Josef Loschmidt publishes Chemische Studien, proposing two-dimensional representations for over 300 molecules and recognising variations in atomic size.[4]
August 15 – First description of Archaeopteryx, based on a feather found in Bavaria;[7] in September the first complete identified skeleton is found near Langenaltheim in Germany.[8]
July 23 – The term 'drive shaft' is used in the description of the mechanism in a patent reissue for the Watkins and Bryson horse-drawn mowing machine.[10]
German scientist Philipp Reis succeeds in creating a device that captures sound and converts it to electrical impulses which are transmitted via electrical wires to another device that transforms these pulses into recognizable sounds similar to the original acoustical source. Reis coins the term telephone to describe his device, the Reis telephone.
^Kazansky, B.; Bykov, G. V., eds. (1961). Centenary of the Theory of Chemical Structure: collection of papers by A. M. Butlerov. Moscow: Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
^Meyer, Hermann von (1861-08-15). "Vogel-Federn und Palpipes priscus von Solenhofen" [Bird feathers and Palpipes priscus [a crustacean] from Solenhofen]. Neues Jahrbuch für Mineralogie, Geognosie, Geologie und Petrefaktenkunde (in German): 561. Aus dem lithographischen Schiefer der Brüche von Solenhofen in Bayern ist mir in den beiden Gegenplatten eine auf der Ablösungs- oder Spaltungs-Fläche des Gesteins liegende Versteinerung mitgetheilt worden, die mit grosser Deutlichkeit eine Feder erkennen lässt, welche von den Vogel-Federn nicht zu unterscheiden ist. (From the lithographic slates of the faults of Solenhofen in Bavaria, there has been reported to me a fossil lying on the stone's surface of detachment or cleavage, in both opposing slabs, which can be recognized with great clarity [to be] a feather, which is indistinguishable from a bird's feather.)
