478 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VII., No. 173; 



G. Stokes, the attendance also was unusually 

 brilliant. Prominent among the exhibits was a 

 microscopic section of the third or parietal eye 

 discovered three days previously in the New Zea- 

 land lizard, Hatteria punctata, by Mr. Baldwin 

 Spencer of the University museum, Oxford, who 

 has described it in full in Nature for May 13. 

 Mesial sections of a frozen chimpanzee and a 

 frozen orang-outang, by Prof. D. J. Cunningham, 

 attracted much attention, as did a collection of 

 micro-organisms by Mr. F. R. Cheshire, and of 

 photomicrographs of bacteria by Mr. E. M. 

 Crookshank. To chemists, specimens of the new 

 element germanium, which appears to be the 

 ekasilicium predicted by Mendellieff in his period- 

 ic law (lent by Professor Winkler of Freiburg), 

 were specially interesting. Mr. Howard Grubb 

 exhibited a model of the proposed equatorial and 

 observatory for the great 36-inch refractor for the 

 Lick observatory in California, in which all the 

 required motions of telescope, dome, and rising 

 floor are effected by water-power, and are con- 

 trolled by an electrical arrangement, the com- 

 mutator of which is portable, and carried by the 

 observer, thus obviating the necessity of assist- 

 ants. Various electrical appliances, such as the 

 powder-magazine lamps of Mr. J. Pitkin, weigh- 

 ing six pounds, and lasting ten hours, De la Rue's 

 chloride-of-silver battery, arranged for electric 

 lighting, and the miner's electric lamp of Mr. 

 Swan, illustrated the advances in practical elec- 

 tricity ; the chief object of purely scientific inter- 

 est in this connection being the voltaic cells, 

 with solid electrolytes, described by Mr. Shelford 

 Bidwell in the Philosophical magazine for Oc- 

 tober, 1885, and the induction bridge of Professor 

 Hughes. Objects connected with the Hell Gate 

 explosion, near New York, exhibited by Dr. H. 

 Sprengel, were shown, and near them was a new 

 and extremely powerful electrical - influence ma- 

 chine with eight disks working within a glass 

 case. Captain Abney and General Festing ex- 

 hibited their color-photometer ; and several series 

 of stellar and solar photographs by the brothers 

 Henry, Janssen, the solar physics committee, 

 Common, Dr. Gill, and others, illustrated the 

 recent advances in celestial photography. Dr. 

 Auer von Welsbach's incandescence system of 

 burning gas, whereby a light of twenty -five 

 candle-power was obtained with a consumption 

 of two and one-half cubic feet per hour, attracted 

 much attention. An ordinary Bunsen flame is 

 used, the incandescence being obtained from a 

 cylindrical ' wick ' of net or muslin soaked in a 

 solution of metallic salts, zirconium being one. 



The arrangements for the Birmingham meeting 

 of the British association are now completed. On 



Wednesday evening, Sept. 1, the president-elect, 

 Sir William Dawson, of the McGill college, Mon- 

 treal, will deliver his address. The other two 

 evening discourses at general meetings will be on 

 Sept. 3, by Prof. W. Rutherford, on < The sense of 

 hearing ; ' and on Sept. 6, by Mr. A. W. Riicker, 

 on 'Soap-bubbles.' The various sections will be 

 presided over by (A.) Prof. G. H. Darwin, (B.) Mr. 

 W. Crookes, (C.) Prof. T. G. Bonney. (D.) Mr. W. 

 Carruthers, (E.) Maj.-Gen. Sir F. J. Goldsmid, 

 (F.) J. Biddulph Martin, (G.) Sir J. N. Douglass, 

 (H.) Sir George Campbell. The meeting will con- 

 clude on Wednesday, Sept. 18. 



The Colonial and Indian exhibition, opened by 

 the queen on May 4, with an amount of public 

 and state ceremonial not seen since the corre- 

 sponding ceremony in 1851, well illustrates in many 

 ways the advances in practical science made in 

 the various colonies. The grounds are lighted 

 every evening by 9,700 glow-lamps, which are 

 simultaneously illuminated, the current for which 

 is supplied by four Elwell-Parker self -regulating 

 dynamos, each of wilich can supply a current of 

 250 amperes with an electromotive force of 250 

 volts when running at 300 revolutions. The offi- 

 cial catalogue contains a vast mass of statistical 

 information, most carefully compiled, relating to 

 the history, recent advances, and present condi- 

 tion, of India and the chief colonies. 



The still exceptional weather deserves a word 

 of comment. On the night of April 30, 13° of 

 frost were registered close to London ; on the 

 afternoon of May 7, 79° in the shade, and 130° in 

 the sun, were registered at the same place. The 

 temperature that week was 6 C above the average ; 

 and at the present moment (May 15) accounts 

 are coming to hand of floods in all parts of the 

 country heavier than have been experienced for 

 many years, by which railway embankments and 

 bridges have been wrecked, while in the north of 

 Scotland and Ireland severe snow-storms have 

 occurred. The details of the ten-minutes hurri- 

 cane at Madrid two days ago, which uprooted two 

 thousand trees, wrecked several houses, palaces, 

 etc., killed twenty-four people and injured hun- 

 dreds, and devastated a large country district, 

 read more like those of the American or tropical 

 tornadoes than of any thing known in Europe. 



The Iron and steel institute has just been hold- 

 ing its three-days' annual meeting in London, 

 under the presidency of Dr. Percy, who contrib- 

 uted two papers himself, — on steel wire of high 

 tenacity, and on a rare blast-furnace cinder. Mr. 

 F. W. Gordon of Philadelphia furnished an ac- 

 count of some points in American blast - furnace 

 practice. The international character of the in- 

 stitute was shown by the fact that one-thud of 



