24 
“On an Improvement of the Bunsen Burner for Spectrum 
Analysis/’ by Mr. F. Kingdon, Assistant in the Physical 
Laboratory, Owens College. 
The students in the Physical Laboratory of Owens College 
having occasionally experienced some difficulty in obtaining 
the spectra of some salts with the ordinary bunsen, through 
apparently a deficiency of pressure in the gas, it occurred to 
me that the amount of light even at this deficient temperature 
might be increased by multiplying the number of luminous 
points. This is accomplished by broadening out the flame 
of the bunsen, that is, causing the gas to issue through a 
narrow slit instead of a round hole. We have, so far, only 
made a rough experiment, the slit being about |in. long 
and Jin. wide. The result is, as expected, a more brilliant 
spectrum. 
“ Some Notes on Pasigraphy,” by Henry H. Howorth, 
Esq., F.S.A. 
Among the Utopian schemes which have interested others 
beside paradoxers and dreamers none has perhaps been more 
plausibly uiged than the scheme of an universal language 
which should enable men to communicate with one another 
who are now inevitably sundered. 
During the time of the Homan dominion it may have 
been hoped that Latin, which was its universal language, 
and in being so was also the language used by all those who 
in its point of view were not mere barbarians, would 
become in the future, as it was at the time, the universal 
lanofuage; l)e to the world what Hindustani is to the inha- 
bitan ts of Northern India with their great variety of 
dialects, namely the common language of all. On the 
break up of the Homan Empire the Latin which was 
spoken so universally within its borders began to decay, and 
decayed differently in different localities, so that in a few cen- 
turies each fragment of the empire had developed a peculiar 
