Principal Contents Research Articles

Principal Contents of Foreign Oriental Journals

Principal Contents of Foreign Oriental Journals

Principal Contents of Foreign Oriental Journals

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I. Principal Contents of Oriental Journals

I. Principal Contents of Oriental Journals

Principal Contents of Oriental Journals

Principal Contents of Oriental Journals

Luftelektrizität

THIS is one of a long series of cheap, instructive books published by the firm of G. J. Göschen. The principal contents are the earth's potential gradient, forty-four pages; the electric conductivity of the atmosphere, thirty-five pages; electric currents in the air (including the ordinary fair-weather vertical current, electricity brought down by rain and snow, and lightning), twenty-nine pages; and the radio-active phenomena of the atmosphere, twenty-eight pages. Two other shorter sections deal respectively with the electric effects of sunshine and theories as to the source of atmospheric electricity. There are eighteen figures in the text, including some interesting Potsdam records of potential gradient during calm and disturbed weather. The author is a member of the staff of the Royal Meteorological-Magnetic Observatory at Potsdam, and is a recognised expert on the subject of which he treats. Considering its size, the book gives an excellent account, clear as well as concise, of the whole subject. German results loom somewhat more largely than they probably would in a text-book written in France or England, but there are a good many references to non-German writers, including Chauveau, Simpson, and C. T. R. Wilson.

A Geographic Interpretation of New York City

Compared with many sciences of equal rank and age, geography has but little changed its aim and scope. Beginning as a most inclusive science which dealt with descriptions and observations relating to the entire visible universe, the science has narrowed with the separation from the parent science of geology, meteorology, anthropology, sociology, and phases of other sciences-but still holds rather closely to the meaning expressed by its etymology-earth science. The content of the science has been, and, to a great extent, still remains, the description of the surface of the earth and its peoples, together with any reflections and observations that present themselves to the writer. Perhaps the best efforts of geographers have been given to exploring and mapping the earth's surface, and such work is absolutely a necessary precedent to further description. Such work, although of great value, does not reach its highest value when it remains almost entirely descriptive. With the general enrichment and increase in the content of all the other sciences, geography has slowly been assuming a new aspect. The facts of location which constituted the principal content of the old geography demand explanation. As a consequence, more attenton is being given to the relations of geographic facts and factors. Ritter, Guyot, Ratzel, and many others have given a new outlook by their labors along this line of correlation. Their working definition of geography may be summarized in the statement that geography treats of the earth as the home of man-that is, it considers those earth influences that affect man. The earth in this sense includes the land, the seas, and the atmosphere. Davis would enlarge this definition to include all life responses to earth conditions and would add plants and animals to the organic factors of geography.t Mill states the idea somewhat differently by emphasizing geography as the science of distribution, and would include facts of distribution

University and Educational Intelligence

OXFORD.—The opponents of the statute allowing exemption from Greek in the case of candidates for honours in mathematics and natural science, which is to be submitted to Convocation on November 28, have put out a circular in which their objections are stated. One of their principal contentions is that when Greek becomes optional at the universities, the teaching of that language will be given up at many of the smaller schools throughout the country, and that in consequence many boys who are capable of profiting by the study will be deprived of the opportunity of instruction in Greek during their school career. The authors of the document say that while deprecating the abolition of compulsory Greek, they are favourable to a reform in existing methods of teaching and examination.

Principal Contents of Oriental Journals

Principal Contents of Oriental Journals

Principal Contents of Oriental Journals

Principal Contents of Oriental Journals

Principal Contents of Oriental Journals

Principal Contents of Oriental Journals

Principal Contents of Oriental Journals

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.

II—Principal Contents of Oriental Journals

II—Principal Contents of Oriental Journals

Principal Contents of Oriental Journals

Principal Contents of Oriental Journals

The Ballot-Box

MR. HOOKER, in NATURE of March 21, seems not to have quite appreciated my principal contention in the letters “One Vote, One Value” and “Vox Populi” of February 28 and March 7 respectively. It was to show that the verdict given by the ballot-box must be the Median estimate, because every other estimate is condemned in advance by a majority of the voters. This being the case, I examined the votes in a particular instance according to the most appropriate method for dealing with medians, quartiles, c consequently, I think my proposal that juries should openly adopt the median when estimating damages, and councils when estimating money grants, has independent merits of its own, besides being in strict accordance with the true theory of the ballot-box. Secondly, Mr. Hooker's approximate calculation from my scanty list of figures, of what the mean would be of all the figures, proves to be singularly correct; he makes it 1196 lb, (which is the mean of the deviates at 5°, 15° 95°) whereas it should have been 1197 lb. This shows well that a small orderly sample is as useful for calculating means as a very much larger random sample, and that the compactness of a table of centiles is no hindrance to their wider use. I regret to be unable to learn the proportion of the competitors who were farmers, butchers, or non-experts. It would be well in future competitions to have a line on the cards for “occupation.” Certainly many non-experts competed, like those clerks and others who have no expert knowledge of horses, but who bet on races, guided by newspapers, friends, and their own fancies.

The Spectra of Carbon Monoxide and Silicon Compounds

A PAPER published by Prof. Hartley (Proc. Roy. Soc. vol. lxviii. pp. 109–112, March, 1901) reminds me of some observations on the spectra of the compounds of silicon with fluorine and hydrogen (SiFl4 and SiH4), made by me several years ago and published in Wiedemann's Annalen (vol. xxi. pp. 427–437, 1884). As they seem to be not without some interest, and a definite explanation of them has, so far as I know, not been given till now, I may be permitted to give here a short account of the principal contents of my little paper.

III.—Invertebrate Palæontology in some Continental Museums

Naturalists who refer to their “Baedeker” for information respecting the Continental Natural History Museums are too often disappointed by finding that if the author does happen to have mentioned them, either that he has confined his attention to the exterior of the building or has summarily dismissed the collection as “unimportant.” Hence geologists are dependent upon such, papers as those in which M. Cotteau has recapitulated the principal contents of several French and Swiss Museums, or that in which Mr. Smith Woodward has enumerated the most interesting specimens of many German and Austrian collections. The last paper, as is indicated by its title, “Vertebrate Paleontology in Continental Museums,” is restricted solely to the Vertebrata. But as the value of a Museum, as far as the Invertebrates are concerned, is dependent more on the possession of collections than of single famous specimens, the student of this group is more in need of such information than is the Vertebrate palæontologist; every one knows where he must go to see an Archæopteryx, a mounted Iguanodon, or a Neanderthal skull, but the last resting-place of a local collector's hoard is, as a rule, less known to fame. Hence the following notes may be of some service as a supplement to Mr. S. Woodward's paper.

Scientific Serials

American Journal of Science and Arts, April.—The principal contents of this number are: The history of Young's discovery of his theory of colours, by Alfred M. Mayer. The aim of this paper is to give extracts from Newton, Young, and Wollaston, which embody the early literature of Young's celebrated theory of colour, and to furnish a history of the steps by which he was led to the adoption of what is now known as Young's theory of colour-sensation.—A re-determination of the constants of the law connecting the pitch of a sound with the duration of its residual sensation, by Alfred M. Mayer. This article refers to a previous article of October 1874 on the same subject. Since then, Madame Seiler (who assisted Helmholtz) and Dr. Carl Seiler have spent considerable time in re-determining the durations of the residual sonorous sensations, using Mr. Mayer's apparatus. From their experiments he has found the law given before as D = (53248 N + 23 + 24) 0001 requires to be modified to D = 3.2 N + 31 +.0022. where D = the durations of the residual sonorous sensation corresponding to N number of vibrations per second.—On the action of the less refrangible rays of light on silver, iodide, and bromide, by Carey Lea. The result of 160 very concordant experiments shows that AgBr and AgI are sensitive to all the visible rays of the spectrum. AgI is more sensitive than AgBr to all the less reirangible rays and also to white light. The sensitiveness of AgBr to the green rays was materially increased by the presence of free silver nitrate. AgBr and AgI together are more sensitive to both the green and the red rays than either AgI or AgBr separately.—On the Silurian age of the Southern Appalachians, by F. H. Bradley. First portion (to be continued).—Spectroscopic examination of gases from meteoric iron, by Arthur W. Wright. On the supposition that meteoric iron has received its hydrogen and other gases from the sun or some other body having a similar atmosphere of great density, it seemed probable that a spectroscopic examination might reveal the unknown gaseous elements assumed to be present in the solar corona. Only negative results were obtained. But the fact incidentally observed of the varying character of the oxygen and hydrogen lines in the presence of hydrogen, and the near coincidence of two of them with prominent coronal lines, with the possible coincidence of a third line, goes to show that the characteristic lines in the spectrum of the corona, so far from indicating the presence of otherwise unknown elements, are simply due to hydrogen and the gases of the air, oxygen and nitrogen.—On the duplicity of the principal star of ∑ 1097, by S. W. Burnham.—The original notes under the head of Scientific Intelligence are: Progress of Geological Survey of Canada, 1873–74; the genera Opisthoptera (Meek, 1872) and Anomalodonta (Miller, 1874); the Gulf of Mexico in the Miocene time.

An accompt of some books. I. Johannis Schefferi Lapponia, & c. Francofurti 1673 in 40. II. The True English Interest by Carew Reynel, Esquire

The Author of this History, glorying in the Preface , that he is the first that hath truly discover'd Lapland and its Inhabitants to the World; and there being not yet transported hither any considerable number of Copies, to satifie the Curiosity of the Inquisitive: We shall here the more largely and particularly represent the principal Content of this Book, as far as't is consistent with the design and business of these Tracts.