Weld, L. G. A Short Course in the Theory of Determinants. Macmillan & Co. Pp. 238.
Wickersham. James. Tacoma, Wash. Is it Mount Tacoma, or Rainier? Pp. 34.
World's Columbian Exposition. Department of Engineering. Official Programme. Pp. 32.
Wright, C. H., and Dewar, O., Editors. Johnson's Gardener's Dictionary. New revised edition. Part II. Macmillan & Co. Pp. 128. 40 cents.
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Notes from the Madison Meeting of the American Association.—At the Madison meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the pressing necessity for giving availability to the world's wealth in scientific literature was discussed. In the Botanical Section was suggested the desirability of a bibliography for botany such as that compiled for chemistry by Prof. H. Carrington Bolton. It was further proposed that the bibliographical volumes be supplemented by a serial index. In the Mechanical Section Mr. C. Wellman Parkes, of Troy, N. Y., outlined a weekly index to periodicals which he promises to establish in New York with the new year. During each quarter the numbers will successively recapitulate all the titles from the beginning of the quarter. At the end of the sixth, ninth, and twelfth months special numbers will recapitulate all the titles from the beginning of the year. The reclassifications needed for this index are to be rendered easy by adopting a machine casting each title as a solid line of type metal.
Prof. Bolton's bibliography of chemistry is published by the Smithsonian Institution. At the recent Congress of Librarians in Chicago it was stated that this institution may publish other similar bibliographies for which manuscripts may be prepared by learned societies. As a good many of these societies have moderate funds available for the purpose, and as societies still more numerous could arrange for gratuitous co-operation, on the plan of the American Library Association with its index to periodicals, the impulse to organization seems to be all that is lacking in order to supply a crying need of the times.
Prof. Edward Hart, of Easton, Pa., adverted to the importance of mechanical aids in analytical chemistry. Balances, he said, are now made with short arms, and are in consequence more rapid. They are provided with agate knife edges to resist corrosion, with aluminum beams for lightness, with better weights, with improved beam and pan arrests. The torsion balance, due to Dr. Alfred Springer, of Cincinnati, enables a heavier load to be weighed with greater sensitiveness. The Gibb ring-burner much improves the Bunsen lamp: it allows the upper part of a crucible to be heated so that liquids boiling at high temperatures may be evaporated without spattering.
Prof. T. M. Drown, of Lafayette College, first used, in 1875 or 1876, the crucible with perforated bottom which, reinvented in 1879 by Prof. F. A. Gooch, with the addition of asbestos felt, is invaluable in certain analyses. Filters of paper, when unsatisfactory, can be replaced by Gibbs's sand filter, Munroe's clay filter, and Carmichael's siphon filter. The chemist with recent years has added two metals to the list from which his vessels are drawn—nickel and aluminum. In the cheap and ready supply of reagents, which a few years ago were troublesome to make and costly of purchase, industry has done an important service to research; today hydrogen dioxid, bromin, and potassium permanganate are articles of commerce and bear moderate prices.
Prof. E. L. Nichols, of Cornell University, referring to the phenomena of alternating currents, said that their complexity had obliged the modern electrician to be both a mathematician and a physicist. In much the same way a generation ago the new and difficult phenomena of cable telegraphy served to train the men who stand as pioneers and chieftains in electrical science.
Prof. W. H. Brewer, of New Haven, Conn., speaking of stock-breeding, said that as long ago as 1812 a thousand guineas had been paid in England for a short-horn bull. The Short-horn Herd-book, published in 1832, and the Stud-book, yet earlier, had laid the foundation for the science of heredity in part by proving that cross-breeding induced variability. Within the modern era the only additions to domesticated animals have been the canary and the ostrich.
