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SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT NO. 433




NEW YORK, APRIL 19, 1884

Scientific American Supplement. Vol. XVII, No. 433.

Scientific American established 1845

Scientific American Supplement, $5 a year.

Scientific American and Supplement, $7 a year.


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TABLE OF CONTENTS.

I.    CHEMISTRY, METALLURGY, ETC.--New Analogy between
      Solids, Liquids, and Gases.

      Hydrogen Amalgam.

      Treatment of Ores by Electrolysis.--By M. KILIANI.

II.   ENGINEERING, AND MECHANICS.--Electric Railway at Vienna.--With
      engraving.

      Instruction in Mechanical Engineering.--Technical and trade
      education.--A course of study sketched out.--By Prof. R.H.
      THURSTON.

      Improved Double Boiler.--3 figures.

      The Gardner Machine Gun.--With three engravings showing the
      single barrel, two barrel, and five barrel guns.

      Climbing Tricycles.

      Submarine Explorations.--Voyage of the Talisman.--The Thibaudier
      sounding apparatus.--With map, diagrams, and engravings.

      Jamieson's Cable Grapnel.--With engraving.

      A Threaded Set Collar.

III.  TECHNOLOGY.--Wretched Boiler Making.

      Pneumatic Malting.--With full description of the most improved
      methods and apparatus.--Numerous figures.

      Reducing and Enlarging Plaster Casts.

      Stripping the Film from Gelatine Negatives.

IV.   ELECTRICITY.--Non-sparking Key.

      New Instruments for Measuring Electric Currents and Electromotive
      Force.--By MESSRS. K.E. CROMPTON and GISBERT
      KAPP.--Paper read before the Society of Telegraph Engineers.--With
      several engravings.

      When Does the Electric Shock Become Fatal?

V.    ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY.--Robert Cauer's Statute of Lorelei.--With
      engraving.

      The Pyramids of Meroe.--With engraving.

VI.   ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY.--The Red Sky.--Cause of
      the same explained by the Department of Meteorology.

      A Theory of Cometary Phenomena.

      On Comets.--By FURMAN LEAMING, M.D.

VII.  NATURAL HISTORY.--The Prolificness of the Oyster.

      Coarse Food for Pigs.

VIII. BOTANY, HORTICULTURE, ETC.--Forms of Ivy.--With
      several engravings.

      Propagating Roses.

      A Few of the Best Inulas.--With engraving.

      Fruit Growing.--By P.H. FOSTER.

IX.   MEDICINE, HYGIENE, ETC.--A People without Consumption,
      and Some Account of Their Country, the Cumberland Tableland.
      --By E.M. WIGHT.

      The Treatment of Habitual Constipation.

X.    MISCELLANEOUS.--The French Scientific Station at Cape Horn.

XI.   BIOGRAPHY.--The Late Maori Chief, Mete Kingi.--With portrait.

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THE FRENCH SCIENTIFIC STATION AT CAPE HORN.


In 1875 Lieutenant Weyprecht of the Austrian navy called the attention
of scientific men to the desirability of having an organized and
continual system of hourly meteorological and magnetic observations
around the poles. In 1879 the first conference of what was termed the
International Polar Congress was held at Hamburg. Delegates from eight
nations were present--Germany, Austria, Denmark, France, Holland,
Norway, Russia, and Sweden.

The congress then settled upon a programme whose features were: 1. To
establish general principles and fixed laws in regard to the pressure
of the atmosphere, the distribution and variation of temperature,
atmospheric currents, climatic characteristics. 2. To assist the
prediction of the course and occurrence of storms. 3. To assist the
study of the disturbances of the magnetic elements and their relations
to the auroral light and sun spots. 4. To study the distribution of
the magnetic force and its secular and other changes. 5. To study the
distribution of heat and submarine currents in the polar regions. 6. To
obtain certain dimensions in accord with recent methods. Finally, to
collect observations and specimens in the domain of zoology, botany,
geology, etc.

The representatives of the various nations had several conferences
later, and by the 1st of May, 1881, there were sufficient subscribers to
justify the establishment of eight Arctic stations.

France entered actively in this work later,