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SCIENTIFIC.
It was originally intended that the signal for change of classes in the University should be given by a system of electric bells, one in each room connected with a clock in the laboratory of physics. With this same clock also were connected three electrical clocks. The necessary wires were placed within the walls. As might have been expected, in the course of time the wires became grounded to such an extent as to interfere with the success of the system. It is now impossible to restore the insolation without disfiguring the walls. The Courier suggests that a large electric bell be placed in each hall, and that the few wires that may be necessary, be run along the surface of the wall where they may easily be examined and repaired when out of order, thus avoiding the complication of numerous wires and bells.
As for the clocks, we would also suggest the substitution of reliable eight day clocks wherever needed for the electrical ones. The labor and trouble of winding them once in eight days would be far less than the care of a ten or twelve cell battery.
Probably the first man in England to notice the properties of saline solution to become heated to their own higher boiling point by the absorption of steam, was Faraday. According to this law Mr. Honigman has constructed a fireless steam engiue. The engine has no smoke stack and consists of two cylindrical boilers, the one enveloped by the other. The inner one contains water, the other caustic soda. Water of the right temperature, and the caustic soda, is supplied from tanks. The steam at a temperature of $ 212^{\circ} $ Far. after being used in the cylinder is passed into the outer boiler where it is evaporated, causing the caustic soda to rise to its boiling point of $ 374^{\circ} $ Honigman's engine has been at work on English tramways and has proven a success. It will do good work for house fires with one
charge. The water of the used solution may be evaporated at the chemical works, and the former charicteristic of the solution restored. In localities where it is desirabie to avoid dirt and smoke, and there is a lack of wood, this engine will supply the wants admirably. Mr. Honigman deserves special commendation for his energy in an age when investigations with steam are to a great extent abandoned for electricity.
The cabinet of minerals collected and owned by Mr.J.C. Cooper, of Topeka, is well known among scientific men as one of the best and most complete single collections west of the Mississippi river. It is intrinsically valuable because of the taste, judgment and scientific knowledge displayed by Mr. Cooper in its collection and it is a matter of pride to Kansas that one of her busy citizens has been able to accomplish so much in purely scientific lines. Friends of the University have long felt that this cabinet should finally become the property of this institution and that in this fitting manner it should be preserved to the state. We understand that it has recently been offered to the State Uuiversity on most liberal terms, and that with his usual enterprise Prof. Snow has taken the initiative in its acceptance. It will be removed to the University building within a few months, where the Board of Regents will gladly care for it while arrangements are being completed for its final possession.
American Journal of Mathematics. J.J. Sylvester, editor. Thomas Craig, Ph. D., assistant editar. Published under the auspices of Johns Hopkins University. Such is the title page of a journal devoted to the higher mathematics, now in the sixth year of its publication. Our students who wish to know what the masters of the present day are doing in various lines of the perfect science, now have the opportunity, for a complete set of this Journal in question, from the first issue has just been obtained for the University library.