Werndl rifles, 74 Uchatius cannon of 7,8, and 9 centimetres caliber, and from 500 to 600 old smooth-bore cannon.

The commercial products of Persia are grain, rice, gums. silk, opium, tobacco, skins, wool, carpets, cotton, and dates. The principal imports are cotton goods, glass, paper, iron, copper, sugar, and tea. The importation of cotton cloth and other manufactures from Russia is increasing. The imports of merchandise at the ports of the Persian Gulf for 1892 were valued at £2,740,936, and the exports at £1,710,592. The values of the principal exports by sea were: Opium, £661,000; pearls and pearl shells, £332,000; cotton, £122,000; tobacco, £105,000; fruits, £103,000.

The decline in the value of silver has depressed the trade of Tabriz and of the province of Khorassan, the commercial connections of which are now with Russia. The hereditary chief of Maku, in Azerbaijan, and the merchants of Meshed manifested dissatisfaction in the spring of 1894. The silver coins of Persia are of low standard, and to prevent their further depreciation the Government in March decided to close the mint to the public, and to prohibit private importation of silver.

PERU, a republic in South America. The Senate has 40 and the House of Representatives 80 members, elected for six years by the indirect vote of the departments, one third of thein being renewed every two years. Remigio Morales Bermudez was elected President for the term of four years ending Aug. 10, 1894.

Area and Population.-Peru has an area of 463,747 square miles. The population is estimated at 2,980,000, including 18,000 Europeans and 50,000 Chinese. There are 350,000 wild Indians. Of the civilized natives 57 per cent. consist of Indians, 23 per cent. of Cholos and Zambos, and 20 per cent. of descendants of Spaniards. Lima, the capital, had 103,956 inhabitants in 1891. Finances. The customs receipts, according to the budget, were 5,009,450 silver soles in 1894; tax receipts, 1,440,355 soles; postal and telegraph receipts, 235,752 soles; and various receipts, 317,

833 soles; making the total ordinary revenue 7,003,390 soles. The extraordinary revenue was 515,757 soles, making the total revenue 7,519,147 soles. The total ordinary expenditure was calculated at 6,780,653 soles, of which the heads were: Finance and commerce, 2,754,189 soles; army and navy, 1,951,602 soles; administration, 830,682 soles; justice, 672,964 soles; legislation, 355,093 soles; foreign relations, 206,123 soles. The extraordinary expenses were 566,194 soles, making the total 7,346,846 soles.

The external loans of 1869, 1870, and 1872 amount to £32,000,000 sterling, not counting £23,000,000 of defaulted interest accumulated since 1876. A convention with the bondholders transfers to them for sixty-six years the railroads, guano deposits, mines, and lands belonging to the State. These loans have been converted into new bonds and placed in charge of the Peruvian Company, limited, of London.

Contest for the Presidency. - President Bermudez died suddenly the day before the elections for the presidency were to be held. A physical struggle with ex-President Andres Avelino Caceres, the candidate of the military party,

had been expected. The authorities had raised troops in all parts of the country to prevent the election of Dr. Valcarcel, Speaker of the lower house, under the recently enacted restricted franchise. Disturbances and bloodshed occurred in Arequipa, Chiclayo, and other places. After the death of Bermudez, Vice-President Pedro Solar and Dr. Valcarcel, the official candidate for the presidency, went into hiding, while Col Justiniano Borgoño, the second Vice-President, assumed power at Lima and appointed the following Cabinet: Premier and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Baltasar Garcia Urrutia; Minister of War, Col. Francisco Antaya; Minister of Justice, Dr. Dulanto; Minister of the Interior, Guilliermo Ferreyros: Minister of Commerce, Augustino de la Puente. President Bermudez and the two Vice-Presidents had been chosen by Caceres when he retired from the presidency four years before, being precluded by the Constitution from succeeding himself. Señor del Solar, who hai been confirmed lately as a justice of the Supreme Court by Congress, was not permitted by Caceres to become the acting President, but was superseded by Col. Borgoño, who was faithful to him still. The banking and commercial houses closed for fear of disturbances, of which, however, there were none until Vice-President del Solar constituted a rival Government toward the end of April, appointing the following minis ters: Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Pierola: Minister of War, Dr. Recabarren; Minister of Finance. Dr. Billinghurst; Minister of the Interior, Dr. Valcarcel; Minister of Justice, Dr. Olaechea. Gen. Cesar Canevaro, minister at Washington, returned to Peru to take command of the troops raised to support Borgoño in the north, while Gen. Velarde and Gen. Caceres collected two corps in the interior. Borgoño issued an edict to the effect that the elections should be

held on May 10, not according to the new electoral law, but under the law of 1860. Political arrests were made by wholesale. In the north the Got ernment of Borgoño was not recognized, and conflicts occurred between the forces and the adberents of ex-President Pierola, an exile in Chil in whose interest Solar and Valcarcel were acting. Solar joined Pierola in Chili, and thence they directed the guerrilla war against Caceres. Gen. Caceres, who was the only candidate at the elections held on May 10, was inaugurated as President at Lima on Aug. 10. President Caceres appointed the following Cabinet: Premier and Minister of the Interior, Cesar Chacaltama; Foreign Affairs, Dr. Manuel Yrigoyen: Minister of Finance and Commerce, Nicat r Carmona; Minister of Justice and Worship. Dr. J. Salvador Cavero; Minister of War and Marine. Col. Rufino Torrico.

Meanwhile the insurgents captured Pacasmaro, Trujillo, Junin, and other towns on the coast and in the north. Troops that were sent against Gen. Seminario, the northern Pierolist leader. deserted to his standard. In a fight at Orova 500 men were engaged; 50 Government troops were killed or wounded, and of the insurgents 70, The insurgent forces, aside from Seminario's body of 1,000 men, consisted of small, scattered guerrilla bands, which evaded the Government troops, retiring into the mountains at their af proach. Teodoro Seminario's force evacuated

Trujillo on Aug. 19. Before the end of August the Government had 6,000 men under arms. The steamer "Coya" was bought from Grace Brothers for £40,000, and was fitted out as an armed cruiser called the "Constitutional." All agricultural work, trade, and commerce was interrupted by the civil conflict. The Montaneros, as the rebels were called, seized the Oroya railroad, and when the Government sent a force of 2.000 men with Gatling guns to attack them three fourths of the troops deserted to the enemy. The rebels boarded a transport and liberated a large number of prisoners. They attempted to seize the "Constitutional" by strategy, but were detected and taken prisoners. The Montaneros were armed with Winchester rifles, and they were well fed, while the Government troops received scant rations and no pay. Robberies were committed by both sides. In the south Pierolist bands assembled, but they were not strong enough to contend with the Government forces. The Chilian Government, after appealing first to the Peruvian authorities to disarm the insurgents, occupied Tacna. On Oct. 9 Gen. Osma succeeded Gen. Torrico as Minister of War. The Government made greater efforts to exterminate the insurgents.

Gen. Borgoño led a large force into the north against Gen. Seminario, who evacuated Cajamarca and took to the mountains. Gen. Pierola landed near Pisco with the intention of placing himself at the head of a revolutionary army at Chincha. The Government was informed of his movements, and a large body of regulars put the revolutionists to flight. The Government endeavored to increase its revenues by decreeing that the sole should be reckoned at 30d. in levying customs duties, which were thereby augmented 30 per cent. In the beginning of November all articles previously exempt were made subject to an import duty of 8 per cent. ad valorem. There was a Cabinet crisis, which terminated on Nov. 17 in a reconstruction of the Cabinet as follows: Premier and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Manuel Yrigoyen; Minister of the Interior, Leonardo Cavero; Minister of Justice, Manuel V. Morote; Minister of Finance, Nicanor Carmona; Minister of War, Gen. Osma. PHYSICS, PROGRESS OF, IN 1894. Constitution of Matter. The Ether.-J. Larmor (London Royal Society, Dec. 7, 1893) proposes to reconcile the elasticity of the ether with its yieldingness by assuming that outside the Vortices constituting matter it has a peculiar kind of elasticity called into play only by rotation. The atomic whirls would then meet with no resistance to their motion, while the ether would still be highly elastic to vibrations, provided these are rotary. Franklin and Nichols ("Physical Review," May-June) have endeavored to find whether the sudden stoppage of a rapidly rotating coil causes an electro-motive force, and find that if any part of the coil's energy depends on motion in the ether produced by its rotation this must be less than 10-1" of its entire

Fluidity of Solids.-Dewar (London Chemical Society, June 7) finds that some other substances besides metals have the property of flowing under pressure, while still others do not possess it at all. Crystalline sodium sulphate, sal ammoniac, graphite, and urea flow easily at 30 to 40 tons to the square inch, while starch and salt refuse to flow even at 60 tons. W. Spring (Belgian Royal Academy) concludes that at a certain temperature, where a metal still appears to be a perfect solid, some of its molecules attain a state of vibration corresponding to the liquid state, and thus, by softening the body, make it capable of being welded and of forming alloys. He has welded metals kept for three to twelve hours at a temperature of 200° to 400° C., the best joints being produced with gold, lead, and tin, and the worst with bismuth and antimony. The more crystalline the bodies are, the less do they show this phenomenon. The occurrence of this incipient liquefaction was proved by submitting copper, on which a delicate spiral had been cut, to a temperature of 400° C. for eight hours; at the expiration of this time the spiral had disappeared and the surface looked as if just fused by the blowpipe. Alloys also were formed at the same temperatures.

Mechanics. Elasticity.-J. O. Thompson ("Physical Review," March-April) finds that a fatigue exists in the elasticity of stretching analogous to that shown by Lord Kelvin in the elasticity of torsion. In a more extended research (ibid., May-June) he finds that it follows the same laws. The fatigues in copper, silver, and brass are nearly as 7:3:2 for the torsion and as 4:3:2 for tension. The temperature coefficient for both in all 3 metals is about 30. Mary Noyes (American Association, 1894) finds that in the case of a piano wire Young's modulus is lessened by heat and also by the passage of an electric current. Magnetism has no effect.

Attraction exerted by a Vibrating Disk. Berson and Juppont (Paris Academy of Science, Nov. 27, 1893) have measured the attraction between a steel disk vibrated electro-magnetically and a mica disk near it. The attraction is due to the motion of the surrounding air, as has been previously established. It varied from 602-3 dynes at a distance of 1. mm. to 2.55 dynes at 10 mm. To produce the same force electrostatically a potential difference of 600 volts would be required.

Liquids. Solution. - H. C. Jones ("Physical Review," September-October) has investigated the solution tension of metals-that is, the pressure which, according to Van't Hoff's theory, their molecules must exert in a solvent to bring about solution. The chief point brought out is that the solution tension of silver is not a constant for all solvents of its salts, but depends on the nature of the solvent. The same will probably be found true for other metals. Le Chatelier (Paris Academy of Science, March 19) deduces mathematically the fact that if latent heat of solution were independent of temperature and concentration, the normal curve of solubility of any given substance would be the same in all solv

ents.

Crystallization.-Pictet (Paris Academy of Science, Oct. 1) shows that a crystallizing body loses heat in essentially different ways, according as it is adiathermanous or diathermanous, All substances become diathermanous below-70° C., hence the true temperature of crystallization is obtained only by keeping the surrounding medium slightly below the solidifying point. This explains various anomalies, as in previous determinations of the crystallization points of chloroforın, etc. Moore ("Zeitschrift für Physikalische Chemie, December, 1893) has measured the velocity at which crystallization proceeds in a supercooled substance, by following llowing with the eye the moving line of demarcation between solid and liquid in a U-tube. With acetic acid the velocity was found to be uniform at any temperature and independent of the diameter of the tube, and with this substance, phenol, and mixtures of phenol with water and phenol with cresol, the velocity increases with the amount of supercooling, but at a diminishing rate. For phenol the velocity is 0.6 cm. a second with 4.4° supercooling, and 2-9 cm. with 15.8°. The addition of water or cresol reduces both the velocity and the rate of its increase.

Cohesion. Kasterine ("Journal of the Russian Physico-Chemical Society," xxv, p. 51), from experiments on the variation of cohesion in liquids, and on the assumption that the molecular forces conform to Newton's law of the square of the distance, derives the following laws: 1. The product of the intensity of molecular action by the molecular weight is a constant. 2. For different liquids at corresponding temperatures the radii of the spheres of molecular activity are approximately proportional to the square roots of the molecular weights. 3. At corresponding temperatures the physical molecule in different liquids contains the same number of chemical molecules.

Density. Kohlrausch and Hallwachs (Wiedemann's "Annalen," October) have measured the density of very dilute aqueous solutions to within one millionth by weighing a glass globe suspended in the solution by a fine fiber. Interesting details regarding the molecular volumes of the dissolved substances have thus been brought out-for instance, phosphoric and sulphuric acids show a diminution of this volume at extreme dilutions.

Capillarity. Quincke (British Association, 1894), as a result of researches occupying forty years, finds that drops of oil floating on slightly alkaline water are attracted toward the walls of the vessel and then repelled, the spreading of the soap film that results from the action of the alkali on the oil giving rise to periodic vortex motion. Viewed with the microscope the film shows the same minute strings of pearly beadlike bubbles that are characteristic of protoplasm.

Viscosity. Owen Glynn Jones (London Physical Society, Feb. 9) has measured the viscosity of liquids by observing the velocity of small drops of heavier liquids falling through them. A water drop of 1 mm. radius was found to fall 1 inch an hour in castor oil at 8° C. This method has been criticised, the formulæ used being calculated originally for solid spheres, and the erities holding that internal motion in the drops as well as mutual contamination of the two liquids would complicate matters.

Hydrodynamics. - Prof. Osborne Reynolds (British Association, 1894) has studied the suc cessive stages in the motion of water passing under gradually increasing pressure through a vertical tube constricted in the middle. The water first leaves the constriction as a narrow steady jet, then it fills the lower part while eddies appear below the constriction, then the motion be comes turbulent, and finally there is an appearance as of air bubbles at the constriction with a singing or hissing sound.

Decomposition of Liquids by Powders.-Dr. G. Gore (Birmingham Philosophical Society) finds that when finely powdered substances, pecially silica, are placed in a solution the adherent film of liquid contains more than the normal percentage of the dissolved substance. The amount of the substance thus abstracted depends on the kind of powder, its fineness, its quantity in proportion to the dissolved substance, the absolute amount of the latter, and in some degree on the temperature. The results seem to throw light on the purification of water by filtration.

Gases. Condensation.- In a lecture at the Royal Institution, published in "Nature," Dec. 28, Shelford Bidwell states his conclusion from his own experiments, that the dense condensation of steam produced under certain circumstances is due neither to electrical action nor to dust nuclei, but probably to dissociated atoms of atmospheric gases acting in some unexplained manCarl Barus (" Nature," Feb. 15) objects to Mr. Bidwell's conclusions, and is of the opinion that condensation upon minute particles in the air will account for all the observed phenomena.

ner.

Critical Point. Kuenen (Amsterdam Academy, May 26) has carefully investigated abnormal phenomena near the critical point, and corcludes that they are due to impurities. From a repetition, for instance, of Galitzine's experiments, which have been supposed to show that ether above the critical point has different densities, according to its having been entirely fluid or partly vapor, Kuenen concludes that Galitzine's results were due to a trace of some noncoercible gas, perhaps air.

Vortex Motions in Air. Quincke announced in 1890 that two spheroids of a mixture of oil and chloroform, falling simultaneously in water, approached and receded alternately, owing to vortex motion in the water. He now finds (Wiedemann's "Annalen," July) that the phenomenon occurs when two soap bub bles filled with coal gas ascend together. Similar phenomena occur when small dust particles fall in air, or liquid, or when a current strikes particles at rest.

same

Barometry. Bartrum has invented what he calls an "open-scale barometer," which is de scribed in "Nature," March 22, p. 488. The lower part resembles that of an ordinary mercury barometer, but near the upper surface of the mercury the tube is enlarged into a bulb. above which it is again contracted. The bal is filled with a red fluid, the upper surface of which gives the barometer reading, a smal change of level of the mercury causing a larg one in the fluid. An inch of mercury is repre sented on the scale by 9 inches, and it is claimed that the atmospheric pressure may thus be ob