November i8. 1.S97J 



NA TURE 



59 



The Kdnigsberg and Memel district of East Prussia is known 

 to be a district in which ophthalmia is prevalent. According 

 to the British Medical Journal a careful examination of the 

 eyes of all children in schools at Konigsberg has just been 

 carried out by twenty-seven doctors, the result showing that 32 

 per cent, of the children are suffering from dphthalmia, and of 

 these more than a third from granular lids. 



From the U.S. Monthly Weather Review for August we learn 

 that the Postal Telegraph Cable Company is co-operating with 

 the United States Time and Weather Service Company of New 

 York in establishing throughout the city a number of handsome 

 clocks which shall exhibit standard time, not only by the face of 

 the clock, but by the dropping of a time-ball at noon. Under 

 the dials are panels, which are filled up partly by special 

 advertisements, and partly by the latest Weather Bureau reports 

 and forecasts, which are thus made known two or three hours 

 before they appear in the afternoon papers. The stands contain, 

 in addition, a barometer and thermometer. The clocks have 

 also been erected in many western cities, and the arrangement is 

 somewhat similar to the so-called Urania Columns in Berlin, 

 where they are said to be very popular. 



The Indian Daily News for October 23 contains a preliminary 

 note on the Calcutta earthquake of June 12, by Prof. F. Omori, 

 who has been making investigations on behalf of the Japanese 

 Government. One peculiarity of the earthquake is that, not- 

 withstanding its vast area of disturbance, the motion on the sur- 

 face was not extremely violent. The variation of the inten- 

 sity of the shock along lines across the seismic area was 

 very gradual, and from this Prof. Omori infers that the depth of 

 the seismic focus was not less than twenty miles. The shock 

 appears to have been strongest at Shillong, Cheerapoonjee, and 

 the neighbouring district. At Shillong the acceleration was calcu- 

 lated from overturned bodies to be about 8 feet per sec. per sec. ; 

 and this, if the period of vibration were one second, would imply 

 a range of motion (or double amplitude) of about 5 inches. Prof. 

 Omori believes that the origin of the earthquake was a sudden 

 splitting asunder of the strata at a great depth, caused by an in- 

 jection of steam or gas into cracks in the earth's crust. The 

 seismic focus was situated in an east and west direction under 

 the Garo and Khasi Hills, and to the west or north-west of the 

 centre of the great Cachar earthquake of 1869. 



A NEW form of electric seismoscope is described by Dr. G. 

 Agamennone in the last Bollettino of the Italian Seismological 

 Society, the chief merits claimed for it by its inventor being its 

 com paratively slight cost (about thirty francs) and its great sen- 

 sitiveness. In most seismoscopes the movement of a pendulum 

 is magnified by a long pointer, whose tip just passes through a 

 hole in a metal plate, contact with which completes an electric 

 circuit and starts a clock previously set at twelve. In the new 

 instrument the metal plate is not, as usual, fixed, but is con- 

 nected with a second inverted pendulum, the bob of which is 

 near the top of its supporting rod, while that of the first is near 

 the base. 



• We have received from the Imperial Observatory of Con- 

 stantinople the monthly bulletins for January and February of 

 the present year. They contain a brief meteorological summary, 

 and continue, though apparently in less detail, the valuable 

 lists of earthquakes issued for the years 1895 and 1896 by Dr. 

 Agamennone. Both parts are the work of the Director, M. 

 Salik Zeky. 



An automatic controller, intended for checking the issue of 

 tickets in a railway booking-office, has been recently exhibited 

 in London. The machine, which is of Belgian origin, is 

 so arranged that each ticket is printed as issued. By two 

 movements the clerk prints on the ticket the name of the 



NO. 1464, \OL. 57] 



issuing office, the destination of the passenger, the class, number,, 

 month, day, and hour of issue, and the serial number of the 

 ticket. At the same time a record of the issue is printed on a- 

 slip of paper, which is inaccessible to the issuing clerk, and 

 serves for making up the books at the end of the day, or other 

 convenient opportunity. The names of the stations are arranged 

 round the edge of a disc forming part of the machine, and in 

 issuing a ticket, the clerk sets the name of the station requiredi 

 opposite a fixed mark. A downward movement of a small 

 handle, of which there are a number corresponding to the 

 different classes, causes an electric motor to do the necessary 

 printing and eject the printed ticket from the machine. It is 

 stated that each machine can be made to suit any number of 

 stations up to 100. Where a larger number have to be dealt 

 with, extra machines would be employed. A practical trial of 

 the instrument, is, we understand, to be made on the Northern 

 Railway of France in connection with the suburban service. 

 Where large numbers of stations have to be dealt with, the 

 inventor proposes to modify the arrangement of his machine by 

 fitting it with keys like a typewriter, the depression of any one 

 of which will cause the printing of a ticket for the corresponding 

 station. In this way a possible loss of time in selecting the 

 proper station from the rim of the disc previously referred to- 

 will be avoided. The machine, as made for twenty stations, 

 is about 5 feet 8 inches high, and has a base 18 inches square. 



The U.S. Pilot Chart of the North Pacific Ocean for the 

 present month contains, among other useful information, a 

 description of the storm-warning signals employed by the various- 

 maritime nations. In looking over this list one is struck by the 

 great success of the system of drum and cone signals introduced 

 in this country in the year 1861 by Admiral FitzRoy, the first 

 chief of the Meteorological Office, as these have been adopted, 

 in either their original or somewhat modified form, in everj' 

 European country in which storm signals are used except 

 Portugal, which uses flags only ; while in France, Germany 

 and the Netherlands the cones or drums are supplemented by 

 the use of flags or balls. They are also used in India and Japan, 

 in conjunction with balls, while flags or balls (only) are used in- 

 China and in North and South America. Prior to their introduc- 

 tion by Admiral FitzRoy, no signals to give notice of possible 

 atmospherical disturbances were employed except in Holland, 

 where there was a kind of semaphore, showing the difference of 

 barometric readings between two places, from which one's own 

 conclusions could be drawn as to the probability of approaching, 

 bad weather. 



With the notable exception of M. Penaud, most experi- 

 menters on mechanical flight have worked with fixed aeroplanes 

 driven by a screw-propeller. A somewhat new departure has 

 been made by Major R. F. Moore, who has selected the Indian< 

 flying-fox (Pteropus edulis) as his pattern on which to con- 

 struct models. From his experiments, which are described in 

 the Aeronautical Journal, Major Moore concludes that artificial 

 wings can be constructed in imitation of those of the flying-fox, 

 and that the action of the pectoral muscles can be reproduced 

 by spiral springs of suitable strength to hold the wings ex- 

 panded, the up and down motion being accomplished by means- 

 of a light electric or other motor. Two or more pairs of wings,, 

 arranged tandem fashion, are found to be better than a single- 

 pair — a result fully in accordance with the conclusions formed 

 by other observers. Major Moore considers it quite possible to 

 construct a machine of this type capable of raising a man. 



One of the most remarkable papers read at the recent annual 

 meeting of the Botanical Society of America in Toronto was on 

 the discovery of antherozoids in Zamia, by Mr. H. J. Webber. 

 The paper has been printed at length in the Botanical Gazette, 

 and, after the discovery of a similar mode of fertilisation in Cycas: 



