Page:Science vol. 5.djvu/548

 513

��fT-OL. v.. W«i «

��milil Dr. Huggins ohiaineJ his Brst raeitsitre of the dl«plncement of the F line in th« spcctnim of Slriiis, and Ibus proved that it was possible to ascertain the speed irlth wiili^h the star was moving In the direc- tion of the visna! ray, — aw observation which de^prvei to rank in importance with the first detection of the proper motions of stars, or the Brat determination of their annual parallax, or even somewhat higher m being more entirely a novel enterprise.

— E. RevilloHt, Ihe French Egyptoli^st, has nearly completed an eihanstlve report on the demotic docii- meut« In the British muxeum which have been dis- covered in the course of the destractlun of some Coptic houses in Lower Egypt. These demotic Mlraka Include a great number of receipts for taxes, some being of the Roman period. Hevlllnut points out that one of the demotic oHtrnica preserved In the Louvre Is composed In njaetly the same formnla ns those written in Greek during the second year of ilie reign of Caligula, and the thirteenth year of Nero. Other annlogous e-iamples are among those In the British miiaeum. The most interesting of the onlrakn submitted to Itevlllout are of the Ptolemaic period, amongst which occur several bilingual texts of con- siderable importance. One of these decides a great queetlon alwut money; and anoUier example Is a re- ceipt, payable in com, of a kind up to the present time only known from the Greek teits, and demonslrating the validity of theories with regard to measures hitherto held as pru visional only. Other oafrdita In the collection record oaths taken about crops, the succession of property, and accusations of thefts from the catacombs, as well as a demand for (he liberation of a slave, and an instrument for the delivery of cer- tain properly, the manner being recorded In which a house was left by Its owner.

— The students of the Kansas Stale agricultural college at Manhattan are planning a natural-history expedition during the summer in the west The field of their operations will lie between the 100th and IBUth meridians.

— The report of the proceedings of the Reale aca- demia del llncel, Rome, as contained in Hature, cites Professor Tacchini's communication on the hjdro- genic protuberances of the sun, observed at the Boyol observatory of the college of Rome during 1SS4. In continuation of his previous note to the effect that 1884 must be considered as a year In which the phenomena of the chromosphere had attained tbeir maximum development, he presented the results of ob!>ervatlons on two hundred and forty-two days, from which it appeared that the number of the protuber- ances l;icreased from March to October. In order to get rid of the anomalies which are met wllli in various observations, and to obtain a curve representing the course of the phenomena in the period 1S80-84, Pro- fessor Tacchinl lias taken as monthly means the means of three months. The corresponding curve shows three culminating points, or periods of maximum activity: vis., July, 1880; September-October, 18S1; and March, 1SS4, — which last is the highest in the whole series. The maximum of the protuberances follows that of the sun-spots; and recent obaervat ions

��make it prnhnhle that the present y^ar n'lll be oneof greater activity In the chromosphere and solar Btmt*-

— Prof. F. Jeffrey Bell will in future edit the ZmIo-

— Prof. H. L, Cohn, in his pamphlet 'T"eberdea heleuchturigswerth der lampenglocken ' (Wiesbaden, 188^) descril>es a long series of determinations of the relative values of various forms of lamp-shades. The method pursued was to measure the brightneM of white paper lyhig on a table over which (he aoure* of arliftcial light was suspended at a given di*t*nce, by means of a Weber photometer. Aa one vrould an- ticipate, the general effect of a shade is to increase very greatly the illumination immediately under (be light, and not modify it notably at sn angular dli- tance greater than forty-five degrees from this regioti. The last section of the pamphlet, which deals with the illumination requisite for easiest use of the etcs, is of the most general interest. Taking as a tiieaiure of the value of the Illumination in this sense the number of lines which can be read from a newspaper in a minute, and as the unit of illnmluation that of a normal candle at a perpendicular distance nf a metr« from Ihe paper, he finds that Ihe best illiiminalion Is not less tlian fiftyeucb nulla. Since even a fifth "f this Illumination is very rarely secured, except im- mediately under a larap provided with a good shade, the author emphasizes Ihe conclusion that few school- children work in a satisfactory light.

— The Swiss geologist and alpinist. Horace B^n^ diet de Sanssurc, the llrst to make the ascent of Mont Blanc (Aug. 3, nSTI, is to have erected In his hoo<V a status in the village of Chamounlx, from whicb point the ascent was made. It will be inaiigunued on the centenary of his a»cenL Dnritig the conten- tion of the Alpine clubs st Chamounlx year before last, the president of Ihe section of the Jura, V^ilen, called the attention of the alpinists to the fact ibai no statue lu honor of the first of their number hod yet been erected, and suggested that CliatnouDli was a suitable place for such a monument. This propiv sitlon was received with great applause; and, by a happy coincidence, at almost the same hour the pres- ident of Ihe Swiss republic Issued a decree auihorli- ing the commune of Ctiamoiioix to accept a legacy of four thousand francs which had been made by a Ur. Qtenal uf Satlenches, according to a will drawn up as long ago as 1834. Mr. Chenal died in 1S81 ; and t!je execution of his will has only now been aecom- ptlshed. A committee has been fonned to eairj oat the wishes of the legacy, which simply requires the erection of a monument In granite by giime approved architrct, with the inscription, ' X Monsieur B^n^dict de Saussure, Charaounts recotinalssanU' This com- mittee, which among others consists of Mcssftl. Daubrfe of Paris, Alphonse Favre of Geneva, aitd the presidents of the Turin section and the Florenn section of the Italian Alpine club, and the Hrst ptvei- dent of the Austrian Alpine club, will endeavor to Increase the sum. In order to erect a worthy monu- raenu A sulucriptionhasbeen opened by the Jownil de Genccr, from which these facts ate taken.

�� �