Mr. A. P. Coleman, during some geological work last summer on the north shore of Lake Superior, about Heron Bay, discovered a new mineral, which he has named Heronite, and which he describes at length in the Journal of Geology for July-August. It is a dike rock, consisting essentially of analcite, orthoclase, plagioclase, and ægyrite, the analcite having the character of a base, in which the other minerals form radiating groups of crystals. The analcite clearly represents the magma left after the crystallization of the imbedded minerals, and it is evident that it can be formed only from a magma highly charged with water, and therefore under pressure.
From the examination of a number of nearly pure hydrocarbons obtained from American petroleum by Young, it appears that the same classes of hydrocarbons, paraffins, polymethylene compounds of naphthenes and aromatic hydrocarbons are present in these and in Russian and Galician petroleums; but that Russian petroleum contains a relatively larger amount of naphthalenes and, in all probability, of aromatic hydrocarbons, than Galician, and Galician a larger amount of the same hydrocarbons than American petroleum.
NOTES.
An old contributor, Dr. A. F. A. King, of Washington, D. C., writes us calling attention to the interesting fact that we printed an article of his as far back as September, 1883, suggesting the mosquito theory of malaria, and giving a number of observations which seemed strongly to support this view.
Experiments made by F. H. Hall and W. P. Wheeler, at the New York Agricultural Experiment Station, regarding the best food for "chicks, pullets, cockerels, and ducklings," seem to indicate conclusively that part of the protein must be drawn from animal sources if we are to get the best results. Rations in which from forty to fifty per cent of the protein was supplied by animal food produced more rapid growth and at less cost of production.
Messrs. A. Stutzer and Hartlieb, of Breslau, have detected bacteria in Portland cements, which provoke the liberation of the nitrogen from nitrogenous compounds in water, and the formation of nitrous and nitric acids that act upon the lime in the cement and promote its disintegration.
According to Industries and Iron, the tides are now utilized for generating power at Pont-l'Abbé, Finisterre, France, during fourteen hours per day. At flood tide the water flows through a canal two miles and a half inland into a pond in the rear of the power house, and returns to the sea at ebb tide. The total fall is seven feet and a half, and eighty-horse power is generated by means of turbines. Means have been considered for applying this method of generating power to various industries.
A proposal for an International Physical Congress has been accepted by the authorities of the Paris Exposition of 1900, and the congress will be held from the 6th to the 12th of August, under the auspices of the French Government. It immediately precedes the International Electrical Congress. So far as has yet been determined, the subjects of the addresses and reports will be classified under the headings of the definition and fixing certain units (of pressure, scale of hardness, quantity of heat, etc.), the Bibliography of Physics, and National Laboratories. The final programme is, however, still to be settled. The subscription for membership is twenty francs, or four dollars. The foreign secretary of the congress is M. Charles Edouard Guillaume, Pavillon de Breteuil, Sevres (Seine et Oise), Paris.
In a book called Literary Munich Portraits, with brief biographical sketches by Paul Heyse, are given of twenty-five of the most prominent literary men of that brilliant capital. Only two authors not Germans are included. One of them is our contributor, E. P. Evans. The other is the Norwegian novelist Björnson. Heyse leaves himself out, although he is the greatest literary character of them all.
Some recent experiments, conducted jointly by the Kew Observatory Committee and the International Bureau of Weights and Measures at Sèvres, were made to compare the platinum thermometer of Professor Callendar, which measures temperature by the varying resistance of a platinum wire, and the older mercury and gas thermometers. It was found that below 100° C. the differences between the observed values on the nitrogen scale and those deduced from the platinum thermometer are exceedingly small, and that even at the highest temperature (590°) the differences only amount to a few tenths of a degree.