SCIENTIFIC BULLETIN.; A NEW ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH EHRENBERG, THE MICROSCOPIST PHOTOGRAPHING COLOR CAPHBENES' PALACE BROUGHT TO LIGHT METTERNICH ON INSANITY SOLAR FEEDERS ARSENICIN THE DEAD GEOLOGIC TERMS.
Published: June 14, 1860
-- Since the failure of the Atlantic Telegraph, the confidence not only of tho public but even of scientific electricians has been considerably shaken in the ultimate practicability of a long direct line between England and America. Recent discoveries show that it is almost impracticable to work through an unbroken submarine circuit of nearly 3,000 miles, at any such speed as would insure a commercial profit on the capital invested in the line. A new solution of the problem, however, is now engaging the attention of scientific men in England, namely, the North Atlantic Telegraph. At a late meeting of the Royal Geographical Society, Col. SHAFFNER read a paper on the subject, from which we learn that the proposition is to submerge the cable from some point on the north of Scotland, in the first instance to the Faroe Islands, thence to Iceland, Greenland and Labrador. The length of the submarine lines would be 250, 350, 550 and 600 miles, making a length of submerged cable of 1,500 miles. Col. SHAFFNER, who has explored the east coast of Greenland, stated that the laying down of these cables would not be attended with much more difficulty than in other cases, for as far as he had examined the route he had found it unobstructed by ice, excepting on the coast of Labrador, where some special caution would be required in bringing the cable to land. The depths, so far as they had been sounded, did not exceed 2,500 fathoms, at which point there was a deep deposit of mud. The Colonel alluded to the great advantage which would attend having several short submarine circuits instead of an interrupted one. Through so comparatively short a circuit as 600 miles, which was the longest length of the submerged cables, as many as twenty words per minute might be transmitted, whilst the retardation of the electricity by the submerged wire of the former Atlantic Telegraph did not permit of more than three words per minute being transmitted. It is, however, intended, before bringing the enterprise definitely before the world, to undertake, under Government auspices, a careful surrey of the whole line.
-- HUMBOLDT was, when alive, an associate member of the French Academy of Sciences, and his death made a vacant fauteuil, which has recently been eagerly contested. Among the ten candidates composing the official list were EHRENBERG, of Berlin, who was the companion of HUMBOLDT in several of his scientific travels; AIRY, director of the Astronomical Observatory at Greenwich; AGASSIE, who has so identified his name with the Natural History of the United States as to make us quite forget his Swiss origin; DE LA RIVE, the illustrious chemist, also a Swiss; LIEBIG; MARTIUS, of Munich; Sir RODERICK MURCHISON, the celebrated English geologist; M. STENNER; STRUVE, the illustrious Russian astronomer, and M. WOEHLER, the German chemist. The votes concentrated on EHRENBERG and LIEBIG, the most popular of German chemists -- the former receiving 30, the latter 21. EHRENBERG, accordingly, was proclaimed Associate Member of the Academic. EHRENBERG’s fame rests on his microscopic researches on those minute animal organisms named infusoria. Created by him, this curious branch of investigation, which has occupied the greater part of his life, may also be said to have been exhausted by him. He discovered the whole anatomy, habits, and conditions of existence of these animate illustrations of the infinitely little. Infinitessimal though they are, however, he has shown that they play an immense part in nature. By their means he explains a multitude of phenomena -- among others the phosphorescence of the sea, the coloration of snow, and the formation of vegetable earths; nay, he has proved that they compose entire mountain chains, and constitute a large portion of the crust of the earth.
-- A short paper by Sir JOHN HERSCUEL, in the Photographic News, contains some important remarks on the subject of photographing color. Sir JOHN expresses his firm belief that the problem will one day be solved, and mentions a photograph in his own possession, in which green foliage is unmistakably distinguished as green, from the sepia tints of other portions of the picture. He considers it important, in attempts to obtain color, that non-luminous rays should be cut off, which can be done by quinine. In the absence of a perfect positive photography, he recommends experimenters to work through the intervention of a negative; nor are they to expect this negative to be colored as the objects are, in order to yield a picture by the process of photographic painting. The effect of colors in this object would be to convert the negative into absorbent media, which would reproduce the colors from whose action they were derived.
-- M. AUGUSTE MARIETTE, the eminent French Archaeologist, writes from Egypt that he has discovered, buried in the sand in the immediate vicinity of the Sphynx, the remains of a large granite palace. He takes it to be the palace of CEPHRENES the builder of one of the three great Pyramids and whose date LESPIUS fixes at 3,600 B.C. No less than seven statues of CEPHRENES was found in this palace.