188 Scientific Intelligence. — Miscellaneous. 



areas, as also to the presence of acetic and hippuric acids, &c, in the 

 atmosphere, as detected by Fresnel and Horsford. He believed, 

 however, that this was the first instance of an analogous observation 

 with regard to organized and vegetable matter, and he regarded it 

 as having an interesting connection with the protococcus nivalis, 

 and other growths upon a naked snow surface. 



Dv Kane stated that he had collected the red snow at a point 

 within the arctic circle, as high as lat. 76° 15', and from the shores 

 of Wellington Channel to those of Greenland. Throughout all this 

 extensive range it ivas in no case found on snow devoid of other ve- 

 getable life. It generally occupied dependent valleys and grooves, 

 and was found there in connection with the fronds of lichens, por- 

 tions of mosses, the catkins of the willow, &c. &c. The intensity of 

 the colouring appeared to bear a certain marked relation to the 

 quantity of such foreign matter present in these localities. 



Dr Kane added that Sir Edward Parry had detected this singular 

 vegetable organism on the distant Spitzbergen ice fields, and Saus- 

 sure, Baer, and others, on isolated Alpine slopes ; but that even in 

 these cases, it could not be said that the snow-surface was absolutely 

 without a vegetable nidus. He had himself collected this snow 

 seventy-six miles from any land, and from surfaces which, but for a 

 critical examination, would have seemed altogether pure. 



He did not wish his remarks to be understood as bearing upon the 

 general question of the ability of snow-water to afford the necessary 

 ammonia for the supply of the plants, but as simply indicating for 

 many of the heretofore " isolated" localities of the red snow, the 

 pre-existence of a matrix of vegetable character. — (Proceedings of the 

 American Philosophical Society?) 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



17. Important Scientific Invention. — A letter from Berlin of the 

 17th says — " It is well known that the paper prepared for photography 

 grows more or less black by rays of light falling on it. One of our 

 young painters, M. Schall, has just taken advantage of this property 

 in photographic paper to determine the intensity of the sun's light. 

 After more than 1500 experiments, M. Schall has succeeded in 

 establishing a scale of all the shades of black which the action of the 

 solar system produces on the photographic paper: — so that, by com- 

 paring the shade obtained at any given moment on a certain paper 

 with that indicated on the scale, the exact force of the sun's light 

 may be ascertained. Baron Alexander von Humboldt, M. de Litt- 

 now, M. Dove, and M. Poggendorff, have congratulated M. Schall 

 on this invention, which will be of the highest utility not only for 

 scientific labours, but also in many operations of domestic and rural 

 economy." 



