468 Scientific Intelligence. 



white light may be supposed to have the very constitution now 

 ascribed to the Rontgen radiation, except that the impulse would 

 have to be less condensed. The absence of refraction and dif- 

 fraction of these rays could therefore be attributed to the extreme 

 shortness of their waves. — Nature, April 28, 1898. j. t. 



12. A Method of Measuring the Pressure at Any Point on a 

 Structure, due to wind blowing against that Structure, vol. viii, 

 No. 1, of the Transactions of the Acad, of Science of St. Louis ; 

 by Francis E. Nipher. — This paper describes a collecting de- 

 vice which is unaffected by wind, but responds to any change in 

 pressure due to wind. When the collector is held in wind in the 

 free air, the gauge with which it is connected shows no effect, 

 but it responds at once if the collector is sheltered by the hand, 

 or if the hand be held to leeward of the collector. 



The author has also checked the device by determining either 

 directly or by interpolation the pressure at 108 points on the 

 front and an equal number of points on the back of a pressure 

 board having an area of 3x4 feet. The results check to within 

 about one per cent., with the simultaneous measurements, by a 

 spring balance, of the force required to hold the pressure board 

 in position. The author concludes that the instrument may be 

 used in determining the distribution of pressures over large and 

 important structures, about which little is at present known. 



The experiments were made from the roof of a railway car, at 

 speeds of 54 miles per hour and less. 



II. Geology and Minekalogy. 



1. Geological Survey of Nevj Jersey. The Physical Geog- 

 raphy of New Jersey ; by Rollin D. Salisbury, with appendix 

 by Cornelius C. Vermeule, Vol. IV of the Final Report of the 

 State Geologist, pp. 1-200, relief map. Plates i-xv with extras 

 24 in all, figures in text 1-37, 1898. — Professor Salisbury has 

 shown in this report the intimate relationship existing between 

 the physical geographical features of a region and the geological 

 history it has undergone in the past. Its mountains, valleys, 

 ridges, plains, lakes and rivers, are traced to their origins in the 

 original geological formation underlying the surface, and their 

 gradation, and the distribution of the derived materials to form 

 new sheets of geological deposits. The guidance of the course 

 of changes by the differential uplifts and submergences and 

 emergences, and by the surface contours and relative hardness of 

 the rocks is traced ; and thus the successive stages in the history 

 of the region are portrayed. The text is fully illustrated by 

 profiles and illustrations of landscape. A large colored profile 

 map of the state accompanies the report, which was prepared 

 under Mr. Vermeule's supervision. " It is based upon the topo- 

 graphical survey, and is therefore an accurate picture of the 

 surface relief. ... A leading object in the publication of 

 the map has been to put it in every school-house in the state as 



