92 
SCIENCE. 
hydro-electric, is superior, as a working electro-motor, to 
the Daniell pile, of sulphate of copper and sulphate of zinc ; 
of equal size, and is about twice as powerful as the ordinary 
Bunsen pile of the laboratories, and is only surpassed by 
the special form of the Bunsen pile, devised by RuhmkorfT. 
“The zinc is not amalgamated,” says M. Reynier in his 
note to the Academy of Sciences, “ nevertheless, it is not 
attacked when the circuit is open by the alkaline solution 
“Which bathes it; consequently, the quantity of zinc consumed 
must give precisely the measure of the amount of elcc- 
Fig. 5. 
Fig. 5. — Parchment sheet traced for the rectangular form. 
tricity disengaged. The new pile ” he adds, “ does not send 
off volatile products ; hence the materials employed are not 
subject to waste. It is therefore possible to regulate the 
products of the chemical changes, and they may even be 
restored to their original stale. It is necessary, to do this, 
to cause a quantity of electricity' a little greater than that 
which has been disengaged by the pile, to traverse the 
exhausted liquids, dissolving the copper displaced, and 
removing the zinc dissolved. This renewal of the materials 
of the pile restores its electro-motor qualities. When elec- 
Fig. 6. — Parchment sheet traced for the hexagonal form. 
tricity is thus produced by the aid of a powerful machine, it 
will be found to be stored up in the solutions and metals, 
in a state of energy, and can thus be readily set free or 
transported. The indirect transportation of electricity by 
this apparatus would be in most cases, of more practical 
use and more convenient than the direct transmission by 
cables. 
“In fact, when fresh solutions only are used, the new 
couple has the advantage of a noticeable economy of mater- 
ial and manipulation over the ordinary nitric acid couple. 
Regarding the practical realization of the process of regene- 
ration which must make my pile economically applicable to 
small electric motors and to private illumination, there are 
still certain obstacles of a practical nature which appear to me 
to be by no means insurmountable.” 
M. Reynier’s pile has been submitted to repeated trials, 
notably by the Societe Franqaise de Physique , with fifty 
couples or elements ; the inventor operated successively 
a voltameter, the electric motors of Gramme and of 
Deprez, a large Ruhmkorff coil, and an electric lamp with 
Serrin’s regulator. A platinum wire 65 centimetres in 
length and half a millimetre in diameter, was maintained 
at a white heat for more than an hour, while the galvano- 
meter failed to show the slightest decrease of power in the 
pile . — La Science pour Tons. 
M. Poincare presented to the Academy of Sciences, 
Paris, the results of an investigation of butcher’s meat, in 
which he found cylindrical pointed elements with cuticles 
crossed by lines which seem outlines of cells, and which 
appear granulated. He thinks they may be phases or me- 
tamorphoses of taenioides, causing taenia in some eaters of 
raw meat. 
Dr. J. Lawrence Smith has determined and named the 
new mineral Peckhamite found on the outer surfaces of the 
remarkable meteorite whose fragments were sown across 
the borders of Dickenson and Emmet Counties in north- 
western Iowa. By an average of two of Dr. Smith’s analy- 
ses it contains 49.55 per cent, silica, 16.44 per cent, ferrous 
oxide and 32.76 per cent, magnesia. By calculation of the 
oxygen ratio the formula SiOoRO + ^(Si 0 2 R 2 0 ) would 
represent its composition, suggesting two atoms of Ensta- 
tite or Bronzite plus one atom of Olivine. This is one of 
the most interesting meteorites known. Over 5,000 frag- 
ments of it weighing about 30 kilograms, have been col- 
lected from over a distance of eight miles long by one-half 
mile wide. Although the lumps have been lying on the 
wet prairie for nearly a year, they are not in the least 
rusted, and bear a great resemblance to nuggets of plati- 
num. Dr. Smith surmises the rapid passage of the meteor- 
ite through our atmosphere caused its disintegration, pul- 
verizing the stony part completely and leaving the nodules 
of neckiliferous iron untouched. This hypothesis is novel 
and plausible. 
