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Course of Solidification of the Moon.--M. Loewy, director of the Paris Observatory, and M. Puiseux, in a communication to the Academic des Sciences, hold that the solidification of the moon extends from the surface to the center, and not, as the English scientists think, from the center to the periphery. This view would modify various existing theories. Their conclusion is drawn from the examination of photographs executed at the observatory for reproduction in the new Lunar Atlas. The Saharan Sea of the Cretaceous Period.--M. De Lapparent announces in a communication to the Academic des Sciences that he has received fossils lately discovered by two French officers, Capt. The- veniaud and Lieut Desplagnes, a little to the north of Timbuotoo. A calcareous block containing fossils of the Cretaceous has also been found 350 kilometers from Timbuotoo. Therefore the sea which bathed the region of Bilma on the east extended more than 300 kilometers to the north of Timbuotoo. A gramophone which, it is said, can be heard at a distance of three miles is the latest invention of the Hon. C. A. Parsons, of turbine fame. The instrument is named the auxetophone, and is worked by means of compressed air. This is pumped in by a small engine at a pressure which can be adjusted up to over 8 pounds, through a small valve, which takes the place of the ordinary diaphragm, into the trumpet. The valve consists of a number of small slots, covered with a fine comb, not unlike a mouth organ, and the vibration of this comb produces the sound. On a calm, windless day, it is estimated that, with a high pressure, the record could be distinctly heard three miles away. Constitution of Meteorites.--The meteorite, of the Cation Diablo has been examined by MM. Moissan and Osmond, who have demonstrated that in the parts which appear homogeneous nuclei are met with formed of superposed layers of ferric phosphide and carbide. Also, the study of the nodules has shown that these are formed of troilite; that is, ferric sulphide, surrounded with successive layers of phosphide and oar-bide. The composition of this meteorite is therefore quite complex and the miorographio examination justifies the conclusion that the metallic mass has been submitted to violent pressure. In some of the nodules the troilite has been, as it were, laminated and has taken on a schistose structure. Prof. Flinders Petrie, the eminent Egyptologist, has made some important discoveries in the Sinai peninsula. The ancient temple of Seabit el Khadem, flve days' camel journey south of Suez, he found to be of a Semitic type, different from any other known Egyptian temple, possessing two courts for ablution, and a long series of subterranean chambers, added by successive kings from the eighteenth to the twentieth dynasties. Many previously unknown hieroglyphic inscriptions relating to mining expeditions in Egypt were also brought to light by Prof. Petrie, who also found a very fine sculptured portrait of Queen Thy. The latter discovery is particularly interesting in the light of the recent opening of the queen's tomb at Luxor on the Nile. Sir William Ramsay gave an account, at the Royal Society, of the quantities of neon and helium, gases discovered by him, which is interesting as showing the extremely small amounts with which modern physical chemistry can deal. First, argon, it will be remembered, was found by Lord Rayleigh and himself to lurk in atmospheric air; then helium, a substance which had been detected by the spectroscope in the sun, was identified in the earth's atmosphere. Next, three other gases were revealed--krypton, xenon, and neon--hiding themselves also in very minute quantities. Some time ago Sir William Ramsay communicated to the Society estimates of the amounts of krypton and of xenon in atmospheric air, and since then he has been doing the same for neon and helium. After a series of delicate investigations, which he described, he arrived at the conclusion that there are in gaseous air 86 parts by weight of neon in a thousand million, and 123 parts in the same by volume, while of helium there are 56 parts by weight in ten thousand million and 400 by volume in the same. Such minute amounts seem almost incalculably small, but corroborative tests had been applied, which indicated that the estimates could not be far from aocurata
