Scientific Serials

Abstract

IN the Quarterly Journal of Science for October, three of the articles are continuations of papers which have appeared in previous numbers of the Journal. Mr Muogo Pontoa concludes his discussion of “Molecules, Ultimates, Aroms, and Waves.” Lieut. S. P. Oliver gives another paper “On Modern British Ordnance and Ammunition,” detailing the structure ot some recently manufactured ordnance; and from the ediior we have “Some further Experiments of Psychic Force.” After replying to adverse criticisms on his previous paper, Mr. Crookes details some fresh experiments which he considers to “contirm beyond doubt the conclusions at which he arrived in his former paper, namely the existence of a force associated in some measure not yet explained, with the human organisation, by which force increased weight is capable of being imparted to solid bodies without physical contact.” The experiments detailed were all performed in the presence of Mr. D. D. Home, or of a lady in whom this force is stated to be remarkably developed; the accordion is no longer employed, while in the balance experiments the operator's hands, instead of lying on the board attached to the balance, are placed in a vessel of water laid on the board. Mr, W. Mattieu Williams gives a useful abstract of the views advanced in his “Fuel of the Sun,” for the benefit of those who have not time to read the larger work. The author of an anonymous paper “On the recent Gun-cotton Explosion ” condemns the reaction against the use of gun-cotton, which has set in since the Stowmarket catastrophe, and attributes the explosion to culpable carelessness in the process of washing the free acid out of the cotton, and the extent of the disaster to the fact of the utterly needless stowage of large quantities of the manufactured article in the factory itself.