November 23, 191 1] 



NATURE 



ri7 



the east of France and the north of Italy. It was followed 

 by two others of less importance early on November 17, 

 one shortly after midnight, the other at about 3 a.m. The 

 reports so far available in this country are singularly 

 meagre. There does not seem to have been any loss of 

 life, but slight damage to property occurred in several 

 places, such as Constance, Stuttgart, Freiburg, Miilhausen, 

 and Hechingen, and, though it is difficult to credit the 

 statement, at Munich. Leaving the last-named place out of 

 account, the area of slight damage is about 140 miles long 

 from east-north-east to west-south-west, and 90 miles wide, 

 and contains about 10,000 square miles. The centre may 

 have been about 10 miles to the north of Schaffhausen. 

 The shock was felt so far as Dresden, 310 miles from this 

 point, so that the disturbed area may have contained as 

 much as 300,000 square miles. It is thus probable that 

 the focus was situated at some depth. The vibrations were 

 recorded at several distant observatories — in this country at 

 Shide and West Bromwich. At Heidelberg, Besan^on, and 

 Potsdam the recording levers were deranged or broken. 



A DISCOVERY of remarkable prehistoric burials has been 

 I made by the Broadstairs Archaeological Society in the 

 grounds of a private school. During excavations a series 

 of Saxon graves came to light. Under these, and there- 

 fore of an earlier date, were found a number of graves 

 j arranged round a circular trench, in which the bodies had 

 ! been buried with the arms and legs flexed. Nothing was 

 , found to give a clue to the date of these circular burials ; 

 I but Mr. F. G. Parsons, who is making an examination of 

 the bones, is of opinion that they belong to the Bronze age. 



■ Whatever the antiquity may prove to be, the find is one 

 I of importance, for we know very little of the inhabitants 



of Kent prior to the Saxon period. The remains, which 

 ( are somewhat fragmentary, are to be placed in the museum 

 of the Royal College of Surgeons, where they may be com- 

 pared with other finds of a similar nature which have been 

 ' made in the south-east of England. In the current number 

 *of the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (vol. 

 ' xli., p. loi) Mr, Parsons gives an interesting description 

 of Saxon remains found in a cemetery near Folkestone. 



I Further details of the Wright gliding experiments are 



now to hand. On Tuesday, October 24, the best flights 



were made in the teeth of a wind which was recorded by 



, a gauge raised 12 feet from the ground to be blowing at 



, 50 miles an hour. Orville Wright made nineteen succes- 



jsive glides, one, the last, enduring for 9m. 45s., and 



extending over a distance of nearly a quarter of a mile. 



During his seventeenth glide he remained stationary in the 



'air for 5m. iis., the whole glide lasting 7m. 15s. The 



( following day twenty glides were made by Orville Wright 



( and Alexander Ogilvie, but as the wind was slight nothing 



■ remarkable was achieved. On October 26 twenty-four 

 flights were made, one of which lasted 2m. 15s. This was 



•the last day before breaking up the camp. The new auto- 

 'matic stability device, which had arrived, was not fitted to 

 (the machine, and its trials were postponed to a later date. 

 |To the description of the machine used, given in Nature 

 lof November 9, the following details may be added : — As 

 (the cutting-down of the skids necessitated the removal of 

 jthe " blinkers," a vertical surface or keel-plane was fitted 

 fto the front edge of the main planes immediately to the 

 fright of the pilot, the object being to keep the glider 

 'directly head on to the wind. Furthermore, a boom project- 

 !ing in front of the main planes some five feet carried a bag 

 iof sand, as the pilot's weight was insufficient to keep the 

 'machine level in high winds. 



NO. 2195, VOL. 88] 



Prof. W. H. Perkin, F.R.S., and Prof. E. Rutherford, 

 F.R.S., have been elected corresponding members of the 

 Munich Academy of Sciences. 



The Institute of Chemistry announces that Mr. Bertram 

 Blount will deliver the second lecture on " Cement " at 

 King's College, Strand, W.C, on Friday, December i. 



Prof. Andrew McWilliam, professor of metallurgy in 

 the University of Sheffield, has been appointed by the 

 Government of India to the newly created post of metal- 

 lurgical and analytical inspector of steel in India. 



We learn from the Revue scientifique that the German 

 Society of Aerial Navigation has constructed at Feldberg, 

 in the Schiefergebirge, a geographical observing station for 

 the study of aerial currents, and for the issue of a service 

 of wind warnings. 



The council of the Royal Meteorological Society has 

 awarded the Symons gold medal to Prof. Cleveland Abbe, 

 of the United States Weather Bureau, in recognition of the 

 valuable work which he has done in connection with 

 meteorological science. The medal will be presented at the 

 annual meeting of the society on January 17, 1912. 



We learn from Science that Mr. Waldemar Lindgren, 

 who has been connected with the U.S. Geological Survey 

 since 1884, and since 1907 has been in charge of the in- 

 vestigations of metalliferous deposits and of metal 

 statistics, has been elected chief geologist, in succession to 

 Dr. C. Willard Hayes. 



The Soci^t^ Fran^aise de Physique has arranged a series 

 of nine lectures on " Modern Ideas on the Constitution of 

 Matter," by Madame Curie, Profs. Langevin, Perrin, 

 Weiss, and other distinguished physicists. They are to be 

 delivered on Saturday evenings during the next four months 

 either at the Sorbonne or at the rooms of the society, and 

 are open to all members of the society. The example set 

 by the French society might with advantage be followed 

 by some of our societies. 



At a meeting of the executive committee of the British 

 Science Guild, held on November 15, it was announced 

 that arrangements were being made to hold occasional 

 evening meetings of the members, at which papers or 

 lectures would be read, to be followed by discussions. 

 Also further papers have been received on the subject of 

 the conservation of the natural sources of energy, and it is 

 hoped to publish this report before the close of the year. 

 The subjects of coordination of charitable effort and postal 

 reform were also discussed. 



On previous occasions we have referred to the mining 

 operations made this year by the Duke of Sutherland to 

 determine if the gold deposits in the Kildonan district of 

 Sutherland could be worked at a profit. In our issue of 

 September 28 (vol. Ixxxvii., p. 425) we announced that 

 information received from the field showed the experiments 

 had been a financial failure. The report of Mr. William 

 Heath, the expert entrusted with the operations, has now 

 been commented upon in the Press. Mr. Heath says : — 

 " This field cannot be worked by any method so as to 

 realise on the most liberal estimate anything like half the 

 working expenses." 



The president of the Royal College of Surgeons, Sir H. 

 Butlin, delivered at the college two lectures (November 

 13 and 15) on " The Parasite of Cancer." Sir H. Butlin 

 maintains that the cancer cell is a new creation, an in- 

 dependent organism most closely resembling a protozoon. 



