Recent Proceedings of Societies. 



Engineers' club, Philadelphia. 



Feb. 20.. — Mr. J. Foster Crowell presented, in con- 

 tinuation of his discussion of the interoceanic canal 

 question, an exposition of the engineering features 

 embodied in the Nicaragua ship- canal project in its 

 latest form, claiming broadly the adaptiveness of the 

 country to the purpose, and defining the canal loca- 

 tion, which, in the author's opinion, has been so con- 

 trived as to fully avail of what nature has already 

 done. He stated, that, in the limited sense in which 

 the term ' canal ' is generally used, it is a misnomer 

 for this work, which is to be a slack-water system of 

 grand dimensions, wherein lake and river naviga- 

 tion, practically unrestricted under the treatment 

 proposed, will constitute 128 8-10 miles, or 77 per 

 cent of the entire passage between the oceans, while 

 the artificial channels will aggregate but 40 miles, or 

 23 per cent ; and of these artificial channels, 13 miles 

 were to be made so wide and deep as to offer no ob- 

 jectionable restriction, leaving only 27 miles of con- 

 fined canal, divided into several separate stretches. 

 There will be seven locks, — three on the Atlantic 

 side, and four on the Pacific, — each 650 feet long, 

 65 feet wide, and with 29 feet of water at least 

 depth. For the great rock-hewn lock, with 53 feet 

 lift, the ' rolling gate,' 88 feet in height, was designed 

 by Mr. Peary, U.S.N. The author considered that 

 ocean-harbors were not necessary, and, if constructed, 

 would now constitute a source of superfluous expense. 

 He pointed out the causes which had led in the past 

 to the destruction of the once fine sea-harbor at Grey- 

 town, but claimed that it would be possible to restore 

 it partly but sufficiently, if, in the future, a necessity 

 for it should arise. 



Royal meteorological society, London. 



Feb. 17. — Capt. H. Toynbee, F. R. met. soc, read 

 a paper entitled 1 General remarks on the naming of 

 clouds,' in which he stated that he considers it im- 

 portant to keep to Luke Howard's nomenclature, 

 leaving it to the observers to express by an addition- 

 al word any peculiarity they notice in a particular 



cloud. Mr. A. W. Ciayden, M.A., F. G. S., in a 



paper on the thickness of shower-clouds, said that from 

 some measurements made by him during the summer 

 of 1885, he has come to the conclusion that clouds of 

 less than two thousand feet in thickness are not often 

 accompanied by rain ; and, if they are, it is only very 

 gentle, consisting of minute drops. With a thickness 

 of between two thousand and four thousand feet, the 

 size of the drops is moderate. As the thickness gets 

 greater, the size of the drops increases, and at the 

 same time their temperature becomes lower, until, 

 when the thickness is upwards of six thousand feet, 



hail is produced . In a paper on the formation of 



rain, hail, and snow, the same author pointed out 

 that all observations tend to show, that, except under 

 quite abnormal conditions, the temperature of the 

 atmosphere falls as the height above sea-level in- 

 creases, and there seems no reason whatever for 

 assuming that the law does not apply to that portion 

 of the atmosphere which forms a cloud. Hence, if a 

 drop were to be formed at or near the upper surface 

 of a cloud, it would fall down into a region saturated 

 with vapor at a temperature above its own. The 

 result will be further condensation, producing a 



larger drop ; and this process will continue until it 

 leaves the cloud. If its temperature is below the 

 dew-point of the air it falls through, condensation 

 will continue until it reaches the ground. However, 

 it is obvious that this subsequent gain cannot bear 

 any very large proportion to the growth while falling 

 through the saturated cloud ; from which the conclu- 

 sion follows that the size of the drop must increase 

 with the thickness of the cloud. The author suggests 

 that the condensation begins on the upper surface of 

 the cloud by the cooling of some of the liquid cloud- 

 particles. If this particle is cold enough, it will 

 solidify, and snow will be formed. Should it not be 

 quite cold enough to solidify at once, owing to its 

 minuteness, but remain still below the freezing-point, 

 hail is formed. Finally, if the temperature is not 

 low enough for either snow or hail, rain is produced. 



Mr. W. F. Stanley, F. R. met. soc, read a paper 



on " Three years' work by the ' chrono-barometer' and 

 'chrono-thermometer,' 1882-84." The chrono-barome- 

 ter is a clock that counts the oscillations of a pendu- 

 lum formed by a suspended barometer. The upper 

 chamber of the pendulum is a cylinder of an inch or 

 more in diameter. By change of atmospheric press- 

 ure the mercury in the pendulum is displaced from 

 the bottom to the top, and vice versa. The rate of 

 the clock is accelerated or retarded in proportion to 

 the displacement of the mercury. The chrono ther- 

 mometer is a similar clock to the above, and the pen- 

 dulum is also a barometer ; but, instead of the lower 

 chamber being exposed to pressure, the whole tube is 

 enclosed in a second hermetically sealed tube, con- 

 taining air. Atmospheric pressure being thus re- 

 moved, the expansion of the included air by heat 

 alone forces the mercury up into the vacuum cham- 

 ber, and alters the period of oscillation of the pendu- 

 lum. 



Calendar of Societies. 



Philosophical society, Washington. 

 Feb. 27. — Asaph Hall, The images of the stars ; 

 G. K. Gilbert, On the changes of terrestrial level 

 surfaces due to variations on distribution of super- 

 ficial matter ; T. C. Chamberlin, On the varying 

 attitudes of former level surfaces in the Great Lake 

 region, and the applicability of proposed expla- 

 nations. 



Biological society, Washington. 



March 6. — George Vasey, New and recent species 

 of North American grasses ; Charles Hallock, Hyper- 

 instinct of animals ; W. S. Barnard, Exhibition of a 

 fungus, with remarks ; H. G. Beyer, Remarks on 

 antipyretics. 



Anthropological society, Washington. 



March 2. — J. Owen Dorsey, Sleight of hand 

 among the Ponkas, Omahas, and Kansas Indians : 

 W. J. Hoffman, Jugglery among the Arikara In- 

 dians. 



American academy of arts and sciences, Boston. 

 March 10. — Charles R. Cross, Equal temperament 

 and its realization on keyed instruments. 



Society of arts, Boston. 

 March 11. — Clarence Pullen, Roadways of New 

 Mexico. 



March 25. — Joseph D. Weeks, Certain phases of 

 the labor question. 



