February 6, 1885. 



SCIENCE. 



121 



— The Roumanian government has voted the funds 

 necessary for the establishment and maintenance of 

 the Central meteorological observatory in Bucharest, 

 and Mr. Hepites has been appointed the director. 



— In November, 1884, Mr. Maxwell Hall, director 

 of the Kempshot observatory, Jamaica, attacked 

 again the question of the variability of the light of 

 Neptune as bearing on the planet's rotation on its 

 axis. He finds that fifteen rotation periods occupy 

 11S.71 hours; so that each period is 7.914 hours, —a 

 result which he considers identical with the period 

 derived from his observations in 1883. 



— The Lena polar expedition, commanded by Lieut. 

 X. D. Jurgens, who arrived at St. Petersburg on Jan. 

 4, has proved a success. No one died or was seriously 

 ill; scurvy, which appeared the first winter, being 

 quickly suppressed. The second winter was some- 

 what milder than the first, although the spring and 

 autumn were cooler. In western Siberia, in the taiga 

 (forest) north of Jenisseisk, there was rain, and 

 the rivers were open, as late as the 1st of December. 

 The lowest temperature experienced by Lieut. Jur- 

 gens was — 50° C. ; but the chief inconvenience was 

 the frequent storms, although observations were not 

 interfered with. Those of the first year have al- 

 ready been calculated by Mr. Eigner, who arrived in 

 St. Petersburg in advance. The summer was almost 

 without sun; and 12° C, the highest temperature re- 

 corded, was reached only once. This had a decided 

 effect on the vegetation. Mosses were almost the only 

 plant observed, and willows grow to a height of a 

 few inches only, though inland, where the sea wind 

 does not penetrate, they reach two feet. Magnetic 

 disturbances were less frequent and important the 

 second year than the first; thus proving the wisdom 

 of the scientific men, who insisted that the observa- 

 tions should be made in 1882-83. The survey of the 

 delta considerably changes our ideas about this region. 

 Among other things, Sagastyr, where the observa- 

 tions were made, is not the most northern point of 

 the delta; but this honor belongs to the Island Dunas, 

 74° north. The changes of water-level at Sagastyr 

 are inconsiderable; the expanse of water being too 

 large for high river-floods, and tjie tides small and 

 irregular, largely influenced by the winds. Lieut. 

 Jurgens left Sagastyr on July 8, passed several days 

 at Yakootsk, whence he reached Kireusk by steamer in 

 twenty-four days, and continued by boat on the Lena 

 for two hundred versts; he was then obliged to travel 

 by land, as ice was fast forming on the river. The 

 journey to Irkutsk was made difficult by the lack of 

 snow, which was also largely the case between Irkutsk 

 and Neuberg, where he took the railroad. A telegram 

 has just been received from r)r. Bunge, the naturalist 

 of the expedition, who has not returned, stating that 

 he is on the way to Irkutsk, where he will winter, 

 and whence he will start early in the spring for the 

 basin of the Jana, north-eastern Siberia, which he 

 will explore in 1885, and in the spring of 1886 he will 

 start for the New Siberia Islands. 



— The publications of the second geological sur- 

 vey of Pennsylvania make steady progress. Reports 



on Cameron, Elk, Forest, Perry, Huntington, and 

 Delaware counties, are in press. Reports on Leba- 

 non, Dauphin, Cumberland, and Franklin counties, 

 are partly prepared for the press, together with the 

 remaining sheets of the South Mountain survey, one 

 additional atlas and the second report of the progress 

 of the anthracite survey, the second part of the 

 report on the Monongahela collieries, and the second 

 part of the report on Perry and Juniata counties. 

 The state geologist has prepared a hand-atlas of the 

 state, reducing the county maps in common use to a 

 uniform scale of six miles to an inch, and coloring 

 them geologically, according to the reports of prog- 

 ress in their respective districts, made to him by the 

 assistant geologists of the survey. This atlas is just 

 about to issue from the press. The board of com- 

 missioners has just recommended an appropriation 

 of ninety thousand dollars for the next two years; 

 twenty-five thousand dollars to be expended annually 

 to continue the anthracite survey; ten thousand dol- 

 lars annually to continue the topographical survey 

 and commence the construction of a state map; and 

 ten thousand dollars annually to extend the oil-region 

 survey, to continue the chemical analyses of miner- 

 als, to provide for economic geological examinations 

 in the bituminous and iron-ore regions, and to con- 

 tinue the work of the state geologist. 



— At the annual meeting in February, according 

 to Nature, the Royal astronomical society will award 

 its gold medal to Dr. W. Huggins for his researches 

 on the motions of stars in the line of sight, and on 

 the photographic spectra of stars and comets. This 

 is the second time that Dr. Huggins has received the 

 medal, he, in conjunction with the late Professor 

 Miller, having received it in 1867, for his researches 

 in astronomical physics. 



— At a meeting of the French academy of sciences 

 on Jan. 5, Mr. Pasteur presented a paper, in the 

 name of Mr. Duclaux, on the germination of plants 

 in soil free from microbes. Mr. Duclaux had under- 

 taken experiments in order to determine the effect 

 of the presence of microbes upon germination. In his 

 experiments he used pease and Holland beans, the 

 cotyledons of which uniformly appear, one below the 

 soil, the other above. The soil had been previously 

 sterilized by processes of which the author gave no 

 details, and, in addition, had been moistened with 

 milk also sterilized. Under these conditions, germi- 

 nation did not take place, and at the end of two 

 months the milk showed no indication of alteration. 

 These two experiments tend to prove that the pres- 

 ence of microbes in the soil is necessary to the de- 

 velopment and to the life of plants. Pasteur added 

 some critical reflections. He mentioned that he had 

 before this proposed to his pupils to examine what 

 would happen to an animal subjected from birth to 

 nourishment the elements of which had previously 

 been freed of microbes, and consequently reduced to 

 its nutritive principles, pure and simple. To this he 

 had been led by the idea that in such conditions the 

 maintenance of life and development would be im- 

 possible with animals. This conclusion leads to the 



