THE MONTH: SCIENCE AND ARTS.

While the President of the Royal Society is travelling in America, studying, in company with Professor Asa Gray, the peculiar vegetation at the foot of the Rocky Mountains—while Dr Tyndall is solacing himself with a quiet holiday in his own house on the Bel Alp—while spectroscopists are rejoicing in the new 'grating' constructed by Professor Rutherford, which multiplies to an extraordinary degree their power of observation—while physicists and naturalists are betaking themselves to inland villages or to remote bays on the sea—while amateurs are looking at the one hundred and seven photographs of the Arctic expedition recently published by the Admiralty—while artists, engravers, and printers are at work on the voyage of the Challenger—while readers are acquainting themselves with Mr Darwin's new book, The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the same Species—while the British Association are reckoning up the profit and loss of their meeting at Plymouth—while the promoters of the Ordnance Survey of Palestine are appealing for funds to finish their work—while geographers and adventurers are soliciting means for the exploration of Africa—while Europe is trying to prevent immigration of the Colorado beetle—while Mr Varley is attempting by telephone to carry music from Her Majesty's Theatre to the 'other side of the water'—while the Treasury are considering whether they will ask parliament to vote three million pounds for the building of the much wanted new public offices—while Mr Berthollet is pointing out 'the possibility of producing temperatures really approaching three thousand degrees'—while Mr Rarchaert is shewing that his locomotive, combining the two essentials of adherence and flexibility, will travel safely round curves of two hundred and fifty mètres radius—while Mr Cornet, chief engineer of mines in Belgium, is endeavouring to prove that compressed air can be used in mines; and while the Social Science Council are settling their programme for amendment of law, repression of crime, promotion of education, improvement of health, furtherance of economy and trade, and diffusion of art—while all this is going on, science, art, and philosophy progress in a way that implies force within as well as without.

Where steam is employed, especially on board ship, it not unfrequently happens that a sudden occasion arises for exercise of the utmost power of the engines, and that to this gain extreme power for the short time required is of more importance than economy of coal. The method hitherto adopted to effect this object is to drive more air through the fire, or to throw a jet of steam into the chimney.

Mr Bertin, a French marine engineer, has proved that the best method is to throw jets of slightly compressed air into the base of the chimney by means of a centrifugal ventilator, or at higher pressure by employing a blowing-machine working with a piston. Under the transitory action of these jets of air the combustion in the furnace is doubled, and the ship, like a warrior in extremity, may make efforts impossible in ordinary circumstances. The increase in the consumption of coal is not more than twenty per cent.; and the method having been tried on board one of the national frigates, La Résolue, has proved so effectual, that its adoption is only a question of time. Mr Bertin has described his method and the principles on which it is based in a paper to be published in the Bulletin of the Société d'Encouragement pour l'Industrie Nationale.

The same Society have just recognised the merits of an English chemist, Mr Walter Weldon, by conferring on him their Lavoisier medal—grande medaille d'honneur—for his discoveries and improvements in the art of manufacturing chlorine. Formerly all the manganese used in the process was wasted, and manganese became scarcer and dearer. Waste is an opprobrium in chemical operations. Mr Weldon shewed a way by which the manganese could be reoxydised over and over again indefinitely; and at once an offensive part of the process was got rid of, and the price of chlorine fell thirty per cent. This of course cheapened all the articles, and they are numerous, in the production of which chlorine plays a part; and Mr Weldon's method has been adopted wherever chemicals are manufactured on a great scale. Mr Lamy, who drew up the statement of the grounds on which the medal was awarded, said: 'If we have not the good fortune to designate a Frenchman for your suffrages, at least we have the satisfaction to present an inventor belonging to a friendly nation, the first among all for the development and the potency of its chemical industry.'

If this be true, there is a chance for another ingenious chemist for the Council General of Guadeloupe offer a reward of one hundred thousand francs to the inventor of a new method of extracting the juice of the sugar-cane, or of manufacturing sugar.

Hitherto it has been thought that to produce a good black dye the co-operation of a metallic substance or of a chlorate, or both combined, was indispensable. The question arose: Were those ingredients really indispensable? Mr Rosenstiehl first shewed that the metal might be dispensed with, and recently, as may be seen in the Annales de Chimie et de Physique, Mr Coquillion has proved that the chlorate is not required, for in the one case as in the other, the use of 'nascent' or active oxygen will effect the desired object. We are informed that the fact observed by the French chemist 'is an elegant demonstration of the action of active oxygen upon aniline salts; that it will perhaps enable us to obtain blacks derived from aniline in a state of greater purity, and to hasten the moment when we shall know their elementary composition; a question which, in view of its great interest, has been proposed for a prize by the Industrial Society of Mulhausen.'

Mr Cornet, whose name has been mentioned above, in a mathematical discussion of the question, says that compressed air would be largely used in mining operations 'were it possible to keep the temperature of the air from rising during compression much above that of the atmosphere, and from falling during expansion to the temperature of freezing water.' And he thinks that he has found 'the means for attaining this end in the use of water-spray, which could be introduced into the cylinder of the compressor, and into that of the machine using the air in the mine.' The practical details are not yet made known; but if they succeed, 'the use of compressed air in mines will soon become general, and the problem of mining at any depth will be solved.'

One part of the method devised by Mr Cornet had been previously thought of; for in 1875 an air-compressor was working in the St Gothard tunnel, of which it was said: 'The heat produced by compression is reduced by the circulation of cold water in the walls of the cylinder, in the interior of the piston and its rod; and an injection of water-spray at the two extremities of the cylinder completes the cooling.' When the compressors were at work they supplied to the tunnel fifteen cubic mètres of air per minute.

When messages were first sent by telegraph, many persons were exceedingly puzzled to understand how they were sent; and now the telephone has come to disturb them with another puzzle. But scientific men have long known that 'galvanic music,' as it is called, was discovered forty years ago, that an electro-magnet on being suddenly magnetised or demagnetised gives out audible sounds, and that many notices of the curious fact were printed in English and foreign journals. Professor Graham Bell, whose experiments have been already mentioned in these pages (ante 208, 415), succeeded in making the sounds, which were commonly very faint, audible to a large number of persons. This was accomplished, as he explains, 'by interposing a tense membrane between the electro-magnet and its armature. The armature in this case consisted of a piece of clock-spring glued to the membrane. This form of apparatus,' he continues, 'I have found invaluable in all my experiments. The instrument was connected with a parlour organ, the reeds of which were so arranged as to open and close the circuit during their vibration. When the organ was played, the music was loudly reproduced by the telephonic receiver in a distant room. When chords were played upon the organ, the various notes composing the chords were emitted simultaneously by the armature of the receiver.'

'The simultaneous production of musical notes of different pitch by the electric current,' continues Professor Bell, 'was foreseen by me as early as 1870, and demonstrated during the year 1873. Elisha Gray of Chicago, and Paul La Cour of Copenhagen, lay claim to the same discovery. The fact that sounds of different pitch can be simultaneously produced upon any part of a telegraphic circuit is of great practical importance; for the duration of a musical note can be made to signify the dot or dash of the Morse alphabet; and thus a number of telegraphic messages may be sent simultaneously over the same wire without confusion, by making signals of a definite pitch for each message.'

By instalments of news from the Pacific we hear of the tremendous earthquake that occurred last May; but for precise details we shall have to wait until reports are published in the scientific journals of the United States. Meanwhile, we learn that the great volcano of Kilauea in Hawaii began to be restless on the first of the month; a few days later huge columns of lava were thrown up, vehement jets of steam burst forth from a long range of fissures, and all the startling phenomena of a mighty eruption, including drifts of Pele's hair, were observed. This evidence of disturbance deep down in the earth was corroborated by an earthquake, which about half-past eight on the evening of the 9th terrified and devastated the coast of Peru, and occasioned greater ruin than the similar calamity in 1868. Iquique is said to be completely destroyed, and other towns and cities along two hundred miles of coast suffered more or less severely. As usual, the commotion of the land produced a commotion of the water, and the sea rolling great waves upon the shore, intensified the havoc. The waves varied in height from ten to sixty feet; and we are told that 'four miles of the embankment of the railway were swept away;' and that 'locomotives, cars, and rails were hurled about by the sea like so many playthings.'

Also, as is usual in such catastrophes, the earthquake wave was propagated; and between four and five of the morning of the 10th, it (that is the sea) rushed upon the Hawaiian Islands in waves varying from three to thirty-six feet in height. Thus in eight hours the resistless oscillation had traversed the five thousand miles which separate the islands from the South American continent.

From this brief sketch it is obvious that there is much in this calamitous visitation to interest the physicist and geologist as well as the philanthropist. Information will in all probability be communicated from other places until the remotest points at which the disturbance was felt shall have been ascertained.

As relating to this subject we remark that the hair of Pele—a Hawaiian goddess—above mentioned can be produced artificially in a blast furnace. It has been described in former pages of this Journal as 'slag cotton.'

We learn by a communication from Hawaii to the American Journal of Science and Arts that a grand outburst occurred in February last, but ceased quite suddenly, to the disappointment of visitors who came expecting to see a volcanic display. As the vessel was steaming away, they saw in deep water, a mile off Kealakekua, the place where Captain Cook was killed, a remarkable heaving and bubbling, intermingled with jets of steam, and throwing up of pumice and light scoria. This commotion was still going on five weeks afterwards. It was occasioned by a subterranean lava-stream which, after rending the mountain slopes with deep fissures, found an outlet under the sea.

The Weather Review published by the United States Signal Service contains details of the wave which may be accepted as trustworthy. 'About 8.50 P.M. of May 9, heavy earthquake shocks were felt over the region between Arica and Mexillones (border of Peru and Bolivia). The oceanic wave which immediately followed was of great violence along the adjoining South American coast, and was felt also as far north as California, the rise at Anaheim being twelve feet in a few minutes. At Callao, Peru, the wave was felt at 11 P.M.; at San Francisco was perceptible at 6.18 A.M. May 10, with increase to a maximum of fourteen inches at 8.20. It reached the Sandwich Islands, eastern Hawaii, at Hilo, at 4 A.M.; and the great wave, thirty-six feet high, came in at 4.45. At Honolulu it was first felt at 4.45, and was followed by the great wave at five o'clock.'

In a subsequent communication it is stated that thirty-six hours after the inrush of the great wave at Hilo, the rising and falling still continued, 'the incoming and outflowing wave occupying about an hour, the latter leaving the channels nearly bare.'

Our American cousins are not disposed to accept their plague of locusts as an inevitable calamity, for the Entomological Commission appointed by the government at Washington have published two numbers of a Bulletin, with woodcuts, giving information on the natural history of the devouring insects and on the various methods proposed for their destruction. It is shewn that by systematic endeavours before the creatures get their wings they may be destroyed on a great scale, for then it is possible to drive them in enormous 'schools' or flocks as easily as sheep. Millions fall into long straight ditches dug as traps and there perish; millions more are crushed by rollers; hogs and poultry devour them greedily; and a number of ingenious machines stand ready to catch the winged locusts in the air or to capture them as they crawl. One of these machines produces a powerful upward blast which sucks up the crawlers from the ground, and drives them into a receptacle where they are smashed to a pulp. American ingenuity is roused by the swarming inroad, and it will be interesting to watch the struggle. Meanwhile the States adjacent to the Rocky Mountains are anxiously asking which is to conquer, man or locust?

Concerning the Colorado beetle, Mr Riley, State Entomologist for Missouri, reports that the eastward progress of the insect 'was at the average rate of eighty-eight miles a year, and that it has now invaded nearly a million and a half square miles, or more than one-third the area of the United States. It does not thrive where the thermometer reaches one hundred degrees Fahrenheit, and hence it may never extend its range very far south of the territory now occupied; but its northern spread is not limited; and it may push to the northernmost limit of the potato-growing country.'

Special associations for special objects are a characteristic of the present century, so it seems quite natural that there should be a 'Society of Americanists,' whose object is to gather information about America. They meet once in two years; their next meeting is to be held next month at Luxemburg; and we learn from their programme that their inquiries are to apply to the times anterior to the discovery of America by Columbus. Thus the picture-writing of the Mexicans, their civil legislation under the Aztecs as compared with that of the Peruvians under the Incas; the inscriptions in the ancient cities of Central America, the ancient use of copper, the works of the mysterious mound-builders, the comparison of the Eskimo language with the languages of Southern America; traditions of the Deluge especially in Mexico; the discovery of Brazil, and other ethnographical and palæographical subjects. If this scheme be wisely and diligently followed out, there is reason to hope that some light will be thrown into the obscurity of early American history.

A description of the great river Amazons and of the vast region watered by its affluents, by Mr R. Reyes, is published in the Bulletin of the Société de Géographie, at Paris. He calls it the American Mediterranean, and shews that by itself and its feeders, the noble stream borders the territories of Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil. Ships of the largest class can navigate to a distance of three thousand miles from the sea, and ascend some of the tributaries from two to nine hundred miles, through a country rich and fertile almost beyond description. The forests produce four hundred different kinds of wood, mostly of excellent quality, as may be seen in the Museum at Rio Janeiro; and fruits, drugs, and minerals abound.

A tourist wishful to take a holiday in the tropics may now embark in the West Indies, cross to the mainland, steam up the Magdalena to the city of Purification in the Colombian State Tolima. Thence by a land-journey of three days he reaches the steamers on the affluents of the Amazons, and ends his voyage of four thousand miles on the great Brazilian river.

TO THE READERS OF CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL.

Next month will be commenced a Romance, in Three Parts, by 'Alaster Græme,' entitled

FROM DAWN TO SUNSET,

to run through several months of this Journal.

In January 1878 will appear the first chapters of a Novel, by John Berwick Harwood, entitled

HELENA, LADY HARROWGATE.

Encouraged by the still increasing popularity of Chambers's Journal, the Conductors will spare no effort to maintain its attractiveness.

Printed and Published by W. & R. Chambers, 47 Paternoster Row, London, and 339 High Street, Edinburgh.

All Rights Reserved.

Transcriber's Note—The following changes have been made to this text:

Page 534: Masterhorn to Matterhorn.