ined and will shortly be published. The neon tube is extremely brilliant and of an orange-pink hue, and its spectrum is characterized by a multitude of intense orange and yellow lines. The krypton tube is pale violet, while that of xenon is sky-blue. The atomic weights of krypton and xenon are, respectively, 82 and 128, and the inert elements thus form a regular group lying between the halogens and the alkalies. The atomic weights are as follows: Helium, 4; neon, 20; argon, 40; krypton, 82; xenon, 128. Their physical properties also correspond with this grouping.
The daily papers have during the past month exploited with nearly equal prominence Mr. Tesla's pretended communications from the planets, the alleged discovery by Professor Loeb of an elixir of life, and Professor Pupin's important discovery improving the telephone and the telegraph. These three cases pretty well represent the different methods of newspaper science. Mr. Tesla likes to be advertised, and the arraignment of his vagaries by our correspondent, published in another column, is none too severe. Professor Loeb and Dr. Lingle have carried out valuable researches on the action of salts on muscular contraction, published in the 'American Journal of Physiology,' and these have been exaggerated and distorted in the daily press. We are requested by Professor Loeb to state that this has been done without his knowledge, and continued in spite of his earnest protest. Professor Pupin's discovery is reported with substantial accuracy as regards its nature, its importance, and the large sum paid by the American Bell Telephone Company for the patent. Professor Pupin's discovery was made in the course of a long theoretical and experimental investigation, carried on solely to increase our knowledge of electrical phenomena and without any reference to the Patent Office. The researches were communicated to the American Institute of Electrical Engineers last spring, and published in their 'Proceedings.' The application consists in the use of self-induction coils at regular intervals along a wire which counteract its capacity and maintain the distinctness of the electric wave. It is thus possible to telephone to San Francisco as distinctly as can now be done to Chicago, and in the use of lighter wires to Chicago alone hundreds of thousands of dollars are saved in the cost of copper. Underground wires for telephony can now be used, and ocean telephony is made possible.
The scientific societies, whose midwinter meetings are described above, have elected the following presidents for the ensuing year: American Society of Naturalists, Prof. W. T. Sedgwick, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; American Morphological Society, Prof. J. S. Kingsley, of Tufts College; American Society of Bacteriologists, Prof. W. H. Welch, of the Johns Hopkins University; Society of Plant Morphology and Physiology, Dr. Erwin F. Smith, U. S. Department of Agriculture; Folk-lore Society, Dr. Frank Russell, of Harvard University; American Psychological Association, Prof. Josiah Royce, of Harvard University: American Mathematical Society, Prof. E. H. Moore, of the University of Chicago; American Chemical Society, Prof. W. F. Clarke, of the U. S. Geological Survey; the Geological Society of America, the Hon. Charles D. Wolcott, Director of the U. S. Geological Survey.—Porf. E. E. Barnard, of the Yerkes Observatory, has been awarded the Janssen prize of the Paris Academy of Sciences for his discovery of the fifth satellite of Jupiter.—Dr. G. A. Miller, of Cornell University, has been awarded the mathematical prize of the Academy of Sciences, at Cracow.—Prof. H. C. Bumpus, of Brown University, has been appointed curator of invertebrate zoology and assistant to the president in the American Museum of Natural History, New York.—We record with regret the death of Lord William Armstrong, inventor of the gun that bears his name
