THE following is a table of those periodical | at least two returns to perihelion, and are fully comets which have been well observed during recognized as belonging to our system :- Scientific Summary for 1886. 489 MEDICAL.-M. Pasteur, in a recent report upon | phoric acid in combination with lime and other bases, which form a valuable manure for swedes, turnips, and grass. This hitherto useless product is the exhausted material of the! converters used in the Thomas Gilchrist method of dephosphorizing iron. the operations he had performed on persons bitten by rabid animals, stated that out of 1,009 French cases, three had died; of 182 Russians, 11, eight of whom had been bitten by wolves; Roumanians, 20, one; of 445 of mixed nationalities, none whatever. The average of deaths, therefore, in all, was rather less than I per cent. DEPOSITION OF GOLD AND SILVER AMALGAM. -A new method of depositing gold and silver, or rather the revival of a lost art, for the secret was well known and practised by mediaval workers, has been re-discovered by Mr.Pratt and perfected by Mr. Maffey, F.R.S., of Johnson, Maffey, & Co. The process consists of pouring a solution of gold on glass, similar to that of coating a negative, when the gilding adheres to the prepared surface; a solution of silver is then poured over the gold, and the two metals form an amalgam impervious to damp, or the effects of oxidation or decay, as is the case when gilding is done by the old adhesive leaf process, in which organic matter is employed. The gold being placed on the underside of the glass is effectually protected against external injury, and is practically as indestructible as the glass itself. The cost is much the same as ordinary gilding, and Mr. Maffey hopes to restore the gold and silver decorative business to this country, as at present it is almost exclusively in the hands of the German workers. AGRICULTURE.- The decadence of the potato in England ever since the disease first made its appearance in 1845 has been most marked, and the minds of agriculturists have been exercised with a view of devising a remedy. The Earl of Catheart has so far been the first to have achieved success in conjunction with Messrs. Sutton & Co. The method adopted is that of cross-fertilization of the tubers by crossing the best-known varieties of the cultivated hardy sorts with the pollen of wild plants. The result of the experiments has so far been highly satisfactory during the past year, and if the success thus achieved be continued the potato will no doubt again come into universal favour. EPIDEMICS. In tracing the causation of an outbreak of scarlatina which occurred in London, Mr. W. H. Power of the Local Government Board found that the disease emanated from the milk of certain cows which were affected with a skin disease, which showed itself in the region of the teats and udders. It is well known that the woolsorter's disease is caused by the same germ that brings on splenitic fever in cattle, whilst glanders can be transferred from horses to human beings. The direct communication of scarlatina to human beings from the cow opens a much wider range in the communication of what could be made a preventible disease, and the Government have engaged Dr. Klein to make further investigations. As a set-off to these startling facts, Sir Joseph Fayrer stated that in the case of cholera, the theory that it was a communicable disease was now exploded, and that the Indian Government had, discontinued all quarantine restrictions, and relied solely on sanitary measures such as care in dietary, ventilation, and the avoidance of all extremes of heat, cold, or excessive exertion. SMELTING, Professor Wrighton and Dr. Munro have succeeded in utilizing the hitherto waste deposit of basic cinder, as it has been found to contain from 16 to 19 per cent. of phos METEOROLOGY.-Meteorology and the prognostication of storms and earth-currents is rapidly becoming an exact science as the law and influence of storms are becoming more known. Mr. Eddy, of the American Signal Service Bureau, stated that out of thirty-eight predictions of tornadoes in April and June, 1885, eighteen were verified, but those relating to the past year were far more exact, as 15 out of 19 prophecies proved absolutely correct, and the indications in other cases showed that wind and hail-storms prevailed. Signor Ferrari, of Italy, as the result of his studying the effects and cause of six hundred and fifty storms, concluded that every thunderstorm is connected with a barometric, hydrogenic, and thermic depression. It is behind the two former and in front of the last. LIQUID FUEL.-The utilization of petroleum as fuel, in view of the enormous number of recently discovered sources in Russia and other parts of Europe, will do something to allay the fears that exist as to the exhaustion of our coal supplies. Inventors have turned their attention to the liquid fuel, and the latest development has been the building of a steel vessel propelled by a continuous series of explosions of petroleum, similarly to that of a gas-engine. The vessel has no piston or fly-wheel, and the motive power is obtained by a succession of charges of petroleum and heated air, under pressure, and the charges fired by electricity. The explosions occur several times in a minute, the force being expended below the water-level, and the impinging of this force upon the water propels the boat forward. VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS. -- In writing on the terrible volcanic eruptions that occurred last year, Mr. Proctor says that they had to confirm geologists in their belief that if the earth's internal fires are diminishing in intensity, the diminution takes place so slowly as to be quite imperceptible at the present, and they cannot point to any period when the earth's internal forces were superior in energy than they are at the present moment. The work achieved by subterranean action, destructive as its immediate effects may at first appear, is absolutely necessary to the welfare and happiness of the human race, as it is to the reproductive energy of the earth's internal forces that we are indebted to the existence of continents and islands in which warm-blooded animals can live. OCEAN BASINS.-At a meeting of the Paris Academy of Sciences, M. Faye established his position respecting the more rapid cooling of the earth's crust under the seas than under continents. This rule he contends is not only applicable to Polar seas whose lowest depths may be taken as zero, but also to those which are more remote from Polar influence. In these latter the temperature decreases with the depth, the difference between the ocean and the continents at the same depth being about 15 degrees more in the latter. STEEL.-During the past year steel has come largely into use as a substitute for iron, the last development being the use of steel pipes for the conveyance of water under high pressure. Mr. James Watson, c.E., subjected these pipes to high pressure, and reports favourably on them, the weight of the cast-iron being about four and three-quarters more than that of steel, which was manufactured by the Steel Company of Scotland. At the same time the casting of steel had been successfully carried out by Mr. Spencer of Newcastle, and Messrs. Fox & Co. of Millwall; whilst for railway work steel rails have practically superseded iron, and is being used for sleepers as a substitute for wood. NITRO-GLYCERINE AND DYNAMITE. From a series of carefully tested experiments made at Ardur, it was found that nitro-glycerine and dynamite do not exert such a force on explosion as is generally supposed. The power developed by the explosion of a ton of dynamite is equal to 45,675 foot tons; of one ton of nitro-glycerine, 64,452 foot tons; blasting gelatine exerts a force of 71,050 foot tons. These figures, says the reporter, though large, are not enormous, and need not excite terror. Seventy-one thousand tons of ordinary building-stone, if arranged in the form of a cube, would measure only 90 feet on the side, and if it were possible to concentrate the whole of the force of a ton of blasted gelatine, the only effect would be to lift it to the height of one foot. The power exerted by an explosion on surrounding objects is in the inverse ratio of the cube of the distance from the point of explosion. Thus at 100 feet from the exact point of an explosion, the power is only the cube of 1: Ico, or a millionth part of what it is at only 1 foot distance; that is, if the power at the point of explosion be represented at 1,000,000, the force at 100 feet would be represented by 1. in being acid instead of alkaline, and have a TELEGRAPHY.--The application of telegraphy for every-day purposes as a motive, heating, and speaking agent is coming more and more into use almost daily as fresh discoveries, inventions, or adaptations are constantly being brought out. Mr. George Westinghouse, of airbrake celebrity, has patented a new system of › distributing, which will greatly reduce the cost of lighting by electricity, it is stated, to the amount of 95 per cent. By means of telebarometers, telethermometers, telemonometers, and telehydrobarometers, which record at distant points air, heat, steam, and water pressure, we have new and sensitive registers; whilst another electrician is stated to have invented a process by which gold, silver, and copper can be smelted by electricity. The utmost average distance at which telephony can be carried on is said to be 100 miles, though the Wisconsin Company carry on regular and successful operations over 199 miles' distance. A French technical journal gives details of a clever invention for damascening metals by electrolysis, based on the well-known fact that when two copperplates are hung in a bath of sulphate of copper, and connected with the opposing poles of a battery, a transfer of metal from one to the other will take place. By placing an etched copper-plate, and insulating all parts except the engraved design, a deposit of nickel or meneedle, and the result is stated to be most suetallic silver fills up the lines left by the etching cessful. DEEP-LAKE FAUNA. Dr. Plessis, who has made a series of observations on the fauna of the deep Swiss lakes, which range from 75 to 80 feet in depth, notes some curious anomalies, inasmuch as while some varieties may be found with good eyes at a depth of 100 feet, others again at 70 feet, where light penetrates, have no sense of sight. Dr. Plessis attributes this has developed a primary battery, the exciting In electric lighting, again, Mr. Apword to a species of emigration that must be going on from an extremely remote period, since he it is said to be capable of bringing electric lightcause being chlorine gas instead of a liquid, and found among individuals of the same speciesing into domestic use on a small scale. some wholly blind, others with their eyes in the way of atrophy, and again others with sound eyes but small. He assumes therefore, with reason, the species with perfect eyes are descendants of a later set of emigrants. Similar anomalies occur also with breathing organs: the pulmonary sacs are usually filled with water, but they resume the normal method of breathing when brought in contact with the air. NEW CHEMICAL ELEMENTS.-Professor H. Carrington Bolton has given a complete list of the new chemical elements that have been discovered since 1877 to the present time. They number forty-two in all. In 1885 Welshach discovered two, and Lecoq de Boisbaudran two elements to exist in didymium. In 1886 Professor Crooks discovered six new elements in gadolinite, and two in samarskite. BACTERIA. M. Certes has been conducting a series of experiments on the decomposition of organic matter at high pressure, for the purpose of ascertaining whether the process takes place in the depths of the sea as in the open air. He found that bacteria increased under pressure of from three to six hundred atmospheres, except that the microbes are different plant seems to be the most recently discovered ELECTRICAL PLANT. The Phytolacca-electranatural storage-battery. It is said that it imby an induction-coil, and will affect a small parts a shock resembling the sensation produced no birds or insects are ever seen in the immediate compass at the distance of twenty feet, and that neighbourhood of the plant. The New York | Medical Times is said to have instituted these experiments. According to La Nature magne sinm and aluminium can now be produced at a comparatively nominal cost, and a Bremen manufactory offers prizes for the best form of lamp for burning magnesium. THE COAL AGE. An American authority makes the calculation that it would require 1,000,000 years to form a coal-bed of roo feet in thickness, as the formation of a layer of coal requires an enormous amount of vegetable matter. He calculates that the coal-beds of America are sufficient at the present rate of consumption to supply the whole world for a period of from 1,500 to 2,000 years. PHOTOGRAPHY.-Mr. A. A. Common, in a lecture before the Royal Institution recently, stated in reference to dry-plate photography, that " At Scientific Summary for 1886. a hound it has gone far beyond anything that was expected of it. I hope soon to see it recognized as the most potent agent of research and record that has ever been within the reach of the astronomer, so the records will not be the written impression of dead men's views, but veritable images of the different objects of the heavens as recorded by themselves." MM. Henry, of Paris, succeeded in photographing the group of stars known as the Pleiades, showing a nebula of a spiral form, which had never before been brought under the ken of the human eye. MM. Paul and Prosper Henry have succeeded in photographing a portion of the Milky Way. These recent discoveries will open up an illimitable field of observations for our astronomers. The Camera records a singular phenomenon in connection with photography. An operator had taken the portrait of a child with a clear complexion, and the negative showed the face covered with eruptions, which three days after appeared as prickly heat, Another case is recorded in which a child's portrait showed spots in its face a fortnight before an attack of small-pox developed itself. ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING.-This industry, though still hampered by the vexations Electric Lighting Act, continues to make great and steady progress. A very large amount of private installation work has been done by various firms during the past year; as examples of which we may mention the Great Western Railway installation at Paddington, the Central Station in the neighbourhood of the Grosvenor Gallery, and several public buildings, mansions, and factories in various parts of the country. 491 This work has not been confined to land alone, many ships, both of the mercantile marine and the royal navy, having been fitted with electric light; while arrangements have been made for installing it in most, if not all, the new ships being built for the latter. Several attempts have been made to solve the difficulty of house-lighting by means of primary batteries, among which are the employment of chlorine gas as the active material, and various inventions, greatly increasing the output of batteries using acid solutions. One of the most noteworthy events of the past year in the electrical world has been the voyage of the "Volta," an electrically propelled beat, from Dover to Calais and back. The application of electricity to various purposes is being largely extended and improved. Examples of this, such as the driving of tramcars, the controlling of railway-signals, the synchronizing of clocks on a large scale, the blasting necessary in mining and other operations, and the management of various arrangements in naval operations, are of common occurrence. In telegraphy the most important advance is the adoption by the Post Office of the "Delany" system, which greatly facilitates the transmis sion of messages, since it enables us many as six to be sent at one time over the same line. The use of the telephone has largely increased both in London and the provinces. Experiments in long-distance telephony have been made by the Post Office and others; and a line is now in practical use between London and Brighton. Burthens on Land. NEW SCALE OF LAW COSTS ON THE SALE, PURCHASE, OR MORTGAGE OF REAL PROPERTY, HOUSES, OR LAND. When the property is not sold, then on the reserved price t о о Per £100. £ 8. d. 5 O 2 6 Do., do., for deducing title to freehold, copyhold, or leasehold property, and perusing, and completing conveyance (including preparation of contract, or conditions of sale, if any). Purchaser's solicitor for negotiating a purchase of property by private contract Do., do., for investigating title to freehold, copyhold, or leasehold property, and preparing and completing conveyance (including perusal and completion of contract, if any) Mortgagor's solicitor for deducing title to freehold, copyhold, or leasehold property, perusing mortgage, and completing.... Mortgagee's solicitor for negotiating loan. Do., do, for investigating title to freehold, copyhold, or leasehold property; and preparing and completing mortgage. I IO I 10 I O о 96 O 5 32 o Ο ΙΟ 5 I O I Vendor's or mortgagor's solicitor for procuring execu Every transaction exceeding £100,000 to be charged for as if it were for £100,000. No geographical discovery of great and popular interest can be put down to the credit of last year, but work has been steadily progressing in all parts of the world, and our knowledge of the earth's surface is almost daily gaining in precision. Africa still engrosses the greater share of public attention, which quite recently has been directed to Dr. Emin-Bey, the governor of the Equatorial Province of Egypt, who, notwithstanding the Mahdi and his followers, has stuck to his post and maintained the Khedive's authority over a wide area. The last steamer left Lado on April 14, 1883, and the mail it carried arrived at Cairo after 45 days. Since then, until quite recently, no news had been received from the Europeans on the Upper Nile. Two Relief Expeditions sent from Europe, the one under Dr. Lenz, the other under Dr. G. A. Fischer, failed in their object. Dr. Lenz, travelling up the Congo, reached Stanley Falls on February 2, 1886, but, finding the northern road closed against him, is now marching upon Zanzibar; whilst Dr. Fischer, when he reached Lake Baringo, to the north-east of the Victoria Nyanza, had to face a famine, and was compelled to turn back. He returned to Zanzibar on June 21, 1886. Meantime, Dr. Junker had left Emin-Bey on Jan. 2, 1886, and has since safely reached the coast; and we know from Dr. Emin himself that he and his companion, Captain Casati, were still in good health in June last, and that failing relief they would place themselves at the head of the men still faithful to them and march down to the coast. Closely connected with the Upper Nile is the Kingdom of Uganda, where the friendly, if somewhat capricious, Mtesa has been succeeded by his bloodthirsty son, Mwanga, who persecutes the native Christians, and expelled the missionaries with the exception of Mr. Mackay, whose services as a clever mechanician he desired to retain. Bishop Hannington, who endeavoured to reach Uganda by marching through the Masai country, was, by order of this savage, foully murdered with forty-six followers, when close to the borders of the kingdom, on October 31, 1885. In Abyssinia the Italians still maintain a station, but apart from some explorations carried on by Dr. Traversi, who visited Lake Zuway, we are not aware of any work of interest or value having been accomplished. Count Porro, who left Zeila on March 16, 1886, was murdered with eight companions by orders of the Einir of Harar; a French explorer, M. Barral, met with a similar fate at the hands of the Danakil, when within a few days' march of Shou; and M. Solleilet died at Aden on September 10, 1886, when about to return to Shon, where considerable privileges had been granted him. An Italian journalist, Franzoi, proposes to travel from Zanzibar to Kafa---a bold venture, not likely to prove a success. The country at the back of the Sultan of Zanzibar's dominions has recently been explored in various directions by agents of the German East African Company. The most remarkable success attended a journey by Count Pfeil and Lieutenant Schlütter, who reached the Nyassa by a new route, and travelled thence through an unexplored region to Kilwa on the coast. On the lake just named, the Rev. G. H. Swinny of the Universities' Mission, and other missionaries are doing occasionally geographical work, whilst ' the Tanganyika continues to be the scene of the labours of Mr. E. C. Hore. The countries of the Makua and Yao, lying between the Mozambique coast and Lake Nyus-a, have been the scene of explorations carried on by Mr. Last, who arrived at Blantyre on January 13, 1886; and by a Portuguese expedition, commanded by Serpo Pinto, and organized on an ambitious scale. Having thoroughly explored the coast between Mozambique and Ibo, the expedition left the latter place with 200 armed Zulus and 740 porters. But it soon came to grief, and whilst Serpo Pinto returned to the coast, his companion, Lieutenant Cardozo, reached Blantyre in February, 1886, with only three followers. He thence returned overland to Kilimani, at the mouth of the Zambezi. In the region to the South of the Zambezi, Captain Paiva de Andrada has undertaken the exploration of reported lead-mines on the Sabia, but the hostility of the Zulu chief Umganyana, which culminated in an attack upon the Portuguese town of Inhambane, appears to have frustrated his plans. Of expeditions which started from the Cape we may mention that of Mr. Farini, who claims to have proved that the Kalahari is not the inhospitable region it is reputed to be; and that of Dr. E. Holub, who, according to the latest accounts, was about to cross the middle Zambezi, accompanied by Mr. Westbeach. On the West Coast it is naturally the Congo Basin which draws upon it the eyes of the civilized world, not so much, perhaps, because of any geographical discoveries to be made there, but on account of the great problem which the King of the Belgians has undertaken to solve- namely, the possible civilization of Africa. The most important geographical work was undoubtedly done by Captain Rouvier and Dr. Bayole, the French Commissioners, who, jointly with their Belgian colleagues, Captain Massari and Lieutenant Liebrechts, were ordered to define the boundary between the Congo State and the French possessions. The Rev. Geo. Grenfell, in his little steamer the "Peace," continued his exploration of the tributaries of the Congo, and in April ascended the Kasai. Dr. Wolf, in January to April, 1886, traced the Sankuru and its tributary, the Lomami. More remarkable, and attended by incomparably greater hardships, was a journey performed by Lieutenants Kund and Tappenbeck, who started from Stanley Pool, successively crossed the Kuango and the Sankuru, and then forced their way through dense primeval forests until the hostility of the natives compelled them to desist. Embarking on a tributary of the Kasai they reached Stanley Pool again in the beginning of February, 1886. Dr. Leuz's journey has already been referred to. A Swedish officer, Lieutenant Gleerup, stationed at Stanley Falls, left that place on December 28, 1885, and arrived at Zanzibar on June 25, 1836. On the road he was able to render some assistance to M. Révoil, the French explorer, whom he found suffering from fever. Farther south, but still in the Congo Basin, the Portuguese have scored a success, both geographically and politically, for Captain H. de Carvalho has reached the residence of the Munta Yamvo, and induced that monarch to place himself under Portuguese protection. In the "French Congo," M. J. de Brazza, a brother of the present Governor-General, has reached the |