H. C. Bolton's amendment was approved, appointing a committee of five to cooperate with the American Association at the August meeting, to establish the chemical section of that body on a firmer basis.
Monuments to Liebig are to be erected both at Munich and at Giessen. At the Chemical Centennial, Prof. J. Lawrence Smith urged the raising of a subscription for these memorials among the chemists of the United States. The following subscriptions were announced, it being understood that they are to be devoted to the monument at Giessen: Prof. J. L. Smith and Prof. Silliman, $200 each; Prof. Horsford, $100; Prof. Chandler and Dr. Amend, $50 each.
The Signal-Office at Washington has perfected arrangements with the various meteorological bureaus of European states, for an international exchange of weather reports. This coöperation cannot fail to be productive of highly-important results both for commerce and for science.
A commission of Icelanders is about to visit Alaska, to inquire into the prospects for the settlement of a colony of their countrymen in that Territory.
In a letter dated Tokei, Japan, May 18th, and addressed to Prof. Joseph Henry, Prof. Henry S. Monroe says that carboniferous coal of the best quality has been discovered on the island of Yesso, in the tertiary formation; it is true bituminous coal. "So far as I know," says Prof. Monroe, "this is the first time that such perfect fuels have been found having so recent an origin as the Tertiary age."
The cities of Lyons and Versailles on the one hand, and Paris on the other, have always differed very widely in the extent to which they have been ravaged by cholera. Paris falls an easy prey to the epidemic, while it has never gained a firm foothold in either Lyons or Versailles. M. Decaisne finds an explanation of this in the different characters of the soil underlying the three towns. Versailles is built on a bed of clay, impervious to water; Lyons stands upon granite; while Paris rests upon a porous foundation. M. Decaisne does not attribute the presence and absence of cholera to these facts alone, but his arguments are directed to show that they may exert a powerful influence.
A note in the American Chemist by Mr. J. M. Merrick shows how some wines may easily be freed of their excess of acid, without in the least impairing their flavor. In the autumn of 1871, Mr. Merrick made from Concord grapes 120 gallons of wine, adding 11⁄2 lb. of sugar to each gallon of juice. By analysis made June, 1873, this wine contained 17.5 per cent, alcohol, but it was undrinkably sour. Analysis showed it to contain a little more than one per cent. of free acid, mainly tartaric. In September about seven pounds of neutral tartrate of potassa was added, with gratifying results: the color of the wine was lightened, and its hardness and sourness diminished. Into a gallon of another harsh, crude, and unpalatable wine, the author introduced a trifling amount of neutral tartrate of potassa, and by heating the wine to about 50° C. it became mild, and high flavored, without unpleasant acidity.
M. Dumas has communicated to the French Academy of Sciences some experiments by Messrs. Troost and Hautefeuille on the hydrates of mercury or combinations of hydrogen with that metal. These combinations, it is said, so strongly resemble those which constitute the amalgams of mercury with silver and other white metals, that it is hardly possible to doubt that they are themselves amalgams, and hence that hydrogen is a metal, a fact apparently indicated in many other analogies.
Mr. A. Engelmann, in the Engineering and Mining Journal, shows that rope tramways are no recent inventions, citing a figure of such a tramway, in a work dating from 1766. It is there stated that many years before, the Bishop's Mound at Dantzic was leveled by means of this machine, and carried across river, fields, gardens, and pastures. The drawing shows an endless rope passed over a roller attached to the side of upright posts, and at the extremities of the line over horse-whims; buckets are attached to it by thin ropes, spliced to the main rope. At each roller a rod is attached to a piece of the post, which, bending upward and outward round the roller, pushes the bucket-rope aside, and enables the bucket to pass by the rollers.
A professorship of Textile Industries has been founded in connection with the Yorkshire College of Science, by the "Worshipful Company of Clothworkers." The incumbent of the new chair will be required to have a practical knowledge of all materials used in the woollen and worsted manufactures; to be able to give practical instruction in every branch of weaving; to apply the laws of color to the production of colored designs; to explain and illustrate the processes of carding, combing, and spinning—in short, to be perfectly familiar with every aspect of textile industry.
The Lancet "entirely and heartily" adheres to the principles and practice of cremation as set forth by Sir Henry Thompson. "Custom and sentiment," says the Lancet, "will prove formidable opponents to this reform; but all reforms meet with keen opposition, notably those connected in any
