Notes and Memoranda. 479 



NOTES AND MEMORANDA. 



Norman Lockyer ON THE Spectra OP Sun SPOTS. — The Proceedings of tlie 

 'Royal Society, No. 87, contain an account of experiments by Mr. Norman Lockyer 

 to test the opposing theories of Faye, and De La Hue, Balfour, Stewart, and Lnewy. 

 The former regards the interior of the sun as a nebulous mass of feeble radiating 

 power at a temperature of dissociation, and the photosphere as of high radiating 

 power, lower temperature, and chemical action. A sun spot he supposes to be an 

 exhibition of the interior mass through rents in the photosphere made by ascend- 

 ing currents. The latter refer sun spots to a downward current of the cooler 

 atmosphere, producing condensation and absorption in the photosphere. Mr. 

 Lockyer in an experiment, which he hopes to repeat on a larger spot, did not 

 find the spectra of the umbra give the character required by M. Faye's 

 hypothesis. 



Maximum Period of November Meteors. — M. Coulvier-Gravier gives a 

 diagram in Comptes Rendus, showing the proportions of meteors seen ou the 12th 

 and 13th November, from 1830 to 1866. The maximum was in 1833, the mini- 

 mum in 1860, and he expects the next maximum to be in 1867, which would be 

 in accordance with the prediction of Olbers. He says that, unfortunately, there 

 will be a full moon at the time. There has been, he states, a progressive augmen- 

 tation from 1862 to 1856, and he expects this will continue and culminate in 

 1867. 



Disengagements oe Gases from treib Supersaturated Solutions. — 

 M. Grenez has a paper in Comptes Rendus, No. 21, on this subject. Solutions of 

 gases in liquids are made under certain pressures, and the temperature of the fluid 

 is then raised, and if, as is usually the case, the gas is less soluble in a warm fluid 

 than in a cooler one, it will remain for a time supersaturated. If any rod of solid 

 matter is then introduced, it becomes covered with gas bubbles, which escape 

 freely if the liquid is stirred by the rod. After a time the immersed part of the 

 rod loses the power of promoting the formation of gas bubbles; heat will also 

 destroy this power, and solid bodies which have not been in contact with air do 

 not possess it, and it is the air, or gas, adhering to the solid body which excites the 

 action. 



Poison in Whale Fishing. — In Comptes Rendus, No. 22, will be found an 

 account by M. Thiercelin of the employment of small explosive shells to shoot 

 ■whales, and kill them by conveying strychnine and curare poison into their systems. 

 He states that a mixture in powder of soluble salts of strychnine, with one- 

 twentieth of curare, will kill any animal if discharged into a wound. The animals 

 require a five-thousandth of a gramme of the poison to each kilogramme of their 

 bulk, or less if they are extremely large. He estimates whales to weigh, according 

 to the sort, from 50,000 to 90,000 kilogrammes, and he mentions several instances 

 of whales killed in a few minutes by his poison shells. The animals exhibit symp- 

 toms of tetanus, followed by death. 



The Iconoscope. — M. Javal describes in Comptes Rendus the above named 

 instrument as taking its place between Wheatstone's pseudoscope and the tele- 

 stereoscope of Helmholtz. He says, by an optical combination identical with that 

 employed in the binocular microscope of Nachtet, and the binocular opthalmoscope 

 of Giraud-Teulon, the two eyes cease to receive different images of external objects. 

 It results that if, under these conditions, a large picture is examined, the eyes 

 preserve the same state of convergence towards whichever part of the canvas they 

 are directed, and the spectator having no means of assuring himself concerning 

 the plain form of the surface he examines, it assumes an appearance of relief in 

 proportion to the time it is observed. 



Yeast op Beer. — M. Herman Hoffman states (Comptus Rendus) that if a 

 little beer yeast is placed in a weak solution of honey that has been boiled, bubbles of 

 carbonic acid rise for a few days from the liquid, but not directly from the yeast 

 cells ; after which the acid which is developed stops the fermentation. A 

 pellicle of yeast cells and baciliform cells, frequently in chains composed of several 



