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SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[Aug. 31, 1888. 



The doctors remark that it should not be forgotten that 

 dangerous return discharges from the earth to the atmo- 

 sphere may take place at a considerable distance from an 

 atmospheric storm. 



The Late Mr. W. H. Baily. — The death is announced 

 of Mr. William H. Baily, acting palaeontologist of the 

 Geological Survey of Ireland. Born at Bristol in 1819, 

 deceased secured an appointment in the Bristol Museum 

 at the age of 19. This he held until 1844, when he was 

 attached by the late Sir Henry de la Beche to the Geolo- 

 gical Survey of England, first as a draughtsman, and 

 afterwards as assistant naturalist under Edward Forbes 

 and subsequently under Professor Huxley. In 1857 Mr. 

 Baily was transferred to the Irish branch of the Geolo- 

 gical Survey as palaeontologist, and this post he held 

 until his death. He was also demonstrator in palaeonto- 

 logy to the Royal College of Science, Dublin. Mr. Baily 

 was a frequent contributor to the Proceedings of the 

 Royal Irish Academy, of the Linnean and Geological 

 Societies of London, and the Royal Geological Society of 

 Dublin, as well as of various kindred societies in 

 Europe and the United States. He was also an assidu- 

 ous attendant at the meetings of the British Association. 

 Mr. Baily's most important work was his "Characteristic 

 British Fossils," which was produced at great expense, 

 and was incomplete at the time of his death. He was 

 also the author of a work published last year, entitled 

 " Rambles on the Irish Coast ; especially relating to its 

 Geology, Natural History, and Antiquities." 



Observations on the Perception of Colours. — H. 

 W. Vogel communicates some interesting results to the 

 Naturwissenschaftlichc Rundschau and Humboldt. It is 

 already known that a table of colours if illuminated with 

 the monochromatic yellow sodium light makes no 

 coloured impression. The several colours appear merely 

 as gradations of black and white. The yellow squares 

 appear white, partly a purer white than the white paper 

 upon which they are fixed. It is further known that 

 the several colours at once appear as soon as a bright 

 candle is placed alongside the sodium flame. But this 

 experiment has hitherto not succeeded with any other 

 light. Vogel has at last succeeded in producing other 

 monochromatic lights by using green lamp-cylinders of 

 chrome-glass and dark-red cylinders of copper glass. If 

 such cylinders are used with powerful petroleum lamps, 

 and if all white light be excluded, a result is obtained 

 analogous to that with the sodium-light. With the red 

 light all red colours appear pure white, and all others 

 grey or black. With the green light there is a cor- 

 responding phenomenon. With blue cobalt-glass the 

 experiment succeeded only if a solution of copper oxide 

 in ammonia was interposed in the course of the light, as 

 cobalt-glass transmits a part of the red ray along with 

 the blue ray. 



The Public Health. — The Registrar-General's return 

 for the week ending August 1 8th shows that the deaths 

 registered during that period in the 28 great towns of 

 England and Wales corresponded to an annual rate of 

 i6 - 4 per thousand of their aggregate population, which is 

 estimated at 9,398,273 persons in the middle of this year. 

 The six healthiest places were Nottingham, Bolton, Birken- 

 head, Birmingham, Bristol, and Sunderland. In London 

 2,604 births and 1,330 deaths were registered. Allow- 



ance made for increase of population, the births were 187 

 and the deaths 310 below the average numbers in the 

 corresponding weeks of the last ten years. The annual 

 death-rate per 1,000 from all causes, which had been 

 I 5'9> *5'9»and I 8'o in the three preceding weeks, de- j 

 clined again last week to i6 - z. During the first seven 

 weeks of the current quarter the death-rate averaged 

 l6 - o per 1,000, and was 5^2 below the mean rate in 

 the corresponding periods of the ten years 1878-87. 

 The 1,330 deaths included ^3 from measles, 17 from 

 scarlet- fever, " 13 from diphtheria, 20 from whooping 

 cough, two from typhus, two from enteric fever, one from 

 an ill-defined form of continued fever, 162 from diarrhoea 

 and dysentery, four from cholera and choleraic diarrhoea, 

 and not one from smallpox ; thus 254 deaths were re- 

 ferred to these diseases, being 138 below the corrected 

 average weekly number. In Greater London 3,372 

 births and 1,649 deaths were registered, corresponding 

 to annual rates of 31-8 and i5 - 6 per 1,000 of the popula- 

 tion. In the Outer Ring 31 deaths from diarrhoea, eight 

 from whooping cough, seven from measles, and five from 

 diphtheria were registered. The fatal cases of diarrhoea 

 included nine in West Ham district and nine in Totten- 

 ham sub-district; four deaths from measles occurred in 

 Tottenham, and two of diphtheria in Croydon sub- 

 districts. 



The Late Mr. P. H. Gosse. — The death is announced 

 of the distinguished zoologist, Mr. Philip Henry Gosse, 

 F.R.S., at his residence, St. Marychurch, Torquay, on 

 the 23rd inst. He was born in Worcester in 1810, and 

 in his childhood he displayed a strong taste for natural 

 history. In 1827 he went out in a mercantile capacity 

 to Newfoundland, where he occupied his leisure in col- 

 lecting insects. In 1833 Mr. Gosse visited Lower 

 Canada, where for three years he specially devoted 

 himself to the study of zoology and entomology. He 

 afterwards travelled through the United States, and 

 resided for about a year in Alabama. In 1839, after his 

 return to England, Mr. Gosse published a general synop- 

 sis of his investigations, under the title of "The Cana- 

 dian Naturalist." A visit to Jamaica in 1844 resulted in 

 "The Birds of Jamaica," followed by an "Atlas of Illus- 

 trations," and " Naturalist's Sojourn in Jamaica." 

 During the next few years he published an " Introduc- 

 tion to Zoology," and prepared many works for the 

 Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. He took a 

 prominent part in the formation of public and private 

 collections of marine animals, and was elected a Fellow 

 of the Royal Society in 1856. Among Mr. Gosse's works 

 are " The Aquarium," 1854 ; " A Manual of Marine 

 Zoology," 1855; "Tenby, a Seaside Holiday," 1856; 

 " Life in its Lower, Intermediate, and Higher 

 Forms," 1857; " Actinologia Britannica ; a History 

 of the British Sea Anemones and Corals," i860 ; 

 " The Romance of Natural History," 1860-62 ; " A Year 

 at the Shore " and " Land and Sea," 1S65. He likewise 

 pursued a series of microscopical investigations into the 

 character of the family papilionidae, and the first fruit of 

 those studies appeared in the Transactions of the Lin- 

 nean Society. Up to the year 1863 the Royal Society's 

 catalogue of scientific papers contained no fewer than 51 

 articles attributed to Mr. Gosse's pen ; and these were 

 subsequently added to. In 1874 he published at Phila- 

 delphia his " Wonders of the Great Deep : or, the Physi- 

 cal, Animal, Geological, and;Vegetable Curiosities of the 

 Ocean." 



