Abstract
The American Journal of Science, June.—The Biela meteors of November 27, 1885, by H. A. Newton. From a general survey of the observations made in various places, the author infers that the maximum of the shower was about 6h. 1501. Greenwich mean time; that the total hourly number of meteors-visible at one place in a clear sky was at the utmost 75,000; that the densest part of the stream was not over 100,coo miles in thickness; that the meteors, of November 27, 1872 and 1885, did not leave the immediate neighbourhood of the Biela comet earlier than 1841-45, and may be treated as having at that time orbits osculating that of the comet.—The ultra-violet spectrum of cadmium, by Louis Bell. The ultraviolet spectrum of cadmium having long served as a standard of reference in the measuring of other spectra, an attempt is here made to determine its principal wave-lengths more -accurately than is possible by Cornu's ingenious process. By taking photographs on Stanley instantaneous dry plates, Mr. Bell believes the wave-lengths here determined will be found correct to probably within 1/50,000 part of their respective values. The total number of lines accurately determined in the entire spectrum was thirty, of which the wave-lengths are tabulated with the corresponding figures obtained by Hartley and Cornu. -Communications from the United States Geological Survey, Rocky Mountains Division. The present communication (No. vii.) deals with the occurrence of topaz and garnet in lithophyses of rhyolites, and is contributed by Mr. Whitman Cross, who had already described the occurrence of minute crystals of topaz in the small drusy cavities of a coarsely crystalline rhyolite from Chalk Mountain, by Fremont's Pass, Colorado. The present specimens of topaz and small dark red garnets are from the trachyte on the Arkansas River, opposite Nathrop, Chaffee County, Colorado. The mode of formation of the topaz and garnet in the lithophysal cavities of the rhyolite in this district is not fully deterorinable, but they are evidently not secondary, but primary products, produced by sublimation or crystallisation from presumably heated solutions contemporaneous, or nearly so, with the final consolidation of the rocks.—On the strain-effect of sudden cooling exhibited by glass and by steel, by C. Barus and V. Strouhal. The experiments here described confirmed the views already announced by the authors, that the annealing of steel, considered physically, is at once referable to the category of viscous phenomena; also that the existence of the characteristic strain in glass-hard steel is the cause of electrical effects so enormous, that any additional effects caused by any change of carburation may be disregarded, and the electrical and magnetic results interpreted as due to variations in the intensity of the said strain. The chief results here arrived at have since been substantiated by polariscope evidence and by the investigation of the density of the consecutive shells of the “Prince Rupert drop.” An account of these results will be given in their next paper.—Upon the origin of the mica-schists and black mica-slates of the Penokee-Gogebic iron-bearing series, by C. R. Van Hise. The iron-bearing formation of this region extends for over 80 miles from Lake Numakagon in Wisconsin to Lake Gogebic in Michigan; and at Penokee Gap, Wisconsin, the series is 13,000 feet thick, the upper 11,000 feet being mica-schists and black slates. The Muscovitic and biotitic greywacke, biotile-schists, and other formations here described furnish a graded series from the slightly altered greywackes to the crystalline mica-schists.—On two masses of meteoric iron of unusual interest, by Wm. Earl Hidden. One of these specimens, found on July 2, 1885, on a height to the east of Batesville, Independence County, Arkansas, weighs 94 lbs., and belongs to the class holosiderite of Brezina. It is specially remarkable for a hole piercing it near the edge, and cone-shaped from both sides. Analysis yielded: iron, 91.22; phosphorus, 0.16; nickel and cobalt, 8.62 by difference. The other, found in 1857 in Laurens County, South Carolina, weighs only 4 Ibs. 11 oz., but is noted for the perfection of the Widmanstatter lines and unusual abundance of nickel and cobalt. Analysis: iron, 85.3.3; nickel, 13.34; cobalt, 0.87; phosphorus, 0.16, with trace of sulphur.—Notice of a new genus of Lower Silurian Brachiopoda, by S. W. Ford. This nearly perfect specimen of the ventral valve of the species described by E. Billings under the name of Obolella desiderata, and now preserved in the collection of Walter R. Billings, Ottawa, may be taken as the type of a new genus, probably including several described Lower Silurian species. It differs from Obolella in the form and arrangement of its muscular impressions, in the possession of a thinner shell and in other respects. The author, therefore, proposes for it the new generic name of Billingsia in honour of Mr. E. Billings, the late eminent palaeontologist of the Canadian Geological Survey.
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Scientific Serials . Nature 34, 207–208 (1886). https://doi.org/10.1038/034207a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/034207a0