244 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. V., No. 111. 



— In Revue de botanique for October, 1884, Fons- 

 sagrives writes that fruits, even after being detached 

 from the tree, give off both poisonous gases and car- 

 bonic-acid gas, thereby vitiating the air of a room so 

 as to produce death by poisoning. Such accidents 

 have been caused by ripe apricots, oranges, and 

 quinces, which gave off the gas in the night. Had 

 the air of the room been examined, there is little doubt 

 that a sufficient quantity of oxygen to support life 

 would have been found. Sweet-smelling flowers, such 

 as jasmine, tuberose, and magnolia, and also odor- 

 iferous leaves, give off a similar deadly gas; and it 

 seems that this gas must be in some way connected 

 with the odor. 



— La Nature publishes an account of a new loud- 

 speaking telephone system recently presented by 

 Mr. J. Ochorowicz to the 



International society of 

 electricians and to the 

 French society of physics. 

 His transmitter is as yet 

 a secret. The receiver, 

 which is figured in the ac- 

 companying cut, is the 

 same in principle with 

 that of Bell. The magnet 

 is formed of a hollow steel 

 cylinder, with a slot on 

 one side from five to six 

 millimetres wide. To the 

 centre of this cylinder are 

 attached two little cores 

 of soft iron, on which are 

 rolled the bobbins. These 

 bobbins are enclosed be- 

 tween two disks of thin 

 sheet-iron. The lower 

 plate, which is fixed firm- 

 ly to the magnet, has two 

 holes which freely allow 

 the passage of the iron 

 cores. The magnetism 

 keeps the box in a state 

 of tension. This receiver, 

 with the peculiar transmit- 

 ter of Mr. Ochorowicz, allowed speaking, singing, and 

 music to be heard throughout the hall of the Paris 

 geographical society, — a hall accommodating five 

 hundred persons. In the microphone transmitter 

 used by Mr. Ochorowicz, heat seems to play an im- 

 portant part, if one may judge from the fact that all 

 the experiments made before the society of electri- 

 cians on the 4th of February were successful except 

 the last. Mr. Ochorowicz attributed this to the fact 

 that the microphone needed to be hot: when it ceases 

 to be so, the adjustment is destroyed, and can be re- 

 established only by reheating. Leclanche cells were 

 used, which became polarized, and allowed the trans- 

 mitter to become cold. 



— A patent has been taken out in France by M. 

 Tichenor for a process of butter-making by electricity. 

 It is stated, that, the milk being placed in a vessel of 



OCHOROWICZ'S LOUD-SPEAKING TELEPHONE. 



special form, a pair of electrodes is introduced, and 

 connected to a dynamo capable of yielding a current 

 of forty volts, when in from three to five minutes the 

 butter accumulates at one end of the poles in the 

 form of little balls. The claims include the removal 

 of rancidity from butter, and the manufacture of 

 cheese, by the help of the current. 



— We take the following account of the Fritts 

 selenium cells from an advance copy of his paper, to 

 appear in the Proceedings of the American associa- 

 tion. " In the first place, I form the selenium in very 

 thin plates, and polarize them, so that the opposite 

 faces have different electrical states or properties. 

 This I do by melting it upon a plate of metal with 

 which it will form a chemical combination, sufficient, 

 at least, to cause the selenium to adhere and make a 

 good electrical connection 

 with it. The other surface 

 of the selenium is not so 

 united or combined, but is 

 left in a free state; and a 

 conductor is subsequently 

 applied over it by simple 

 contact or pressure. Dur- 

 ing the process of melting 

 and crystallizing, the se- 

 lenium is compressed be- 

 tween the metal plate upon 

 which it is melted, and an- 

 other plate of steel or other 

 substance with which it 

 will not combine. . . . 

 The non-adherent plate 

 being removed after the 

 cell has become cool, I 

 then cover that surface 

 with a transparent con- 

 ductor of electricity ', which 

 may be a thin film of gold- 

 leaf. Platinum, silver, or 

 other suitable material 

 may also be employed. 

 The whole surface of the 

 selenium is therefore cov- 

 ered with a good electrical 

 conductor, yet is practically bare to the light, which 

 passes through the conductor to the selenium under- 

 neath. My standard size of cell has about two by two 

 and a half inches of surface, with a thickness of from 

 toW to tuW of an inch of selenium ; but the cells can, 

 of course, be made of any size or form. A great advan- 

 tage of this arrangement consists in the fact that it 

 enables me to apply the current and the light to the 

 selenium in the same plane or general direction, instead 

 of transversely to each other, as heretofore done." 



— Petermanii' s mittheilung en has published a very 

 detailed linguistic map of Hungary, with an article 

 by Dr. T. v. Jekelfalussy of the statistical bureau, 

 from which it appears, that, among every thousand 

 inhabitants of the kingdom, there are 412 Magyars, 

 125 Germans, 154 Roumanians, 150 Croats and Serbs, 

 and 119 Slovaks. 



