Annalen der Phvsikund Chemie, No. 1, 1879.—This begins with a portion of an extended inquiry by Herr F. Kohlrausch into the electric conductivity of aqueous solutions of hydrates and salts of the light metals, as also of sulphate of copper, sulphate of zinc, and nitrate of silver. The paper is in three parts—an experimental, a practical, and a theoretical (the first two in this number). The practical part gives tables for use, and formulae of conductivity, especially of dilute solutions; specifies bodies which show a maximum of conducting power at a degree of concentration of solution below saturation, indicates liquids which commend themselves as a standard for electric conductivity, &c.—Herr W. Kohlrausch furnishes an experimental determination of the velocities of light in crystals. He employed the new instrument called a total reflectometer, and he comes to the conclusion that Fresnel's theory of double refraction in optically uni- and biaxial crystals gives a form of light wave-surfaces, which, within very small errors of measurement, is in general experimentally confirmed for uniaxial crystals, and for the principal sections of biaxial crystals.—Herr Groshaus contributes some interesting observations on the densities of substances in the gaseous and liquid states, in relation to their chemical composition.—Herr Ritter calculates that the quantity of heat radiated annually from the sun 75,000 years ago must have been about 1 per cent, less than at present (700,000 years ago about 10 per cent, less), a result which is supposed to explain the “glacial period,” while the previous tropical climate is accounted for by a less thickness of the solid cru it of the earth. He also estimates that each kilogramme of the sun's mass contains on an average about 43,000,000 units of heat.—Herr Wiedemann declines to regard the oxide containing copper separated electro-lytically from solutions of acetate of cupric oxide, as a peculiar allotropic modification of copper.—There are also papers on the thermo-electric properties of apatite, brucite, &c. (Hankel), the theory and application of electro-magnetic rotation (Margules), the influence of temperature on galvanic conductivity of liquids (Exner and Goldschmiedt), and two new fluorescent substances (Lommel).
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