February 27, 1885.] 



SCIENCE. 



181 



mere exercises of the fancy. Indeed, the use of the 

 expression ' structure of molecules ' is in such cases 

 quite unwarranted." 



There is undoubtedly a sense in which the 

 last statement is true, but there is another 

 sense in which it is not true. We may know 

 a great deal about the chemical conduct of a 

 compound, — enough, indeed, to warrant us in 

 partially expressing its structure in a formula, 

 without positively knowing its molecular weight. 

 The reason why " conclusions regarding the 

 structure of. the molecules . . . are very apt 

 to degenerate into mere exercises of the 

 fancy," is not so much that the molecular 

 weights are unknown, but rather that the true 

 signification of structural formulas is not under- 

 stood, and formulas are frequently constructed 

 on an entirely inadequate basis of facts. 



Taken all in all, the book is deserving of 

 the highest praise, and its influence can only 

 be beneficial. It will arouse opposition, but it 

 will at least cause those who oppose it to 

 think ; and, if it should do this, it would be of 

 value, though every word were false. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



Mr. H. L. Bixby of Chelsea, Vt., is taking steps 

 to introduce a system of weather warnings through- 

 out his state by means of blasts from factory- whistles. 

 The signals are as follows: after the first long, un- 

 broken blast, usually given at about seven a.m., a 

 single five-second blast indicates fair or probably fair 

 weather for the day; two blasts, foul weather; three, 

 fair changing to foul; four, foul changing to fair; five, 

 doubtful or irregularly variable. After any of these, 

 five short blasts signify a cold wave or unseasonable 

 frosts. The managers of the Free press at Burlington 

 undertake to send the necessary telegrams on pay- 

 ment of a small fee. Randolph is the first town to 

 adopt the system: the signals are regularly given 

 there now from a ten-inch steam-whistle. 



— Herr J. Brautlecht has been experimenting on 

 the transfer of bacteria from the soil to the atmos- 

 phere. Ignited sand, gravelly soil, and a moderately 

 clayey garden-soil, were moistened with liquid con- 

 taining bacteria, and covered with glass bells. In a 

 few hours microbia of the same kind as those con- 

 tained in the liquid were found in great numbers in 

 the moisture condensed on the sides of the bell. It 

 will be remembered that Angus Smith was one of 

 the first to point out that aqueous vapor condensed 

 on the walls of rooms contains micro-organisms. 



— The Nitrate owners' committee of Tarapaca have 

 determined to offer a prize of a thousand pounds for 

 the best essay on the employment of nitrate in agri- 

 culture, so as to supplant other fertilizers. The essay 

 is to be published by the committee in all modern 

 languages. Moreover, five hundred tons of nitrate, 



subscribed}! by the manufacturers, are to be shipped 

 to Europe and the United States, to be employed in 

 experiments at the expense of the committee. A 

 fund of four thousand pounds has been formed to 

 carry out these various schemes, the object of which 

 is to promote a demand for the nitrate. 



— Dr. Edward Divers, principal of the Imperial en- 

 gineering college of Tokio, Japan, writes to the Chemi- 

 cal news, informing the editor of a serious accident 

 which threatens to deprive him of the sight of one 

 eye. He is anxious to put chemists and others on 

 their guard. A bottle containing phosphorus tri- 

 chloride had done duty for many years as a specimen 

 for the lecture-table. Dr. Divers was carefully 

 warming the neck of the bottle to liberate the stop- 

 per, when the bottle burst in pieces with great vio- 

 lence, the cornea and iris of the right eye being 

 extensively wounded, and the aqueous humor dis- 

 charged. 



— A sensation has been caused in Australia by the 

 discovery of the gold-field at Mount Morgan, near 

 Rockhampton, in Queensland. The mine, it is esti- 

 mated, contains gold enough to yield, after working, a 

 profit of nine million pounds. The curious fact is that 

 the locality is not one which a geologist would have 

 pointed out as likely to contain gold. The theory 

 put forward to account for the presence of gold there 

 is that it is a secondary formation. The gold is not 

 in the original matrix. Nature has already mined it, 

 chemically treated it, sublimated it, and redeposited 

 it. The discovery is likely to give a stimulus to 

 ' prospecting ' in Queensland, and also in the other 

 colonies. 



— Professor Woldrich, at a recent meeting of the 

 Vienna anthropological society, read a paper on the 

 latest prehistoric remains found at Prerau. Several 

 cartloads of bones had been found there while work- 

 men were levelling for an orchard, and taken to the 

 Olmutz museum. They were principally bones of 

 mammoths, cave-bears, foxes, hares, etc. ; but min- 

 gled with them were flint weapons, and some of the 

 bones bore traces of being worked and cut. Char- 

 coal was also found in the surrounding earth. 



— The board of commissioners in charge of the 

 lights on the coast of Scotland suggest that in cases 

 of fog, when a light cannot reach its usual distance, 

 the beam from a powerful source, such as electricity, 

 might be depressed so as to concentrate the intensity 

 on the near-hand sea by slightly moving the flame 

 out of the focus of the apparatus, and supplementing 

 it by the use of suitable reflectors. They also look 

 upon the question of the relative absorption of elec- 

 tric light by fogs, compared with that of light from 

 other sources, as yet -undetermined, and requiring 

 strict investigation. 



— The brewers' journal, published in Nuremberg, 

 the Allgemeine brauer- und hopfenzeitung , celebrates 

 its twenty-fifth anniversary by offering prizes for two 

 essays on, 1°, The culture of hops; 2°, Barley as brew- 

 ing-material : the best essay to receive a prize of fifty 

 pounds ; the essay, in German, to be sent in to the 

 editor before May 1, 1886. 



