266 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. IV., No. 84. 



— An announcement is made in the English me- 

 chanic, that oil-bearing strata exist in the neigh- 

 borhood of Sibi, southern Afghanistan; and the 

 government have determined to procure the neces- 

 sary machinery for boring-operations, which, it is 

 said, will be commenced next winter. 



— Mr. C. L. Prince of Crowborough has presented 

 to the Royal astronomical society a great rarity in the 

 shape of a copy of Sherburne's poetical translation 

 of Marcus Manilius, 1675. The volume is valuable 

 for the extensive list of oriental astronomers it con- 

 tains, and as an English translation of Manilius's 

 Astronomicon poeticon. Mr. Knobel said that for 

 six years he had searched all the booksellers' cata- 

 logues without finding it. The library of the Royal 

 observatory, Greenwich, came into possession of a 

 copy by purchase four or five months ago, and it may 

 seem not a little remarkable that two copies of so 

 rare a work should come to light almost at the same 

 time. 



— A full list of the papers at the International 

 conference on education, in connection with the In- 

 ternational health exhibition, appeared in Nature for 

 July 10. 



— Number xiii. of the signal-service professional 

 papers, recently issued, contains the results of an ex- 

 tended investigation by Professor William Ferrel on 

 the ' Temperature of the atmosphere and earth's 

 surface.' This is Mr. Ferrel' s first memoir completed 

 since his engagement under the chief signal-officer: 

 it is characterized by the same comprehensive mathe- 

 matical treatment of physical problems that marked 

 the ' Meteorological researches ' which he undertook 

 a few years ago for the coast-survey. The broad 

 subject of meteorological temperature is arranged 

 under four headings, — first, the relative distribution 

 of solar radiation on the earth's surface (the mean 

 vertical intensity of solar radiation for one day at the 

 top of the atmosphere is here tabulated for twenty- 

 four epochs in the year, and for every ten degrees 

 of latitude in the northern hemisphere); second, 

 the conditions determining the relations between 

 the intensities of solar radiation and the resulting 

 temperatures, in which the diathermance of the 

 atmosphere is considered ; third, the general subject 

 of actinometry, in which two series of experiments 

 give the mean solar constant as 2.255 and 1.991, and 

 from these, compared with others, the value 2.2 is 

 taken as most probable (it is here concluded that 

 stellar heat is in*ignificant, and that there is no sen- 

 sible temperature of space; fourth, the distribution 

 of temperature on the earth's surface, and its varia- 

 tions, where, among many conclusions, there may 

 be mentioned the determination of — 100° C. as the 

 approximate mean temperature of the earth with- 

 out an atmosphere; 0.213 as the share of dark heat 

 radiated vertically from the earth's surface, which 

 escapes through the atmosphere into space; and the 

 difference between mean equatorial and polar tem- 

 peratures on a dry-land earth at considerably more 

 than 115° C, ocean-currents being chiefly responsible 

 for diminution of this extreme condition. 



— The English bark Churchstow, Capt. Adams, 

 reports that in a voyage to Columbo, Ceylon, she fell 

 in with large quantities of pumice-stone, Feb. 29, 

 1884, in latitude 18° south, longitude 73° east. The 

 pumice-stone was partly covered with barnacles. 



— It seems that Mr. Cailletet has perfected his 

 method for liquefying oxygen; since this body may 

 be obtained in sufficiently large quantities to appear 

 in the form of a colorless liquid, very volatile, and 

 much resembling liquefied sulphurous acid. The 

 author began by liquefying ethylene by the aid of 

 solid carbonic acid and pressure. By means of this 

 he liquefied f ormene ; and, by the cold produced dur- 

 ing the evaporization of the formene, oxygen was 

 finally liquefied. 



— Nature states that the educational statistics of 

 Japan for the past year show that the number of 

 common schools throughout the country is 29,081, 

 being an increase of 339 as compared with the preced- 

 ing year; while the number of scholars is 3,004,137, 

 an increase of 396,960; and the number of teachers is 

 84,765, being an increase of 8,147. 



— Miss Amelia Edwards, the honorary secretary of 

 the 'Egypt exploration fund,' has made a communi- 

 cation in the Academy about the remains of the statue 

 of Ramses II., found by Mr. Petrie at Tanis. These 

 remains are of red granite. The statue of Ramses II., 

 the contemporary of Moses, was overturned by one 

 of his successors, Sheshank III. By an exact exami- 

 nation and photography of all which was found, Mr. 

 Petrie has come to the conclusion that the statue 

 must have had a height of a hundred and fifteen feet, 

 and thus exceeded all the monuments of that sort 

 hitherto known. The great toe of the statue has a 

 circumference of a foot and a half. 



— From a communication of Dr. S. Glasenapp, of 

 the Imperial university at St. Petersburg, to the 

 Russian newspapers, there are in Russia, as we learn 

 from Nature, the following private observatories : one 

 at Pervin, near Torjok, in the government of Tver, 

 belonging to Gen. Maievsky; another at Bunakovka, 

 in the government of Kharkoff, belonging to Prince 

 Liven ; and one at Odessa,belonging to Mr. Gildesheinu 

 A Polish gentleman, Mr. Wuczihowski, is building a 

 private observatory at Belkave, nearBreslau; and a 

 Russian gentleman, W. P. Engelhardt, has a fine ob- 

 servatory at Dresden, equipped with an excellent 

 twelve-inch refractor and a large spectroscope, as- 

 well as a selection of the best physical instruments. 



— Professor Milne of Japan, says the Alhenaeum, 

 has established in the Iakashima coal-mine, near 

 Nagasaki, an underground, or, as he prefers to call it,, 

 a cetachthonic, observatory. This colliery is worked 

 for some considerable distance under the sea; and it 

 is purposed to establish a regular system of observa- 

 tions on temperature and pressure, and on the tides, 

 earth-tremors, and the escape of gas, carefully noting 

 if any connection exists between them, and establish- 

 ing a comparison between surface and subterranean 

 phenomena. 



— An interesting statistical statement on the use 

 of shorthand-writing has been issued by the U. S- 



