424 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. IV., No. 91. 



making some observations on the metamorphosis of 

 stomatopods, to be incorporated in his report on 

 those of the Challenger expedition. Dr. Conn com- 

 pleted his work on the development of Thalassema, 

 and nearly finished a monograph on the crabs of 

 Beaufort, on which he had been engaged for three 

 years. He also studied the development of Serpula, 

 and prepared a paper on larval forms. Dr. Donald- 

 son investigated the physiology of marine vertebrates, 

 making many experiments to determine the relative 

 susceptibility of the different classes to poisons of 

 vegetable origin. He also carried on a series of 

 experiments to determine whether the current the- 

 ory of digestion in Actinozoa is correct, and reached 

 the conclusion that it was not. Mr. Bateson of Eng- 

 land, who carried on his studies by a grant from the 

 Koyal society, completed his investigations upon 

 Balanoglossus. Dr. Osborn studied the embryology 

 of Fulgur and Neptunia, and the origin of the body- 

 cavity and reproductive organs of gasteropods. Alto- 

 gether, ten persons were engaged the whole or a 

 portion of the time in study at the laboratory, and 

 the result of their work has been of the highest im- 

 portance. 



— The first number of the seventh volume of the 

 American journal of mathematics, which has just ap- 

 peared, bears the name of Simon Newcomb, the suc- 

 cessor to the chair of mathematics in Johns Hopkins 

 university, as editor. 



— The Hydrographic office reports tjiat the bark 

 Nellie T. Guest, which arrived at St. John, KB., 

 Oct. 20, from Barrow, on the 6th of October encoun- 

 tered in latitude 46° 10' north, longitude 43° west, a 

 cyclone, during which she lay four hours with decks 

 full of water. Three bags of oil were towed over 

 the weather side, and assisted greatly in smoothing 

 the sea. 



— By special request, Sir William Thomson deliv- 

 ered a lecture in Hopkins hall, Baltimore, Wednesday, 

 Oct. 15, on the rigidity of the earth. 



— The college for an advanced course of profes- 

 sional study for naval officers, to be known as the Na- 

 val war college, will be under the general supervision 

 of the bureau of navigation. The principal building 

 on Coaster's Harbor Island, Newport, R.I., has been 

 assigned to its use, and has been transferred, with the 

 surrounding structures and the grounds immediately 

 adjacent, to the custody of the bureau of navigation 

 for that purpose. The college will be under the im- 

 mediate charge of an officer of the navy, not below 

 the grade of a commander, to be known as president 

 of the naval war college, who will be assisted by a 

 faculty. The course of instruction will be open to all 

 officers above the grade of naval cadet. Commodore 

 S. B. Luce has been assigned to duty as president of 

 the college. 



— The Eoyal astronomical society has elected Prof. 

 Edward S. Holden, director of the Washburn obser- 

 vatory at Madison, Wis., one of its foreign associ- 

 ates. 



— The first annual meeting of the New-England 

 meteorological society was held in Boston on Tues- 



day, Oct. 21. Sixty-four new members were elected, 

 and the following communications were made: Rain- 

 gauges, by Mr. Desmond Fitz Gerald of the Boston 

 water- works; Rainfall maps, by Mr. W. M. Davis of 

 Harvard college; Weather-observers in New England, 

 by Professor Winslow Upton of Brown university; 

 Establishment of a meteorological station on Blue 

 Hill, Mass., by Mr. A. Lawrence Rotch of Boston. 



— Mrs. Dr. Sophie Kowalevski has been elected 

 teacher of mathematics in the new university at 

 Stockholm. As Dr. Kowalevski read last winter a 

 privatissimum on partial differential equations with 

 noteworthy results, a new professorship was estab- 

 lished for her in the university. 



— The facts made use of in Hudson's 'Cause, na- 

 ture, and prevention of seasickness,' are collected 

 from the author's own experience of twenty-five 

 years at sea. The book lacks a little in physiological 

 accuracy. It, however, is a contribution to a form 

 of treatment which is fast gaining in popular favor, 

 namely, preventive medicine. The author concludes, 

 that by the proper adjustment of the body to gravity 

 and the ocean, through muscular relaxation, sea- 

 sickness may be avoided. 



— Hirsch, the well-known French engineer and 

 author, reports to the Commission centrale des ma- 

 chines a vapeur the results of experiments upon the 

 production of the superheated condition in the water 

 of steam-boilers. Studying the history of such phe- 

 nomena so far as they are recorded, and conducting 

 a somewhat extended series of experiments, the con- 

 clusion was finally reached, that there is no evidence, 

 up to the present time, that boiler-explosions may be 

 caused by the conditions studied, or that such con- 

 ditions ever arise in practice. If they occur at all, it 

 is only in extremely rare instances, and as a conse- 

 quence of a coincidence of circumstances seldom to be 

 observed, and which are neither well understood nor 

 well defined. The use of the thermometer is advised 

 to determine the facts bearing upon this question. 

 The commission to which the report is made approve 

 and adopt these conclusions. 



— The latest use to which the electric light has 

 been put at the London health exhibition is the illu- 

 mination of a baker's oven with a plate-glass door. 

 The light was from two incandescent lamps, driven 

 by a Victoria brush-machine, which were inside the 

 oven, where the temperature was from 400° to 600° 

 F., the whole oven being distinctly visible. No more 

 burnt bread ! 



— The reduction of the French photographs of the 

 transit of Venus, taken Dec. 6, 1882, gives a polar 

 flattening of the planet about the same as that of the 

 earth, viz., ^^. From measures during the transit 

 of 1874, Lieut. -Gen. Tennant derived a compression, 



in the north-south direction, of 



There 



259.3 ± 77.6 



appears, thus, a strong presumption of a real flatten- 

 ing in this direction; which, however, is to be noted 

 as inconsistent with the hitherto received determina- 

 tions of the inclination of the equator of Venus to 

 the ecliptic. 



