i88 5 .] 
( 629 ) 
NOTES. 
The cost of the Laboratories 
Strassburg has been £211,900. 
attached to the University of 
M. r hoi Ion has laid before the Academy of Sciences a new 
design of the solar speCtrum. The upper band, No. 1, gives the 
aspect of the speCtrum when the Sun is at 8o° from the Zenith 
and for a mean hygrometric state of the atmosphere. No 2 
represents the speCtrum when the Sun is at 6o° from the Zenith 
and the air is very moist. No. 3 corresponds to the same dis- 
tance. from the Zenith and to a very dry atmosphere. No. 4 
contains the prolongation of all rays of exclusively solar origin 
as they would be seen outside the atmosphere. 
From correspondence in “ Science ” it appears that the exadt 
nature of the American Silurian scorpion is still in dispute. 
Mr. E. L. Nichols (“ American Journal of Sciences ”) has been 
experimenting on the sensitiveness of the eye for low degrees of 
saturation of colours, and among other important results finds 
that the male eye is more sensitive to red, yellow, and o- ree n 
whilst the eye of the female is more sensitive to blue. 
The custom of preaching at the British Association has been 
duly observed at Aberdeen. The Rev. Prof. Candlish was one 
of the orators who came forward. 
The representatives of the Press complain of a want of courtesy 
at the Aberdeen Meeting. J 
Dr. D. Sharp, in a paper recently read before the Philadelphia 
Academy, seeks to trace the development of the vertebrate eye 
from the simplest deposit of pigment in an epithelial cell. 
Mr. C. H. Murray (“ Science ”) brings home another sin to 
mosquitoes. He has observed them attacking and destroying 
newly-hatched trout. 0 
Mr. J. J. Colman and Prof. McKendrick find it impossible to 
permanently sterilise animal matter by exposure to the low tem- 
peratures now at the command of physicists. The microbia 
survive the cold. Even a frog has been found to recover after 
having been frozen solid by exposure for half an hour to tem- 
peratures of —20° to — 30° F. 
According to M. Oustalet the fauna of M. Comoro proves that 
this island has never had a land connection with Madagascar. 
