i88o.] 
Notes. 
413 
According to the “American Journal of Microscopy,” silver - 
wire, in which the most delicate test could detecft no difference 
of diameter, has been run through plates of rubies to the length 
of 170 miles. 
An Exhibition illustrative of Prehistoric German Anthropology 
will be opened at Berlin in August. Prof. Virchow is President 
of the Committee of Arrangements. 
The new Royal Irish University does not promise to become 
of great importance in Science. The Senate consists of ecclesi- 
astics, politicians, and lawyers, — classes of men seldom favour- 
able to the investigation of Nature. 
A shower of dust was observed from April 21st to 25th, in the 
Departments of Basses Alpes, Isere, and Ain. It consisted of 
fragments of mica, garnet, and orthose, accompanied by starch 
grains, diatoms, and fragments of the integuments of Infusoria. 
There is neither native iron nor magnetic oxide, whence the dust 
cannot be of cosmic origin. 
According to M. Des Cloiseaux the crystalline form of magne- 
sium is a regular hexagonal prism. 
A hemipterous insedt (Hysteropterum apterum) has appeared 
upon the vines in the Gironde, and is occasioning injury. 
Mr. J. W. Mallet, F.R.S., has communicated to the Royal 
Society a memoir on the “ Atomic Weight and Valence of 
Aluminium.” As the mean of twenty-five determinations he 
takes Al=27'oig, with a probable error of ±0*0030. Further, 
taking the eighteen elements whose atomic weights have been 
determined with the greatest attainable precision, he calculates 
the probability that nine of these numbers should lie, as they 
actually do, within o*i of integers, supposing the value of the 
true numbers to be determined only by chance, and finds it only 
as 1 to 235*2. This example seems to show that Prout’s law is 
not yet absolutely overturned, but that there exists a heavy and 
seemingly increasing probability in favour of it, or of some mo- 
dification of it. 
According to the Registrar-General’s returns males are in- 
creasing in numbers and females decreasing. In 1879 the boys 
born amounted to 442,289 as against 433,577 girls. The number 
of females who died exceeded the males by above 30,000. 
We have from time to time referred to the indiscreet dabbling 
of political organs in scientific matters. We find that the 
“ Times,” noticing the successful experiments of Profs. Golgi 
and Raggi, of Pavia, on the transfusion of blood for anaemia in 
the case of a lunatic, gravely states that the blood was injedted 
into the “ peritonitis ” ! 
Dr. Huggins most truly declares that one of the great charms 
