SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



107 



Memoires presentees par divers savants a 

 l'Academie des Sciences de l'Institut de 

 France. Tome xxxi, 1894. — This volume, which 

 has just been published at the Paris National Press, 

 contains the famous memoir with which Madame 

 Sophie Kovalevsky won the Bordin prize of the 

 Paris Academy in 1888. The subject proposed 

 was, To perfect in one important point the theory 

 of the movement of a solid body round an immovable 

 point, and in recognition of the extraordinary 

 merits of Madame Kovalevsky 's work, the judges 

 raised the amount of the prize from three 

 thousand to five thousand francs. But the 

 talented authoress did not live long to enjoy 

 the high position she had gained, In February, 

 1891, she was attacked by an illness which ended 

 fatally after three or four days. In the 

 "Fortnightly Review" for May, may be found a 

 most interesting account of this lady, one of Russia's 

 most talented daughters. Sophie Kovalevsky was 

 born in Moscow, about 1850, and her interest in the 

 mathematical sciences was first aroused by the 

 room in which she spent much of her childhood. 

 This room had been papered with old disused 

 printing paper, amongst which were several sheets 

 of Ostrogrodski's lectures on the differential and 

 integral calculus. The child puzzled out many of 

 the problems on the walls, and this was the 

 foundation on which the splendid superstructure of 

 her scientific attainments was reared. 



The New Science Review (April, 1895). — 

 This journal is published monthly in the States by 

 the Transatlantic Publishing Company of New 

 York, and may be obtained in London at Gay and 

 Bird's, Chandos Street, Strand. It aims at saying 

 in plainer language all that the technical papers 

 say in their abstruse phraseology. This number 

 opens with an article on The Elements, by Professor 

 William Crookes, F.R.S., one of our greatest 

 chemists, and the inventor of many improvements 

 in the spectroscope. He refers to the gaps in 

 Mendeleeff' s system of the elements, and to the 

 probabilities of these gaps beingfilled up. He thinks 

 much research will have to be gone through and a 

 long time spent before a really new chemistry of 

 elements and meta-elements can be constituted. 

 Miss Mary Proctor contributes some autobiogra- 

 phical notes written by her father, the late Richard 

 A. Proctor, and Professor G. F. Fitzgerald writes 

 on The Ether and its Functions. 



Bulletin du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, 

 Annee 1895, Nos. 1-3. — Every month the directors, 

 naturalists, assistants, etc., of the various depart- 

 ments of the Paris Natural History Museum, meet 

 together and detail their work during the past few 

 weeks. Thisjournal contains accounts of these re- 

 unions. In the first number, M. Saint-Loup writes 

 on A new species of the Lcporidw, Lepus edwardsi. In 

 No. 2 M. Diguet gives an account of his expedi- 

 tion to Lower California, and M. Van Tieghem 

 describes two Loranthacea: brought from Lower 

 California by M. Diguet, one a Viscum, the other a 

 Loranthus. This latter differed from all the known 



American Loranthaceae by its leaves, which were 

 narrow, long, and cylindrical. Several other natur- 

 alists describe the collections brought home h, \i 

 Diguet. M. Oustalet writes on three birds ■>( 

 Paradise from New Guinea, lately presented to 

 the Museum. Before the Paris museum acquired 

 these birds, Pteridophora albcrti, Parotid carola and 

 Amblyomis inornata, Schleg, the Dresden museum 

 was the only one that contained them. M. bureau 

 writes on Dorstenia scaphigera, a plant remarkable 

 for its inflorescence, or the arrangement of its 

 flowers on the flowering stem or branch. M. 

 Franchet writes on Some Plants of East China, 

 and M. Bouvier on The Geographical Distribution 

 of the Crustacea of the sub-family of Lithodes. In 

 No. 3, M. Lapicque describes his cruise to the 

 East in the yacht Semiramis, chiefly for ethno- 

 logical and anthropological causes. M. Filhol 

 writes on The restoration of a skeleton of Hippo- 

 potamus lemerlei, which has been accomplished by 

 M. Grandidier, at Ambolisatra, in Madagascar, 

 where the animal was found. M. Brongniart 

 writes on The Homoptera of the genus Flatoides. 

 MM. Phisalix and Bertrand write on Some pecu- 

 liarities relating to the Venom of the Viper and the 

 Cobra. These Bulletins deserve to be studied by 

 those who wish to keep abreast of current investi- 

 gation and thought, and it might be hinted to the 

 keepers of our Natural History Museum that they 

 would do well to imitate the example set them by 

 their Parisian confreres. 



Revue Scientifique (May 4th, nth, 18th). 

 In the issue of May 4th, M. Axel Ohlin has an 

 article on The Fauna of the Polar Regions, in which 

 he enumerates the mammals and birds observed by 

 the members of the Peary Expedition. In the same 

 number M. Pajes writes on The Physiology of the 

 Mineral Matter of Milk. In the issue of May nth, 

 M. Laborde has an article on The True Microcephaly 

 and the Descent of Man. He gives photographs of 

 three microcephalic or small-headed brothers, and 

 compares the anatomy of these three idiots, who 

 were born in Greece, to that of a young female 

 chimpanzee, and shows how strongly these brothers 

 resemble monkeys. M. Laborde accounts for the 

 strange state of these idiots to an arrest in their 

 development and a consequent reversion to an 

 ancestral type. M. Sabatier writes on The Immor- 

 tality of Protoplasm. The article is a thoughtful 

 and well-written account of some of the problems 

 that centre round that strange substance known as 

 the physical basis of life. In the issue of May iSth, 

 M. Naville writes on Order in Nature. He traces 

 the course of thought along the ages, and shows 

 that the modern scientific thought has cast aside 

 metaphysical questions and was endeavouring to 

 create order in every sphere of nature. 



La Nature (May 4th, nth, iSth). In the issue 

 of May 4th, is an interesting article by M. Coupin, 

 on The Origin of the Silk-worm, illustrated by 

 drawings of the various stages of Theophila 

 mandarina. We hope to give a short abstract of 

 this article in our next number. In an article on 

 The Sense of Colours (in the issue of May nth), 

 M. A. de Rochas refers to a recently published 

 thesis on this subject, by M. Hugo Magnus, appear- 

 ing in the " Memoirs de Physiologie," published 

 by the University of Jena. In the same number 

 is an article on The Parasites of the Cricket. In 

 the issue of May 18th, is an illustration of a 

 wonderful elm in the United States which is 

 bent in the form of an arc, and which seems to 

 have taken root twice over. 



