122 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. IV., No. 79. 



process) : and, as soon as the small physical laboratory 

 they are now building for this purpose is completed, 

 they propose to investigate some of the questions 

 which make good clock-making such a difficult art; 

 such as, the permanency of length of pendulum-rods 

 of various materials, the effect of air mechanically 

 contained in the ordinary mercurial pendulums, the 

 effect of mercuric oxide and other impurities of the 

 mercury, and the effect of temperature changes on 

 various forms of pendulum suspension. 



This is another instance of the tendency shown by 

 American artisans to avail themselves of the most 

 recent knowledge to be derived frOm scientific re- 

 search. Some time since, we noticed that the Pratt 

 & Whitney company of Hartford were spending many 

 thousands of dollars in their efforts to produce screws 

 and other measuring-engines which would accurately 

 correspond to the established yard and metre. In this 

 work they availed themselves of the assistance of 

 Professor Eogers of Cambridge ; and the results they 

 attained must be gratifying to every student of physi- 

 cal science interested in having accurate screws and 

 gauges for use independently, or in connection with 

 other pieces of apparatus. 



— The efforts of the committee of the Franklin 

 institute to secure a valuable collection of books on 

 electricity for the electrical exhibition are meeting 

 with considerable success. Already the collection 

 numbers about three thousand titles, and is constant- 

 ly increasing. As is well known, the Pennsylvania 

 railroad company has placed its old passenger-station 

 at the disposal of the managers of the exhibition to 

 furnish additional space. 



— The Chesapeake zoological laboratory, which is 

 the name under which the marine zoological station 

 of the Johns Hopkins university has been maintained 

 during the last six years, is stationed this year at 

 Beaufort, N.C., — a site which has been proved dur- 

 ing three previous seasons, from 1880 to 1882, to be 

 most favorable for zoological researches. Dr. W. K. 

 Brooks, the director of the laboratory, has been pre- 

 vented by long-continued ill health from assuming 

 his usual responsibilities, though he has hoped to 

 join the party for a time. His place as chief of the 

 party has been taken for the season, at the request 

 of the university, by H. W. Conn, Ph.D., who re- 

 ceived not long ago one of the Walker prizes from 

 the Boston society of natural history, and who has 

 recently been appointed to a position in the Wesleyan 

 university at Middletown. Besides Dr. Conn, there 

 are nine investigators at work; among them, W. 

 Bateson of St. John's college (Cambridge, Eng.), 

 H. H. Donaldson (A.B., Yale), E. A. Andrews (A.B., 

 Yale), I. Nelson (S.B., Univ. Wise), H. L. Osborn 

 (A.B.,Wesl.), and H. F. Nachtrieb (S.B.,Univ. Minn.). 

 Others were expected to join the company. Private 

 letters from Beaufort give indications that the sum- 

 mer's work will be fruitful in good results. 



— The Greely relief squadron, with the survivors 

 on board, arrived at Portsmouth on Friday, Aug. 1, 

 and a reception with a grand parade was given to 

 them Monday, Aug. 4. The remains of those who 

 perished have been sent to New York for burial. 



— North-western North America contains so many 

 different linguistic stocks, and these are split up into 

 such a large number of languages and dialects, that 

 any contribution to the supply of vocabularies from 

 this region is important. A pamphlet of a hundred 

 and twenty-seven pages, just issued by the geological 

 survey of Canada, contains vocabularies of " one 

 or more dialects of every Indian language spoken 

 on the Pacific slope from the Columbia River north 

 to the Chilkat River, and beyond, in Alaska, and from 

 the outermost seaboard to the main continental divide 

 in the Rocky Mountains," and is therefore a most wel- 

 come addition to the working-material of the linguistic 

 scholar. The vocabularies result from the joint labors 

 of Messrs. N. Fraser Tolmie and George M. Dawson, 

 whose names are a sufficient guaranty for the gen- 

 eral accuracy of the work. The vocabularies number 

 more than thirty, and are classed by the authors under 

 no fewer than fourteen distinct stocks, — a number 

 which it is probable will require to be reduced. Few 

 scholars, at least, will be willing to admit Tsheheilis 

 as a stock distinct from Selish, of which latter it 

 is usually considered to be the westernmost division, 

 nor to consider Bilhoola, Kawitshin, and Niskwalli 

 distinct from Selish. The value of the volume is 

 greatly enhanced by a map colored to show the dis- 

 tribution of the Indian tribes of British Columbia. 

 The linguistic stocks, the distribution of which within 

 the above area is shown, are the Tlinkit, Tshimsian, 

 Haida, Tinne, Kwakiol, Bilhoola, Aht, Kawitshin, 

 Niskwalli or Skwalliamish, Selish, and Kootennha. 

 The work is a substantial addition to the linguistic 

 history of the area to which it pertains. 



— The bibliography of Ptolemy's geography, which 

 Mr. Justin Winsor has been printing by instalments 

 in the Harvard university Bulletin, has been issued 

 separately, in advance of its completion in the Bul- 

 letin, and forms an interesting contribution (forty- 

 two pages) to historical geography. It is particularly 

 valuable for the information it gives regarding the 

 early cartography of America, and the ante-Colum- 

 bian views of the ocean west of Europe. Much col- 

 lateral matter serves to elucidate the subject. The 

 name ' America ' appears for the first time on a 

 Ptolemaic map in 1522; but reasons are given for 

 believing that it occurred in print or in manuscript 

 as early as 1513 - 15. It appears that copies of the 

 1478 edition have been sold at eighty, ninety, and a 

 hundred pounds. 



— According to Nature, Pasteur's experiments 

 with the virus of hydrophobia are going on with un- 

 broken success. He has thus far experimented on 

 fifty-seven dogs, — nineteen of them mad, and thirty- 

 eight bitten by them under uniform conditions. Out 

 of these thirty-eight, half had been previously inocu- 

 lated, the other half not. The latter, without a 

 single exception, died with unmistakable signs of 

 hydrophobia, whereas the nineteen others are about, 

 and as well as ever. They will be watched for a year 

 by veterinary doctors to see whether the inoculation 

 holds good permanently or only temporarily. 



— A meeting was held on July 1, in the lecture- 



