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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
great many others, by bis excellent work on industrial chemistry, u Precis 
de Chimie Industrielle ” (Paris: Hachette & Co, 1867), was, since 1842, a 
member of the French Academy of Sciences, and held the professorships of 
Industrial Chemistry at the Ecole Centrale des Arts et des Manufactures 
since 1830, and at the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers since 1839. The 
deceased was not only a very eminent scientific man, but was thoroughly 
and practically acquainted with almost every branch of industrial pursuits. 
Anselme Payen was born at Paris on January 17, 1795, and was in early 
life first the technical manager of beetroot sugar-works at Vaugirard, and 
afterwards of very large chemical works near Paris. 
A New Form of Steam-blast . — A paper on a new form of steam-blast was 
communicated to the British Association at Edinburgh, by Mr. W. Siemens, 
F.R.S. The new blast is employed for the movement of air in the pneumatic 
tubes connected with the central telegraph station in London. It is said to 
cost only 407, and will do the same work as an engine which costs 2,0007 
A New Form of Galvanometer has been devised by Mr. John Trowbridge, 
Assistant Professor of Physics in Harvard College (U.S.). It is described 
at length in “ Silliman’s American Journal” for August. It would be 
impossible to describe it without the cuts which accompany the article. 
We merely refer to it because it may interest some of our readers. 
Transport of Salts by Electrical Discharge . — This paper, which is by 
M. Becquerel, appears in the “ Comptes Rendus ” for June 26. His essay 
treats on some phenomena observed by the author while experimenting on 
the effect of only moderately strong electrical discharges when certain 
chemical compounds are placed in the route of the electric current. As 
results from these experiments, the author finds that the undermentioned 
salts and other chemicals are transported by electrical discharges in the 
direction from the negative electrode to the positive electrode, but not again 
the reverse way. These salts and substances are ferricyanide of potassium, 
bichromate of potassa, chloride of barium, chloride of sodium, chloride of 
potassium, sulphuric acid, phosphoric acid, chloride of ammonium, and 
protochloride of iron. The following are among the substances which are 
not transported by any electric current, whatever its direction : — Chloride 
of cobalt, chloride of platinum, nitrate of silver, caustic potassa, and 
sulphate of potassa. 
A Meteorological Observatory in the Azores. — Dr. Buys-Ballot, after 
briefly pointing out the great importance, not simply in a scientific, but also 
in a mercantile and industrial point of view, of having, on one of the 
islands just named (they belong to Portugal, and are situated at about 
40° N. lat., and 30° W. of Greenwich), a meteorological station, connected 
by submarine telegraphs with Europe and America. The author states 
that, probably, by September 1872, this desirable object will be accomplished 
by the activity of M. Fradesso da Silveira, the Director of the Observatory 
at Lisbon. — Comptes Rendus, June 12. 
Low Temperature of the 18 th of May and the First Days of June . — 
M. Sainte-Claire Deville gives a lengthy paper (“ Comptes Rendus,” 
June 19) containing a series of communications received by him from 
different localities in France. It appears that, even in the very south of 
that country, the temperature fell during this period to so low a degree as 
