having forms often presented by the 

 diamond, were described as ha\-ing been found in a meteoric iron 

 from western Australia. If this supplementary discovery be con- 

 firmed, we may at last be placed on the track of the artificial pro- 

 duction of the precious stone. 



— The loss of electricity by a conductor in moist air, says Na- 

 ture, has been lately studied by Signor Guglielmo (Turin Acade- 

 mj')- He finds that with potentials less than 600 volts, moist air 

 insulates as well as drj- air, but with higher potentials there is more 

 loss in moist air, and more the moister the air and the higher the 

 potential. The potential at which the difference becomes percep- 

 tible is the same for a ball as for a fine point. It occurs with ex- 

 tremely smooth surfaces, and so cannot be attributed to discharges 

 in consequence of roughness of surface. With equal potential, the 

 loss of electricir\- has the same magnitude, whatever the dimensions 

 of the balls used as conductors. In air saturated with vapors of 

 insulating substances, the loss of electricity of a conductor is nearly 

 the same as in drj- air. 



— According to Nature, frozen fish are now imported into 

 France, and a society formed in Marseilles for the purpose of de- 

 veloping the trade (the Societe du Tndent) has a steamer and a 

 sailing-vessel engaged in it. The steamer ' Rokelle * lately came 

 into Marseilles with some 30,000 kilograms of frozen fish in its hold, 

 the temperature of which is kept at 17° C. below zero by means of 

 a Pictet machine (evaporating sulphurous acid). The fish are 

 caught with the net in various parts of the Mediterranean and Atlan- 

 tic. After arrival they are despatched by night in a cold chamber. 

 Experiment has shown that fish can be kept seven or eight months 

 at low temperature without the least alteration. These fish are 

 wrapped in straw or marine algse, and have been sent on to Paris, 

 and even to Switzerland. 



— We leam from Nature that the fourth session of the Interna- 

 tional Geological Congress will be held next year in London. 

 The congress was founded at a meeting of the American Associa- 

 tion for the Advancement of Science, at Buffalo, in 1876, the first 

 session being held at Paris in 1878, the second at Bologna in 1881, 

 the third at Berlin in 1885. The following is a list of the organiz- 

 ing committee appointed to earn' out the arrangements : H. Bauer- 

 man; W. T. Blanford, F.R.S.; Rev. Prof. T. G. Bonney, F.R.S.; 

 Prof. W. Boyd Dawkins, F.R.S.; John Evans, F.R.S.; Prof. W. H. 

 Flower, F.R.S.; Arch. Geikie, F.R.S.; Prof. James Geikie, F.R.S.; 

 Sir Douglas Galton, F.R.S.: Prof. A. H. Green, F.R.S.; Rev. Prof. 

 S. Haughton, F.R.S.; Prof. T. H. Huxlev, F.R.S.; W.H.Hudleston, 

 F.R.S.; Prof. T. McK. Hughes: J. W. Hulke, F.R.S.; Prof. E. Hull, 

 F.R.S.: Prof. J. W. Judd, F.R.S.; Prof. J. Prest^sich, F.R.S.; F. W. 

 Rudler ; H. C. Sorby, F.R.S.; Sir W. W. Smjth, F.R.S.; W. Topley; 

 Rev. Prof. Wiltshire ; Henry Woodward, F.R.S. The dutv of this 

 committee will be to nominate the ofiicers, to appoint executive 

 committees, and to fix the e.xact date of meeting. The congress 

 at Berlin requested that the meeting should be held in London be- 

 tween Aug. 15 and Sept. 15. 



— The theory is advanced by Professor Mendeleef that petroleum, 

 is of mineral origin, and that its production is going on, and may 

 continue almost indefinitely. Engineering states that he has suc- 

 ceeded in making it artificially by a process similar to that which he 

 believes is going on in the earth, and experts find it impossible to- 

 distinguish between the natural and the manufactured article. His 

 h)-pothesis is that water finds its way below the crust of the earth, 

 and then meets with carbides of metals, particularly of iron, in a 

 glowing state. The water is decomposed into its constituent 

 gases ; the oxygen unites with the iron, while the hydrogen takes- 

 up the carbon, and ascends to a higher region, where part of it is 

 condensed into mineral oil, and part remains as natural gas, to es- 

 cape where it can find an outlet, or to remain stored at great press- 

 ure until a bore-hole is put down to pro\ide it a passage to the 

 surface. Oil-bearing strata occur in the vicinity of mountain 

 ranges, and it is supposed that the upheaval of the hills has dislo- 

 cated the strata below sufficiently to give the water access to depths- 

 from which it is ordinarily shut out. If the centre of the earth con- 

 tains large amounts of metallic carbides, we have in prospect a 

 store of fuel against the days when our coal will be exhausted. 



— In ' Notice to Mariners,' Xo. 94, published by the United 

 States Coast Sur\'ey, some very interesting information is given re- 

 garding the Gulf Stream. Between Rebecca Shoal and Cuba the 

 current was found to vary in velocitj", the maximum velocity arriv- 

 ing about nine hours and twent)- minutes before the transit of the 

 moon, and between Cuba and Yucatan the greatest velocity was- 

 found at ten hours before the moon's transit. The greatest velocity 

 of the current was obser^'ed fiftv'-one miles south of Rebecca Shoal, 

 at which point the stream moved 3.73 knots per hour. Between 

 Yucatan and Cuba the stream's greatest velocit\' was 6.32 knots^ 

 about thirt)' miles from Yucatan toward Cape San Antonio. 



— The United States Coast Sun'ey Steamer ' Blake,' Lieut. J. E. 

 PiUsbur}" commanding, will continue the investigation of the Gulf 

 Stream currents during the coming winter and spring months at 

 the places mentioned below ; and shipmasters, when in the \icinity,. 

 are requested to look out for and keep clear of her. During January 

 and the first part of Februarj- the ' Blake ' will be anchored about 

 six hundred miles north-east of Barbadoes Islands, and in the track 

 of vessels bound to the United States from the South Atlantic or 

 off the South .American coast to the eastward of Trinidad Island ; 

 the last part of Februarj' and untU May, between the West India 

 Islands, commencing at Trinidad, and ending at the old Bahama 

 channel. When at anchor, she will hoist three balls from the fore- 

 topmast stay, and at night-time she will show from the same point 

 three lights, — red, white, and red. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



*,* Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The isjriter's name is 

 in aZlcases required as proof o_f good faith. 



T-wenty copies of the number containing his communication -will be furnished' 

 free ie any correspondent on request. 



The editor 'ujill be giad to publish any queries consonant -sjith the character o_^ 

 thejournal. 



Conspiracy of Silence. 

 I THIXK your correspondent (Dec. 16, p. 298) is unjust to Pro- 

 fessor Bonney, placing a meaning on his words which they will 

 indeed bear, but which was not Professor Bonney's meaning. I 

 am not a Darwinist, and have never accepted the Danvinian hy- 

 pothesis so called ; and I can therefore dispassionately defend Profes- 

 sor Bonney. But I should like to volunteer a rather unnecessary- 

 defence of men of science as a class, whether Darwinists or anti- 

 Dar%vinists, whom your correspondent attacks indiscriminately. 

 • Conspiracy ' is an ugly word ; and it is, as both Professor Huxley 

 and Professor Bonney assert with good reason, not only an ugly- 

 word, but an improbable thing ; and not only improbable, but (as 

 the scientific world is no%v constituted) impossible in a large way. 

 A conspiracy within the limits of one scientific institution, to sup- 

 press a paper, may be planned and executed with some success by 

 one or more of its officers and one or more of its members opposed 

 to the writer of that paper. Thus far, but no farther, can a scien- 

 tific conspiracy go. The thing has been often done, and will be 

 often done ; but it is a foolish thing to do, perfectly futile, injurious 

 to the society in which it happens, and in the end injurious to the 

 conspirators. But the writer of a paper, if it be a good one, can 

 find many other ways of publishing it, without encountering a con- 



