142 



SCIENCE. 



LVol. V., No. 106. 



Pacific standard time, sunrise and sunset at San 

 Francisco, and lists of lighthouses, lighted beacons, 

 and floating lights, on the west coast of North and 

 South America, including the North and South 

 Pacific islands. 



— "Geonomy: creation of the continents by the 

 ocean-currents, by J. S. Grimes (Philadelphia, 1885)," 

 is a book characterized by implications of blindness 

 and conservatism on the part of most physical geog- 

 raphers, by assertions of the great value and original- 

 ity of the author's earlier works, by a broad ignorance 

 of what others have done, and by utterly impos- 

 sible physical theories. "The reason why scienti- 

 cians have neglected to investigate the laws of the 

 currents thoroughly, and to discover the truth con- 



AN ELECTRIC LIGHT FOR USE WITH A MICROSCOPE 



cerning them, is that they have not regarded them 

 as of much importance. Had they suspected that 

 the currents, by their operations, created the conti- 

 nents, they would long since have wrung from them 

 all their secrets " (p. 49). 



— Professor Charles Denison of Denver has pre- 

 pared a series of climatic charts of the United States 

 on the basis of the U. S. signal-service records, giv- 

 ing especial care to the illustration of elements of 

 humidity and cloudiness. The dryer and moister re- 

 gions of the country are thus clearly separated in a 

 general way, as far as the scattered stations of obser- 

 vation will allow. The need of additional data in 

 the west is sufficiently shown by noticing that Pike's 

 Peak alone, of all its compeers in the mountains, is 

 represented as having its conditions of humidity af- 

 fected by its elevation. When the Cordilleras are 



correctly known, the broad colors now admitted will 

 be broken up into very small patchwork. The maps 

 are published by Rand, McNally, & Co., Chicago, and 

 are interesting as being among the first attempts to 

 bring the results of the signal-service records into 

 popular use. 



— Science et nature describes an electric lamp to 

 be used with the microscope. All microscopists know 

 how difficult it is to obtain good, clear light when 

 working with high-power lenses, and any invention 

 which will tend to lessen or overcome this difficulty 

 will be appreciated by them. For micro-photography, 

 Steam's lights, illustrated in fig. 1, are decidedly the 

 best. They measure about three centimetres in 

 diameter, but may be made smaller. In fig. 2 there 



are three lights attached to a binocu- 

 lar, — one above the stage, for illu- 

 minating opaque objects; another 

 below, to take the place of the re- 

 ($ffiy\ / /flector; and a third, much brighter, 



beneath all, to be used in photogra- 

 phy. Each one can be regulated at 

 will. It is not necessary, however, 

 to have a microscope thus modified, 

 for something like fig. 3 can be sub- 

 stituted. In this way one light can 

 be made to serve the purposes of all. 

 Dr. T. Stein describes in the Zeit- 

 schrift fur mikroskopie a similar but 

 less perfect arrangement. There is 

 one important addition, however. 

 In the stage beneath the object there 

 is a spiral of platinum, which be- 

 comes heated when the current is 

 allowed to pass through it, — an ex- 

 tremely convenient way of heating 

 an object beneath the microscope. 



— The geographical society of Par- 

 is awards its prizes as follows: a gold 

 medal to Mr. de Fourcauld, for his 

 expedition to the south of Morocco, 

 and his studies on the western ex- 

 tremity of the Atlas chain; a gold 

 medal to Dr. Neis, for his four voy- 

 ages to Indo-China and into the un- 

 explored parts of Laos; the Roquette prize to the 

 Danish periodical, Meddelser om Groenland, for geo- 

 logical and geographical researches in Greenland; 

 the Jomard prize to Mr. Leroux, for his work entitled 

 " Recueil de voyages et de documents pour servir a 

 l'histoire de la geographie, depuis le xiii e siecle 

 jusqu'a la fin du xvi e ," published under the direc- 

 tion of Messrs. Scheffer, member of the institute, 

 and Henri Cordier; the Ehrard prize to Mr. Dumas 

 Vorzet for his charts and cartographic work. 



— Mr. H. II. Johnston intends shortly to publish 

 two works, — one on his recent experiences in eastern 

 Africa, and the other a carefully prepared account of 

 the Portuguese colonies of West Africa. The latter 

 book he has had in hand since his return from the 

 Kongo. Mr. Johnston's studies and sketches of 

 Mount Kilimanjaro will appear shortly in the Graphic. 



