SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
109 
Medal to Professor William Hallowes Miller, Foreign Secretary R.S., for 
liis researches and writings on mineralogy and crystallography, and his 
scientific labours in the restoration of the national standard of weight; a 
Royal Medal was also awarded to Mr. Thomas Davidson, F.R.S., for his 
works on the recent and fossil Brachiopoda, more especially his series of 
monographs in the publications of the Palceontographical Society ; the 
Rumford Medal to M. Alfred Olivier Des Cloizeaux, for his researches in 
mineralogical optics. 
Tool Paring and Cutting. — At the meeting of the Literary and Philoso- 
phical Society of Manchester on November 15, Mr. Johnson, in an interest- 
ing paper, pointed out the great advances that have been made in this 
department of late. He finally showed to the meeting some specimens of 
steel and iron parings sent to him by Messrs. Smith and Coventry, 
machinists, Salford, and further remarked that these parings demonstrated 
very clearly the capabilities of the machines and cutting tools of the 
present day. One specimen, from a Bessemer steel shaft, the result of 
taking a cut f ths of an inch deep by fths of an inch traverse, was particu- 
larly interesting on account of the form and size in which they, the parings, 
left the cutting tools. The cutting tools used in obtaining the specimens 
exhibited to the meeting were of a peculiar construction, and possessed 
some marked advantages over those in ordinary use. 
Musical Pitch. — The conductors of the “ Society of Arts Journal ” have 
adopted an excellent plan. They have written to the musical department of 
nearly every European State, making enquiries as to the “ pitch ” adopted 
therein. The letters returned have been most valuable ; and to render them 
still more so, their contents have been arranged under several heads in a 
scheme of classification, so that by looking over two or three pages every 
information concerning this point may be gained. 
The Fusibility of Platinum in the Blowpipe. — Mr. W. Skey, analyst to the 
Geological Survey of New Zealand, has a short note on this point in the 
“ Chemical News ” of Dec. 2. The metal platinum has hitherto been supposed 
to be infusible, except at a temperature that is so high as to be incapable of 
being produced by the common blowpipe. When he was lately engaged in 
studying the effects of the hot-blast blowpipe flame, the results of which 
investigation have already been communicated to the Wellington Philo- 
sophical Society, he found it necessary to test, with accuracy, the degree of 
fusibility of platina ; and discovered that if the loss of heat from the flame, 
by conduction, was guarded against, platinum can be fused with an ordinary 
blowpipe blast through a candle flame. The method adopted was to sub- 
stitute, for the metallic nozzle generally employed, a tube of clay or glass, 
either of which is a feeble conductor of heat, as compared with metals. By 
this means fine platinum points were fused in an unmistakable manner to 
beads. The blast was that ordinarily used in the laboratory by the use of 
the hydrostatic blowpipe, the flame being that of a stearine candle. 
Levelling and Survey in Switzerland . — In the u Archives des Sciences phy- 
siques ” (No. 4) MM. Hirsch and Plantamour give an important paper on 
this subject. The paper contains an interesting account of the labours of a 
committee of scientific men and engineers, who, acting upon the suggestion 
made at an international meeting held at Berlin in 1864, under the presi- 
