FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



Ill 



found the Ophir whence King Solomon's 

 gold was brought, in the country be- 

 tween the Zambesi and the Pungwa Riv- 

 ers, in Portuguese Africa and eastern 

 Mashonaland. JMany rivers, some quite 

 extensive, of undetermined origin, and 

 traces of ancient mining enterprises, are 

 found in the region, and gold is still 

 washed there. One site is Fura, on the 

 Muira Kiver, about fifteen miles south of 

 the Zambesi. The name Fura is said to 

 be a native corruption of the word Afur, 

 by which the Arabs of the sixteenth 

 century called the district, and that to 

 be the Saharan or south Arabian form 



of the Hebrew Ophir. The natives are 

 unlike the ordinary Africans, and have 

 a distinctly Jewish type of face. A 

 chief informed Dr. Peters concerning 

 the position of some ancient workings, 

 and, following his directions, the ex- 

 plorer found ruins " of an undoubtedly 

 Semitic tj'pe." Dr. Peters's hypotheses 

 and evidences must be accepted for 

 what they are worth. Other explorers 

 have found Ophir at various points in 

 Africa and Arabia, and even in India 

 and elsewhere, and have been as satis- 

 fied and as sure as he with their identi- 

 fications. 



MINOR PARAGRAPHS. 



An instructive address, before the 

 Iron and Steel Institute of Great Brit- 

 ain, was recently delivered by Sir W. 

 Roberts Austen on the progress made 

 in the ii'on and steel industries during 

 the past century. The great revolution 

 which the discovery of steel brought 

 about is dwelt upon at length, and its 

 far-reaching importance, not only in the 

 iron industry itself but in all other in- 

 dustries and in tlie destinies of England 

 herself, pointed out. In the early days 

 of the industry it was held that the dif- 

 ferent qualities of iron were due to the 

 different localities from which the ore 

 Avas obtained, but late in the eighteenth 

 century the great Swedish chemist, Berg- 

 man, of Upsala, clearly showed that car- 

 bon is the element to which steel and 

 cast iron owe their distinctive proper- 

 ties. Clouet's celebrated experiment on 

 the carburization of iron by the dia- 

 mond followed. " Well might Bergman 

 express astonishment at the action of 

 carbon on iron. Startling as the state- 

 ment may seem, the destinies of Eng- 

 land throughout the century, and espe- 

 cially during the latter half of it, have 

 been mainly influenced by the use of 

 steel. Hardly a step of our progress or 

 an incident of our civilization has not 

 in one way or another been influenced 

 by the pi'operties of iron and steel. It is 

 remarkable that these properties have 

 been determined by the relations sub- 

 sisting between a mass of iron, itself pro- 

 tean in its nature, and the few tenths 

 per cent of carbon it contains." In 1800 

 the production of pig iron in England 

 was about 200,000 tons; in 1898 it was 

 8,769,249 tons. 



VOL. LVI —58 



A NOTE in Nature describes an in- 

 genious arrangement for controlling the 

 direction of torpedoes by means of ether 

 waves. Two solenoids, into which are 

 drawn iron cores, are attached to the 

 rudder head, the core which is drawn in 

 depending, of course, upon the direction 

 of the received current. Two rods pro- 

 jecting above the surface of the water 

 receive the waves and are in circuit with 

 a coherer of special type, which affects a 

 relay in the usual way. The actual pro- 

 cesses involved in steering and control- 

 ling a torpedo are somewhat as follows: 

 The torpedo, containing a suitable com- 

 bination of the apparatus above men- 

 tioned, is launched from a vessel contain- 

 ing the necessary sending apparatus. Sup- 

 pose the torpedo goes off its course. Then, 

 by means of a switch, an induction coil 

 is supplied with an electric current, and 

 waAes or oscillations are generated. 

 These, on reaching the torpedo, pass into 

 the projecting wire and thence reach the 

 coherer. This operates the relay, clos- 

 ing the secondaiy circuit. An electric 

 current now flows through a " selector " 

 to one of the solenoids, the iron core is 

 sucked into right or left, and the helm is 

 thus turned. When the torpedo has at- 

 tained a proper course the switch is 

 opened and the waves cease. The vibra- 

 tion in the neighborhood of the coherer 

 restores it to the original resistance; 

 the current passing through it becomes 

 weaker and ceases to affect the relay 

 coil, which therefore opens the second- 

 ary circuit and allows the helm to fly 

 back to the midship position. A large 

 model of the apparatus has been con- 

 structed, and it is said to work with en- 



