182 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. V., No. 108. 



— The effect of magnets upon artificially incubated 

 hen's eggs formed the subject of some very interesting 

 experiments, of wbich an account was given by Pro- 

 fessor Carlo Naggiorani in a recent paper before the 

 Academy dei lincei. During the hatching-process 

 he kept one set of eggs under the influence of power- 

 ful magnets, while another set was incubated away 

 from all such influence. Cases of arrested develop- 

 ment were very numerous among the first set, and 

 after birth the rate of death among these was four 

 times as great as in the naturally incubated chickens. 

 Only six chickens out of a hundred and fourteen 

 eggs arrived at maturity. Of these, two were cocks of 

 a splendid stature, and endowed with an insatiable 

 reproductive appetite. With the four pullets the case 

 was quite the reverse. One of these never laid at all, 

 and the three others generally produced very minute 

 eggs without yolks, without germinal spot, and, in a 

 word, sterile. 



— An experiment is being tried in the Jefferson 

 physical laboratory, which promises to be successful. 

 An ordinary seconds clock, witb a wooden pendulum, 

 is controlled by the signals from the Harvard college 

 observatory, with no other mechanism than a fine 

 spring connecting the pendulum to the armature of 

 a telegraph instrument in the circuit. If the signals 

 are interrupted during the day or night, the error of 

 the clock, which seldom exceeds half a second in that 

 time, will generally be rectified within an hour of 

 their recurrence. The rate is in no way affected by 

 the irregular signals caused in storms by the inter- 

 ference of the wires, and the regular impulses con- 

 veyed at intervals of two seconds increase but slightly 

 the swing of the pendulum. The attachment can 

 easily be made to any seconds clock at the cost of a 

 few dollars, and may be of interest to those intolerant 

 of the rates charged by companies for the use of 

 electric dials. 



— Aside from the munificent charities of the Salem 

 East India marine society, extending over an unbroken 

 period of eighty-six years, there is a scientific history 

 covering a less extended period, which at this late 

 day is by many persons forgotten, and to the younger 

 generation is unknown. One visible result of this 

 scientific work, although incidental to the more im- 

 portant objects for which the society was formed, is 

 the rare ethnological collections now in the custody 

 of the Peabody academy of science. When the mu- 

 seum was transferred to the trustees of the academy 

 in 1867, such old catalogues and manuscripts accom- 

 panied the specimens as were supposed to relate to 

 the collections. These were laid aside for a time, and 

 forgotten. An examination of the various papers re- 

 ferred to, clearly shows that an earnest spirit of scien- 

 tific research pervaded the early work of this society. 

 The act of incorporation places charitable objects of 

 the society first, and ' the promotion of a knowledge 

 of navigation ' second : the museum followed as inci- 

 dental to the latter. Upon the foundation of the 

 society, blank journals were immediately distributed, 

 under the by-laws, to "every member bound to sea, 

 ... in which he shall enter the occurrences of his 

 voyage, and particularly his observations of the varia 



tions of the compass, bearings and distances of capes 

 and headlands, of the latitude and longitude of ports, 

 islands, rocks and shoals, and of soundings, tide and 

 currents, and on his return shall return the same for 

 the use of the society." This latter clause was in 

 reality meant for the benefit of the commercial inter- 

 ests of the country, which at that time largely centred 

 in Salem. Many of the journals are beautiful exam- 

 ples of neatness and fine penmanship, and are embel- 

 lished here and there with diagrams, maps, drawings 

 of coasts, and even with sketches of native craft. 



— The ' age of horn ' is a term applied by Mr. G. 

 Kaiser to the period of certain relics which he has 

 found in his investigations of the Forel and Cortail- 

 lod stations on Lake Neuenburg in Switzerland, 

 where he has been excavating under the auspices of 

 the historical society of Neuenburg. The Neue 

 Zurcher zeitung of Jan. 15 states that he found a 

 stratum at a depth of from 1.20 m. to 1.30m., which 

 contained various horn objects, — such as amulets, 

 cups, knives, daggers, mattocks, rings, buttons, 

 bracelets, shield-studs, etc., — all of which were en- 

 graved either with dots or with straight lines ; and 

 he concludes that they are older than the bronze or 

 stone implements found in similar localities. But 

 some implement, presumably of stone or metal, must 

 have been employed in cutting the horn; and cer- 

 tainly a single find hardly gives ground for such 

 a wide generalization. 



— Two important expeditions are now in progress 

 by Russian travellers, — that of Prjevalski in northern 

 Thibet, in part to discover the sources of the Yellow 

 River; and that of Potanin to north-western China 

 and south-eastern Mongolia. A large number of 

 barometrical observations have been taken, which are 

 to be worked up by Col. Scharnhorst. 



— A full account by Lieut. Gordon, of the proceed- 

 ings of the Hudson-Bay exploring expedition of 1884, 

 with a track-chart of the steamer Neptune, and a 

 report on the geology, etc., of the district visited, by 

 Dr. Robert Bell, who accompanied the expedition in 

 the interests of the Geological survey of Canada, 

 have just been published in an appendix to the an- 

 nual report of the Canadian department of marine. 



— Among recent deaths we note the following : Pro- 

 fessor Lauritz Esmark, director of the zoological mu- 

 seum of the university of Christiania, at Christiania, 

 in December, 1884; Seaiies V. Wood, geologist and 

 paleontologist, at London, Dec. 19; Dr. Philipp von 

 Jolly, physicist, at Munich, Dec. 24, in his seventy- 

 fifth year; Rev. James Buller of New Zealand; Alex- 

 ander Murray, director of the geological survey of 

 Newfoundland ; Alfred Tylor, anthropologist and ge- 

 ologist, at London, Dec. 31; Dr. Friedrich von Stein, 

 professor of zoology in the university of Prague, at 

 Prague, Jan. 9, in his sixty-seventh year; Major-Gen. 

 K. Sonklar von Instadten, at Innsbruck, Jan. 10; 

 Dupuy de Lome, engineer at Paris, Feb. 1, at the age 

 of sixty-eight; E. H. von Baumhauer, secretary of the 

 Societe hollandaise des sciences; E. C. Rye, librarian 

 of the London geographical society, Feb. 7, aged fifty- 

 two; and S. G. Thomas, metallurgist at Paris, Feb. 1, 

 aged thirty-four. 



