74 



SCIENCE. 



that period. Scientific investigations of the most compli- 

 cated nature have been successfully carried on. the ordi- 

 nary beaten paths of research of the Chemist, the Engi- 

 neer and the Electrician have been cast aside, and origi- 

 nal methods of exploring the whole domain of science 

 employed with indefatigable perseverance. The very 

 text books and scientific literature on which others 

 have relied, proving unreliable, were rejected, and 

 Nature, at its fountain head, consulted in solving the 

 these problems. 



With such methods and indomitable will, and with 

 the constant and valued co-operation of Mr. Charles 

 Batchelor and Mr. Francis R. Upton, the great work 

 has been successfully accomplished. 



The arrival of Edison in New York with his corps 

 of skilled electricians and engineers, occurs at an op- 

 portune moment. Deaths from suffocation caused 

 by the escape of the ordinary illuminating gas have 

 multiplied of late, and as we now write the bodies of 

 two women who have died from this cause, await burial. 

 During the last few days a building on Broadway 

 suffered from a violent explosion of illuminating gas, 

 making the second within a few weeks. In the first 

 instance many persons were injured, and in the more 

 recent case one hundred persons escaped death only 

 by the force of the explosion taking a fortunate direc- 

 tion. With the acceptance of Edison's system of 

 electric illumination, these dangers to health and life, 

 to which we have been so long exposed, become as 

 things of the past, except where voluntarily encoun- 

 tered, and to this extent Edison may claim to have 

 conferred a benefit to which the whole world will be 

 heir. 



We are under obligations to the Marchioness Lanza 

 for a fine translation of a paper by the renowned Pro- 

 fessor Rudolph Virchow, of Berlin, entitled " Organic 

 Healing Power." This paper, involving many points 

 of general scientific interest, will be produced in our 

 next issue. 



Virchow is now in his 6ist year, and it is 36 years 

 since he was challenged by Count Von Bismarck to 

 fight a duel, on account of Virchow (who was an ad- 

 vanced liberal) having defeated Bismarck's project to 

 obtain money from the Parliament to create a German 

 navy. 



AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY. 



The February meeting of the American Chemical So- 

 ciety was held on Friday evening, February 11, 1881. 

 The meeting was called to order by Vice-President Leeds, 

 after which the following gentlemen were duly elected 

 members ot the society, viz.: Messrs. N. Gerber, James 

 F. Slade, Theodore M. Hopkey, Professor F. N. Venable, 

 and E. K. Dunham. Dr. E. R. Squibb then took the 

 chair and Professor A. R. Leeds read the following pa- 

 pers : 



I. Upon the invariable production, not only of ozone 

 and hydrogen peroxide, but also of ammonium nitrate in 

 the ozonation of purified air by moist phosphorous. 



II. Upon the action of ozone, oxygen and nascent 

 oxygen upon benzine. 



III. On a new class of aromatic sulphurous acids. 

 Mr. J. H. Stebbins, Jr., followed with some remarks on 



tetra-azo-compounds, substances to which he has paid 

 particular attention, for it will be recollected that a whole 

 series of the tli-azo-colors were originally produced by 

 him. 



Professor W. G. Levison then gave the Society the re- 

 sults of some recent experiments by him on polarized 

 light. On the conclusion of this paper, the society was 

 adjourned. M. B. 



New York, February 17, 1881. 



NEW YORK MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY. 



The third annual reception of the New York Micros- 

 copical Society was held on February 14th, 1881, at the 

 rooms of the Academy ot Sciences. The annual address 

 of the President was delivered by Professor R. Hitchcock, 

 who selected as his subject : " The Relations of Science to 

 Modern Thought," on the conclusion of which the meet- 

 ing resolved into a conversazione, when a variety of inter- 

 esting but familiar objects were exhibited. 



The annual meeting of the German Chemical Society 

 took place December 22, 1880, on which occasion the 

 following officers were elected for the present year : 

 I President, A. Baeyer ; Vice-Presidents, A. W. Hofmann, 

 L. v. Barth, F. Hoppe-Seyler, H. Landolt ; Secretaries, 

 F. Tieman, A. Pinner ; Vice-Secretaries, E. Bauman, 

 Eug. Sell ; Treasurer, J. F. Holtze ; Librarian, S. Gabriel. 



M. B. 



THE SOCIETY OF TELEGRAPH ENGINEERS, 

 (England). 



On Wednesday, last week, Prof. G. C. Foster, F. R. S., 

 president, read his inaugural address before the Society 

 of Telegraph Engineers and Electricians, the principal 

 thing dwelt upon being the practical importance of a 

 trustworthy system of electrical measurements. The So- 

 ciety, he said, was not merely a professional one, but was 

 concerned with the scientific principles which underlie 

 the practical operations of electricity. The present prac- 

 tical applications of electricity owed their existence to 

 scientific discoveries made just over 60 years ago. Re- 

 ference was made to the investigations of Oersted in 1820, 

 and Davy in 1821. Induced electrical currents enabled 

 the electric light to cease to be a scientific marvel and 

 become of practical interest to municipal corporations 

 and limited liability companies. Davy first produced an 

 electric light by the passage of currents from a battery 

 of 2000 cells between carbon points. Oersted, Ampere, 

 and Faraday traced out the fundamental laws of the 

 phenomena of induction. In the ordinary course of 

 scientific discovery, the qualitative aspects of phenomena 

 first attracted attention. Quantitative knowledge follow- 

 ed later by degrees. "Absolute values of constants" 

 could only be given when a phenomenon was sufficiently 

 well known for its laws to be expressed in definite mathe- 

 matical formula?, or when methods for the determination 

 of such values could be devised. But when definite re- 

 sults had to be produced as part of a commercial under- 

 taking, that point became of the utmost importance from 

 j the very first. Examples were given. During the past 

 I 100 years an unknown large number of electrical ma- 

 chines had been made for more or less scientific pur- 

 poses ; but after all that experience it was a question as 

 to who could draw up a specification for an electrical 

 machine which should, with a given number of revolu- 



