eastwards or westwards as the case might be would have to be considered in connection with one another.

"From what has been said it is obvious that in the intrasolstitial temples the list of available bright stars and constellations is in the first instance limited to those which lie within a few degrees of the ecliptic, and it will be found that in the list above given and those which follow, if we omit Eleusis, where the conditions were exeptional, all but one of the stars are found in the zodiacal constellations. A very great limit is imposed in the second place by one of the conditions being the heliacal rising or setting of those stars from which the selection has to be made. So that when both these combined limitations are taken into account it becomes improbable to the greatest degree that in every instance of intrasolstitial temples of early foundation of which I have curate particulars, being twenty-eight in number and varying in their orientation from 21 N. to 18° 25′ S. of the true east. There should be found a bright heliacal star or constellation in the right position at dates not in themselves improbable unless the temples had been so oriented as to secure this combination.

"I have just been looking into the number of possible stars which could have been used, i.e. within the limits of the greatest distance from the ecliptic that could have been utilised.

"The stars which could have been utilised in addition to the seven which serve for nearly thirty temples are ten only, viz. :

on

FURTHER information is now to hand as to the scientific work which has been arranged for the approaching meeting of the Association at Nottingham. In Section A two papers have been received "Physics Teaching in Schools." G. H. Bryan contributes in interesting paper on "The Moon's Atmosphere and the Kinetic Theory of Gases," showing that every planet st be throwing off some of its atmosphere on the k netic theory, though at an exceedingly slow rate in the ase of the larger bodies. Prof. J J. Thomson will exhibit and explain a new form of air-pump, which will be of interest to sections A and B. Prof. Viriamu Jones 15 sending a paper on "Standards of Low Electrical Fesistance."

As reported by Prof. Emerson Reynolds on p. 416, Section B has been most fortunate in securing a prose from M. Moissan to describe and demonstrate the reparation and properties of fluorine. This will probably ive the effect of inducing chemists from all parts of this country to visit Nottingham, as the demonstration has Sever yet been made in this country, and is of almost

que importance and interest. It is anticipated that M. Moissan's communication will be put down for Monday, September 18, and will probably include the exhibition of his artificial diamonds. Prof. Percy Frank

land will introduce the discussion on "Bacteriology in its Chemical Aspects" on Friday, 15, and amongst other papers will be one by J. T. Wood, on "A New Bran Bacterium." Tuesday, 19, will probably be mainly devoted to the discussion of "Colliery Explosions," introduced by Prof. H. B. Dixon, one of H.M. Commissioners. On this day further communications on flame researches are also expected. The President's address is put down for twelve o'clock on Thursday, September 14; it will deal essentially with "The Comparative Chemistry of the Elements," specially treating of carbon and silicon, and of silico-organic researches; showing further that it is possible in the light of recent knowledge to fill in some details of the chemical history of the earth. Dr. Phookan has promised a description of his recent researches on the "Rate of Evaporation of Bodies in Different Atmospheres."

In Section C Prof. Hull will read a paper "On the Water-supply of Nottingham"; Mr. Walcot Gibson, one on "The Geology of British East Africa"; Prof. Brögger will describe “The Eruptive Rocks of the Christiania District"; E. T. Newton, "The Trias Reptiles"; Prof. Sollas, "The Carlingford Rocks" and "Glendalough Amphibolite"; R. M. Deeley, "The Drifts of the Trent Valley"; and Prof. Iddings, of Chicago, "The Petrology of a Dissected Volcano." Amongst other papers already promised are the following:-"The Gypsum Deposits of Nottinghamshire," by A. T. Metcalfe ; "Derbyshire Toadstone," by H. A. Bemrose; "Mollusca from the English Trias," by R. B. Newton; "Transported Mass of Chalk in Boulder-clay of Culworth, in Huntingdonshire," by A. and C. Cameron; "Some Volcanic Rocksof South Pembrokeshire," by F. T. Howard and E. W. Small; Midland Trias," by Dr. A. Irving; "Limestone Inclusions in the White Sill," by E. T. Garwood.

66

Two further papers are sent in for Section D-one by Prof. Gilson, of Louvain, on Cytological Difference in Homologous Organs," and one by G. B. Rothera, on "Some Vegetal Galls and their Inhabitants."

In connection with Section E the exhibition of the 120pictures painted on an Antarctic sealing expedit.on by Mr. Burn-Murdoch has been referred to. The discussion on the Limits between Geography and Geology " will be introduced by Mr. Clements R. Markham, Pres.R.G.S. Mr. Delmar Morgan will summarise our knowledge of Thibet, and Miss Taylor will describe her recent journey in that country. Mrs. Grove will read a paper on the "Islands of Chiloë." Mr. E. G. Ravenstein will give an account of recent African travel; and a large number of other papers are promised, many of which are of more than ordinary interest. The illustration of many of these papers by lantern photographs will be a special feature. With respect to Sections F and G there is at present nothing further to add to the original statement made a few weeks since.

In Section H Mrs. Grove promises a paper, "The Ethnographic Aspects of Dancing." Prof. Boyd Dawkins, who is now on a visit to Glastonbury, intimates his intention to discuss the scientific bearings of the discoveries made at the lake village in that neighbourhood; and, in order that the members may be better able to understand the structural details of the woodwork exposed in the course of the excavations, Dr. Munro proposes to give an illustrative sketch of the different methods adopted in the construction of lake-dwellings. Hitherto lake-dwelling researches have furnished little evidence of the kind of houses erected on the artificial islands, but during last autumn a crannog was investigated in Argyllshire which has disclosed some remarkable information on this point. The discussion on lake-dwellings is fixed for Sept. 19, and as this important subject has formerly only incidentally come before the Association, the occasion promises to be most instructive to all interested in the early history of Britain. Among the other papers sent to

the section is one by Mr. Romilly Allen on the "Origin and Development of Early Christian Art in Great Britain and Ireland." This paper is to be well illustrated. Indeed, this is the case with most of the archæological papers. Dr. Hildebrand is arranging illustrations of the Swedish antiquities he wishes to compare with our Anglo-Saxon ones, in groups, which are to be printed on sheets and distributed among the audience when he reads his communication.

The information contained in the above paragraphs has been furnished by request by presidents and recorders of sections; possibly further details may be forwarded in time for publication before the meeting.

The promises of exhibits of scientific apparatus, models, diagrams, and photographs in the laboratories of the University College, Nottingham, are now coming in. Scientific novelties are promised for the conversazione at the Castle.

Visitors can obtain on application the usual lists of hotels and lodgings. FRANK CLOWES.

GE

GEORGE BROOK.

EORGE BROOK, whose untimely decease on August 12 we have already chronicled, was born on March 17, 1857. He died, therefore, in his thirty-sixth year, apparently from the effects of heat-apoplexy, while on a visit to his wife's family near Newcastle-on-Tyne. On the fatal day he joined a shooting party on the adjacent moor; after a successful expedition and a repast in the shooting-box, he was complaining laughingly of the necessity for early rising on such occasions, when his head fell back and he expired without uttering a sound. He was buried at Benwell Church, Newcastle, where, six years previously, he was married to Fanny, second daughter of Mr. Walter Scott, of Riding Mill. He was educated at the Friends' School, Alderley Edge, and, although he afterwards studied for a couple of years under Prof. Williamson and others at the Owens College, Manchester, he may be said to have been, as a naturalist, mostly self-taught. His earlier years of active life were spent in his father's business at Huddersfield, and he turned the experience thus gained to good account in his after career. His first definite association with scientific work dates from his connection with the recently deceased Mr. J. W. Davis, of Halifax, and others, in the prosecution of biological investigation in the West Riding of Yorkshire. He was in 1884 appointed scientific assistant to the Scottish Fishery Board and lecturer on comparative embryology to the University of Edinburgh. He retired from the first-named office in 1887, leaving as a legacy a series of valuable notes and reports upon the food fishes, but the last-named one he held till death. As an embryologist, he is himself best known for his work upon the origin of the endoderm from the periblast in teleostean fishes, and although not the first to have suggested this, it must be said, in justice to his memory, that certain recent investigators have reverted to his views without according him befitting recognition. His love of experimental marine zoology, and his personal munificence in the interests of pure science, reasserted themselves in 1889, in his attempt to found a lobster hatchery and marine observatory at Loch Buie, Isle of Mull, duly noted in our pages (NATURE, vol. xlii. p. 399), and which we know to have involved him in a not inconsiderable loss. He was secretary to the Huddersfield Naturalists' Society, and to the Scottish Microscopical Society, of which he was a founder; he was for three years a vice-president of the Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh, and a member of council of the same, the Linnean Society of London, and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He had recently joined the Zoological Society, and was but a few months ago appointed

an examiner in Biology to the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh. In the year 1889 he rose suddenly into fame as the author of the Challenger Report on the Antipatharia. His preliminary paper, dealing (Proc. R. Soc. Edin., vol. xvi. p. 35) with the homologies of the mesenteries in the Antipatharia and the Anthozoa, had apprised the world of the breadth of his inquiry into, and the extent of his knowledge of, this difficult and little understood group; but the preparation, within approximately a year, of that which came to be termed "one of the most praiseworthy" of all the Challenger reports, set a seal to his reputation, and exalted him to a foremost position among living Actinologists. In this work he elaborated his important discovery of dimorphism (in Schizopathinæ) by division of a single primitive zooid into three, instead of by specialisation of individual polypes; and at the time of his death he had well-nigh completed an important paper dealing with this and kindred subjects, for which his talented assistant, Mr. Binnie, had prepared a large series of beautiful sections and some elaborate drawings. The thorough and conscientious manner in which he had worked out the Antipatharians of the Challenger collection led, in 1890, to his engagement by the Trustees of the British Museum for the arrangement and citaloguing of their very large collection of stony corals. and the present month marks the publication of that which will perhaps rank as his magnum opus, viz., the Catalogue of the Genus Madrepora," a quarto volume of 212 pages, with 35 beautiful plates, mostly from photographs taken by himself. This welcome treatise, which was the first of a projected series dealing with the stony corals, like most of the set to which it belongs that have appeared under Dr. Günther's direction, is, in reality, no catalogue at all, but rather a revisionary monograph, founded upon the study of rich material from world-wide localities, which must furnish a basis for succeeding inquiry into the group with which it deals. None but those who enjoyed the deceased author's personal friendship can form an adequate idea of the labour and expenditure, both of time and capital, which he bestowed upon this volume. It is the practical outcome of the last three years of his life's work. The success with which he dealt with the bewildering difficulties before him may be perhaps sufficiently gauged from its "Introduction," and to what important lines of structural investigation and conclusions the task was leading him, it is obvious from this and his last published paper "On the Affinities of the Genus Madrepora" (Four. Linn. Soc. Zool. xxiv, p. 353).

The most striking features in George Brook's personality were his right living and his manly independence. his moral attributes being in every way worthy his mental ones. There can be no question that his capacity to form an independent judgment, and his great powers of organisation, under the influence of his indomitable will, formed the keystone of his successes, and placed him in a position to rise supreme above petty jealousy and the evils begotten of narrow cliquism and over-ambition. His natural inclinations were towards solid work, as will be obvious from his having originally settled down to the study of the Crustacea, but to relinquish it for that of the Corals-a choice which makes his loss a well-nigh irreparable one to British zoologists of the present generation. In addition to the many unfinished works to which we have alluded, he has left behind him at least the material for a reconsideration of the morph ology of certain great veins in the Amniota, and for a detailed report upon some of the corals collected by Prof. Haddon in the Torres Strait, which had been placed in his hands. Indeed, almost his last words to the writer of this notice were expressive of a desire to "get on" with the latter. His final act, as a zoologist, was the determination of a Collemboloid (upon which group he was an authority) for his friend Prof. W. A. Herdman,

with whose pioneer's work in British marine zoology he was in active sympathy. A devoted husband, an exemplary parent, a true friend, whose advice was always sound, and whose criticism was as well founded as it was frank, His life he passes from us in the heyday of life. furnishes a noble example of independent manliness, and of enthusiasm for the spread of truth and the cause of scientific advancement.

NOTES.

WE learn from the Revue Générale des Sciences that M. d'Abbadie, late President of the Paris Academy of Sciences, has asked the Academy to accept a considerable gift in the name of his wife and himself. The donation consists of the Abbadia estate (Basses-Pyrénées), having an annual revenue o twenty thousand francs, and one hundred shares in the Bank of France, representing a capital of four hundred thousand francs and an annual income of fifteen thousand. By the deed of gift, these properties will not fall to the Academy until after the decease of the donors. Two of the principal clauses and charges of the legacy are as follows :-(1) The Academy may establish on the Abbadia estate any researches or laboratories, except those devoted to vivisection. (2) An observatory must be established at Abbadia, in which a catalogue of five hundred thousand stars can be made, the work to be completed in 1950. In order to reduce the expenses which this stipulation carries with it, the work may be confided to some religious order. The Academy has nominated a commission to examine the conditions of this munificent donation, and has expressed its deep gratitude to M. and Mme. d'Abbadie. It is not too much to say that this feeling is shared by all men of science.

THE following men of science have been elected Fellows of the Reale Accademia dei Lincei:-In mathematics, Prof. L. Bianchi and Dr. G. D'Ovidio; chemistry, Dr. G. Ciamician and Prof. D. Mendelejeff; botany, Profs. E. Strassburger and N. Pringsheim; agriculture, Dr. F. Cohn. Dr. E. Bertini has been elected a correspondent in mathematics; E. Millosevich in astronomy; A. Abetti in mathematical and physical geography; and O. Mattirolo in botany.

THE Times announces the death of Prof. M'Fadden A. Newell, Superintendent of Public Instruction of the State of Maryland, U.S.A. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and the Royal College of Belfast, and went to the United States in 1848. He was Professor of Natural Science in the Baltimore City College from 1850 to 1854, and occupied the same chair in Lafayette College, Pennsylvania, from 1854 to 1864. In 1865 he was appointed President of the Normal School of the State of Maryland, succeeding, three years later, to the position of State Superintendent of Public Instruction, a post he held for a quarter of a century. In connection with Prof. Crury he published a series of text-books entitled the "Maryland Series," and his Annual Reports, in twenty-five volumes, are held in high esteem.

WE regret to record the death of Father R. P. Vines, Director of Belen Observatory, Havannah.

A DISASTROUS cyclone swept northwards along the Atlantic seaboard of the United States on August 29. At Savannah, Georgia, property to the value of millions of dollars has been destroyed, and news of great loss of life and property is reported from Brunswick, Georgia, and further south, while the town of Tybee has been completely wrecked. It is reported that the storm traced out a path marked by devastation across Georgia and South Carolina to Charlotte, in North Carolina, and thence to the east coast again to Petersburg, Virginia.

The city of Savannah presents a scene of wreck and ruin surpassing even the effects of the great storm of August, 1881. For eight hours the wind rushed through the city with terrific force and swept down houses as if they were packs of cards. Nearly every house in the city has suffered some damage, and the streets have been rendered quite impassable by the wreckage.

A REUTER'S telegram from New York states that a cyclone passed over that part of the Atlantic coast on August 23, in the direction of the New England States, and left its marks over a region around New York extending over an area of fully a thousand miles. A rainfall of 3.82 inches in twelve hours was measured, and is said to be the highest ever recorded by the local signal service.

THE next meeting of the French Association for the Advancemence of Science will be held at Caen, with M. Mascart as president. M. E. Trélat will preside over the meeting to be held at Bordeaux in 1895.

IT has been finally arranged that the Congress of the Photographic Society and Affiliated Societies shall be held on October IO, II, and 12. All the arrangements will be completed in a few days, and a full programme will be circulated as soon as possible.

AN International Exhibition of Photographic Art has been organised by the Paris Photo Club, and will be held from December 10 to the end of this year. The address of the Secretary is 40 Rue des Mathurins, Paris. An international exhibition of amateur photography will be held in the Museum of Fine Arts, Kunsthalle, Hamburg, on October 1-31.

THE annual general meeting of the members of the Federated Institution of Mining Engineers will be opened on Wednesday, September 6th, in the rooms of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow. A number of papers on mining subjects will then be read, and on the two following days excursions will be made to collieries, iron and steel works, and other places of interest.

THE Indiana Academy of Science has decided to make a biological survey of the State of Indiana, and Profs. L. M. Underwood, C. H. Eigenmann, and V. F. Marsters have been appointed as organisers and directors of it. The first work will be the preparation of a complete bibliography of materials bearing on the botany, zoology, and palæontology of Indiana, to be published by the Academy. When this has been done, it will be possible to discuss the fauna and flora, its extent, distribution, biological relations, and economic importance, and thus accomplish the main purpose of the survey.

MR. J. F. JAMES gives in Science a description of the "Scientific Alliance of New York," instituted at the end of last year, and having for its chief object the establishment of a centre where knowledge of what is being done in one society is conveyed to all the rest. Much is to be gained by this kind of cooperation, both by science and individual workers. Already the Alliance has been joined by the New York Academy of Science, Torrey Botanical Club, New York Microscopical Society, Linnean Society of New York, New York Mineralogical Club, New York Mathematical Society, and the New York Section of the American Chemical Society, each of these societies being represented by its president and two members upon the council of the Alliance. At the opening meeting the president deprecated the views of so-called practical men in whose eyes science "is worth only what it will bring when offered in the form of dynamos, telephones, electric lights, dyestuffs, mining machinery, and other merchantable wares." The need of endowment for research in the region of pure science was pointed out, reference being made to the German Univer

sities, where the professors are expected to do original work, leaving the teaching to instructors. The second meeting was held in March, 1893, when the report of a committee, recommending the establishment of an endowment fund of 25,000 dollars for the purpose of encouraging original research, was adopted. The fund is to be known as the "John Strong Newberry Fund," and will be used for furthering researches in geology, paleontology, botany, and zoology. All information relating to it or to the Alliance can be obtained from Dr. N. L. Britton, Columbia College, New York.

THE question as to whether amber was exported from the far east to Europe is discussed by Herr A. B. Meyer in a paper read before the Isis Society of Dresden. There seems to be little doubt that some specimens now sold at Rangoon are of Baltic origin, as proved by the amount of succinic acid contained in them. But there are, on the other hand, many authorities for the early derivation of amber from India and especially Burma. There are four passages in Pliny giving India as the native country of amber, and ancient Greek authors, especially Sophocles, testify to its origin in eastern India. It would be very strange if the Phoenicians, while shipping ivory, peacock feathers, tin, jewels, and spices from "Ophir,” had left behind a highly valued, abundant, striking, and easily transportable article like amber. A specimen of Burmite, as the Indian amber is now usually called, from the Indian Museum, Calcutta, gave 2 per cent. of succinic acid; another specimen, analysed by Dr. Helm, gave off none. The speci. mens examined by the latter "had frequently embedded in them small particles of decayed wood and bark," which recalls a passage in Archelaos, who says that the Indian amber often has pieces of pine bark adhering to it. The Indian origin of much of the amber acquired by the Mediterranean nations in ancient times appears, therefore, to be placed beyond doubt. It is, indeed, probable that Baltic amber did not become a regular article of commerce before the first century of the Christian

era.

WHILST our knowledge concerning the behaviour of bacteria in animal tissues is daily receiving fresh additions, but little is known on the relatively unimportant although interesting question of their deportment in vegetable tissues. Much uncertainty exists as to whether bacteria are or are not normally present in healthy vegetable tissues, but the most recent

the bacteria were definitely located in the interior of the cells, and no opening of any kind could be determined, he suggests that they have the power, by means of a ferment excreted, to work their way from cell to cell without causing a permanent rupture.

THE August number of the Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society contains several interesting papers, among which is Prof. F. W. Oliver's second report on the effects of urban fog upon cultivated plants. The report deals especially with he physiological aspect of the question, the action of fog upon plants, both by reduction of light and atmospheric impurities, being described in detail. The Rev. G. Henslow gives the results of experiments made with a view of determining the effects of growing plants under glasses of various colours. His observations show that during germination it is generally inmaterial whether the seeds are subjected to light or not. In the case of a variety of larkspur, however, light was found to be positively injurious. No coloured light, or combination of lights, which was not of the quality of pure colourless daylight, gave such good results as ordinary daylight. A comparis.c made between plants growing under ordinary window-glass and in the open showed that the glass exercises a deletereous effect, due possibly to an excess of heat by which respiration is stimalated and assimilation reduced. It is suggested that in order to reduce "scorching" some means must be used which reduces the heat rays without lessening the whole amount of white light.

We have received from Dr. P. Bergholz the results of the meteorological observations at Bremen for the year 1892. This station is one of considerable importance, both on account of its outfit with self-recording instruments, and even with duplicate recording instruments for some of the elements, so as to avoid any possible gap in the continuity of the records, and also on account of the long continuance of observations. The first volume of this series, for the year 1890, contained the results of observations taken since the year 1803, and we see from Dr. Hellmann's Repertorium that observations were taken at Breas early as 1795. The work contains hourly readings, and, in addition, observations arranged for three hours daily, in accordance with the international scheme, together with curves showing the diurnal range for each month and for the year; it also comprises rainfall values for four other stations, and

men

they may obtain easy access through minute abrasures, and retain their vitality for a considerable time, and in some cases even multiply. This view is supported by Russell, who has recently presented an interesting dissertation to the John Hopkins University on "Bacteria in their Relation to Vegetable Tissue." A large number of examinations were made of healthy plant tissues, but in no case were bacteria isolated from them, although in wounded tissues they were frequently found. Ordinary saprophytic bacterial forms were inoculated into the healthy tissues of various plants, and were identified after several days, thus the B. luteus was found in large numbers in the stem of a geranium after forty days from the date of its introduction. Moreover, nearly as many bacilli were obtained 10 millimetres above the point as at the seat of inoculation, 1850 being found at the latter place, and 1764 above. In all the experiments, although the distance at which bacteria were found varied from 30-50 mm. above, in no case were they identified at more than 2-3mm. below the point of inoculation. Russell suggests that this upward distribution of the germs may be due to food materials being more abundant in the rapidly growing apex, whilst smaller resistance is offered to their passage in the less developed cellulose walls than in the more matured cell-membrane of the older tissue. Moreover, as

a very complete and creditable compilation.

IN Wiedemann's Annalen, No. 8, Herr W. Voigt gives a further account of the progress of his attempt to determine the greatest possible number of physical constants of the same pieces of metal subjected to the least mechanical manipula tion. The pieces were carefully cast and sawed into shape where necessary. It is not surprising that the constants thas obtained differ in many cases from those found in the case of drawn and rolled metals, but it seems that the object of discovering the laws of the numerical relations between the various constants render it highly desirable that the substances should be investigated in what may be called their most natural state. The constants recently dealt with are thermal dilatation, thermal pressure, and specific heats at constant pressure and volume respectively. The determination of the specific heat by the method of mixtures has led to some ingenious contrivances for minimising the errors which are apt to influence this somewhat delicate operation. The outer vessel of the Neumann "cock" for heating the body under examination was made movable instead of the inner, thus enabling it to be refilled without removing it from the stand. The loss of liquid due to the splashing produced by the metal falling into the calorimeter was avoided by throwing it into a metal cage just in contact with the

liquid, which was then lowered about halfway towards the bottom. The liquid was stirred by a small turbine, and the thermometer was so arranged that it only came into contact with liquid which had ascended from the metal, and then had been drawn down through the turbine tube, thus giving a very rapid rise and gradual fall of temperature, as indicated by the thermometer. The scale was read by a small microscope provided with two wires touching the scale, the meniscus being brought midway between the two. This simple arrangemen has the effect of eliminating all parallactic errors.

THE Comité International des Poids et Mesures has issued a volume containing the proceedings of meetings held during 1892. M. L. Chappuis contributes to the volume a report of an investigation of the thermal expansion of water by the weightthermometer method. He has made two complete determinations, one between o° and 42°4 C., and the other between ° and 36°6 C. The results show that the expansion of water from to 40° is very closely given by the following expression -0.84 66.5732531 8.7989391-7892005 x 10 t, +5*155549 × 10. M. C. E. Guillaume has prepared a report on the metals employed in the construction of standard scales, in which he recommends nickel as the best substance.

COLONEL WATERHOUSE has been making experiments upon the electrical action of light upon silver and its haloid compounds, and communicated his results to the Asiatic Society of Bengal in May last. His arrangement was such that one plate could be exposed to light while another with which it was in electrical connection was screened from actinic rays. From the experiments it appears that, as a general rule, sunlight has an oxidising or dissolving effect on silver, whether in acid or alkaline solutions, the exposed plates being nearly always positive, and consequently forming the anode of the voltaic couple. With solutions decomposed by silver, and forming sensitive compounds with it, the action is variable.

MR. P. JANET, in the current number of the Journal de Physique, describes the methods he has adopted for experiments on electric oscillations of comparatively long period, robo second and thereabouts. IIis object more particularly is to obtain the actual form of the curves of intensity and electro-motive force, rather than to find the period and logarithmic decrement. With a modified form of interruptor of M. Mouton's he is able to read accurately to a second, or even less. A mica-condenser forms part of his arrangement, and he was incidentally led to make experiments on the "hysteresis and dielectric viscosity" of the mica, from the study of certain variations which he found in the capacity of the condenser. He sums up his results on this point thus: In a condenser with solid dielectrics, under the influence of rapid [electric] oscillations, there is a lagging of the charges behind the differences of potential; or, in other words, for equal differences of potential, the charges are smaller with increasing than with decreasing potentials." A new and apparently accurate method for the determination of the coefficient of selfinduction is also given as a secondary result of the experiments.

IN the same journal M. R. Malagoli gives a summary of his theoretical investigations on electrolysis by alternating currents, the results of which agree with the experimental determinations of M. Mengarini. He concludes that the necessary and sufficient condition under which electrolysis by alternating currents is possible, is that the quantity of electricity passing through the voltameter during a single alternation of the current must be at least twice that which is necessary for the production of the maximum polarisation of the voltameter. Electrolytic production ceases when these two quantities become equal, and the amount of the electrolyte decomposed is proportional to their difference.

AT the meeting of the Paris Academy of Sciences on August 14, MM. Delahaye and Boutille showed an ingenious firealarm. A hollow ball of aluminium, 15 to 20 mm. in diameter, is supported at one end of an arm, with a counterpoise at the other end, the whole being in equilibrium at the ordinary temperature and pressure of the air. The apparatus is purposely made not sensitive enough to show the ordinary natural changes of pressure, but if the specific gravity of the air becomes diminished considerably, either from a rise of temperature or an admixture of coal gas in sufficient quantity to become explosive, the balance is destroyed, and the ball in falling completes an electric circuit by which an alarm bell is set ringing until the normal state of affairs is again established.

SIR CHARLES TODD has issued a report on the rainfall in South Australia and the northern territory during 1892, with the weather characteristics of each month.

GUSTAV FISCHER, of Jena, has recently published second and revised editions of two well-known books-Prof. E. Strasburger's "Kleine Botanische Practicum," and Prof. Richard Hertwig's "Lehrbuch der Zoologie."

MESSES. CROSBY LOCKWOOD AND SON will publish in September a comprehensive handbook on "Practical Building Construction," by Mr. J. P. Allen, lecturer at the Durham College of Science, Newcastle-on-Tyne. The work will be illustrated by about 1,000 diagrams.

WITH reference to the article on the "Position of Scientific Experts" in our issue of the 17th inst. a correspondent informs us that for some years it has been legal for a judge to select an expert to report to the Court upon a particular matter in dispute, and this practice is occasionally followed. The mode of selection and of appointment, and the status of the official English expert, are therefore almost identical with those of his German equivalent.

THE Isle of Man Natural History and Antiquarian Society visited the Marine Biological Station at Port Erin on August 14, and Prof. Herdman, F. R. S., the director of the station, gave the members an address upon the objects and methods of marine biology. We understand that it is intended to construct fish hatcheries at Port Erin, and to wall in several of the creeks round the coast for the preservation of young fish until they reach maturity.

AN "Electrical Engineer's Price-Book," edited by Mr. H. J. Dowsing, has been published by Messrs. Charles Griffin and Co. It contains a large amount of information on the commercial aspect of electrical work, and should be of great assistance, not only to electrical engineers, but also to borough engineers, architects, railway contractors, and local authorities who desire to be informed upon matters connected with electrical installations.

BRAZIL produces, on the average, about 360,000 tons of coffee per annum, that is, about four-fifths of the whole amount consumed in the world. Since the State of Sao Paulo alone produces one-half of this quantity, an illustrated pamphlet by Señor Adolpho A. Pinto, one of the Commissioners of the State at the World's Columbian Exposition, would be expected to contain an accurate account of coffee cultivation. The little pamphlet justifies the expectation. Every one interested in coffee-growing in general, and in Sao Paulo in particular, will find it well worth reading.

IT was generally admitted by those competent to judge that the display of scientific instruments at the Paris Exposition of 1889 was inferior to that of 1878. There were, however, a few striking exhibits scattered in different classes in an unaccountable manner. Mr. A. Lawrence Rotch was appointed to report