66 



NATURE 



{Nov. 2 1, 1889 



A third and last experiment was made with a wire laid 

 obliquely across the Welsh Harp lake, and allowed to 

 sink to, and rest upon, the lake bottom. The length of 

 the line was roughly estimated at about one-third of a 

 mile, and from end to end (excepting a few yards at each 

 •end where the wire was led from the water's edge to the 

 telephone box) the wire was completely immersed, and 

 without any other support than the bottom of the lake 

 offered it. Yet, notwithstanding this immersion of the 

 whole wire, conversation was carried on through it by 

 means of the pulsion instruments without the least 

 difficulty. In fact, the voice came through the immersed 

 wire, and the longest wire (of over three miles) previously 

 mentioned, with greater purity and mellowness than 

 through shorter lengths. 



I must leave to others to explain, and if necessary to dis- 

 cover, the scientific grounds of the success of this extra- 

 ordinary little instrument. Looking, however, at its prac- 

 tical capabilities as exemplified above, it is not surprising 

 that Post Office, police, railway, and other commercial 

 people, are already overwhelming with applications those 

 who are arranging to supply the new telephone, which 

 from its extreme simplicity is manifestly a cheap one. 



NOTES. 



No fewer than 1810 patients bitten by dogs were treated at 

 ■the Pasteur Institute in the year ending October 31. There 

 were thirteen deaths. 



The Daily Graphic, the first number of which will appear 

 on January 4, will be interesting from a scientific as well as 

 from a popular point of view. Twenty years ago, when the 

 Graphic was started, so bold an enterprise would have been 

 •impossible. At that time the pictures in illustrated journals 

 were produced only by the old method of wood-engraving, which 

 could not, of course, supply all the needs of a daily illustrated 

 paper. By means of various scientific processes, drawings can 

 now be so rapidly and effectively reproduced, that the issue 

 •even of a daily illustrated journal may be safely undertaken. 

 The new paper is likely to afford a very striking instance of 

 •the influence of these processes on art and journalism. 



The Government of New South Wales has adopted an en- 

 tirely new scheme of technical education. The present Board 

 of Technical Education is to be abolished, and technical schools 

 will be placed under the direct control of the Education De- 

 partment. A sum of ;,^50,ooo is to be expended in the 

 erection and equipment of a new Technical College and Mu- 

 seum in Sydney, while branch technical schools will be esta- 

 blished throughout the country districts. It is estimated that 

 ;^50,ooo will be required annually to carry out the new 

 arrangements. 



Mr. E. W. Collin has been deputed by the Government of 

 Bengal to make inquiries as to the present condition of technical 

 education in Bengal, and to find out what steps should be taken 

 by the Government towards its advancement in that Presidency. 

 The Civil Engineering College at Seebpore, an institution for 

 the training of overseers and civil engineers, is supported by the 

 Bengal Government, but it does not appear that there are any 

 means at present in Bengal for the technical training of artisans. 

 Mr. Collin has addressed a circular to various public bodies 

 asking for information, and he will submit a report on the 

 •question about the end of the year. 



Mr. G. Bertin is to deliver, at the British Museum, a series 

 of four lectures on the religion of Babylonia. The first lecture 

 ^Vill be given on November 26, and the others on the three 

 ifollowing Tuesdays, at 2.30 p.m. 



Mr. G. B, Scott, of the Indian Survey Department, who 

 has lately been employed on a survey of the Wards Estates in 

 Bengal, has been placed in charge of the new Cadastral Survey 

 of Upper Burmah. 



The next conversazione of the Royal Microscopical Society 

 will be held on Wednesday, the 27th instant, at 8 o'clock. 



Mr. Thomas Child, who has just returned from Pekin, has 

 sent us very beautiful photographs of the two interesting old 

 astronomical instruments at the Pekin Observatory. These 

 instruments are the most ancient of the kind in the world, 

 having been made by order of the Emperor Kublai Khan in the 

 year 1279. They are exquisite pieces of bronze work, and are 

 in splendid condition, although they have been exposed to the 

 weather for more than 600 years. They were formerly up on 

 the terrace, but were removed dowri to their present position to 

 make way for the eight instruments that were made by the 

 Jesuit Father Verbiest in 1670, during the reign of the Emperor 

 K'ang Hsi, of the present dynasty. 



The metric system of weights and measures having been 

 adopted in the Photographic Office of the Indian Survey, a 

 series of tables for the conversion of these measures to British, 

 and vice versd, has been prepared by Colonels Thuillier and 

 Waterhouse, Survey or- General and Assistant- Surveyor-General 

 of India. The scope of the tables, however, has been extended 

 so as to meet, as far as possible, the ordinary requirements of 

 general and scientific reference. The multiples and fractions of 

 the British and metric units have each their equivalent expressed 

 in the other, so that the number requiring to be converted may 

 be multiplied directly by the decimal fraction representing the 

 equivalent value of one unit of the required denomination. The 

 relative equivalents are given for the conversion of measures of 

 length, weight, and capacity, cubic and square measures, and 

 also of British-Indian and metric weights. There are also a few 

 miscellaneous tables that may be found generally useful. 



It is well known that whales can remain a long time under 

 water, but exact data as to the time have been rather lacking. 

 In his northern travels, Dr. Kiickenthal, of Jena, recently 

 observed that a harpooned white whale continued under water 

 45 minutes. 



The elephant skeleton set up in the front hall of the Madras 

 Museum is 10 feet 6 inches high, and it has been stated that this 

 is the skeleton of the lai-gest elephant ever killed in India. Mr. 

 Edgar Thurston, Superintendent of the Museum, in his latest 

 Report, says that this is a mistake. Mr. Sanderson gave 10 feet 

 ']\ inches as the largest elephant he had met, and there is a still 

 larger one in the Indian Museum, Calcutta. 



Some fragments of a gigantic elephant's tusk (we learn from 

 the Rivista Set. Ind.) were lately obtained by Signer Terrenzi, 

 the tusk having been found in the yellow Pliocene (marine) 

 sands of Camartina, Narni. It must have been about 10 feet 

 long. One piece (which seems to have been near the base) 

 measured about 2 feet round at the thickest. The tusk had been 

 broken up by the peasants, and distributed as an infallible 

 remedy for tooth-ache and for belly pains in cattle ! It probably 

 belonged either to E. Jiieridionalis, Nesti, or to E. antiqtms, 

 Falc. The finding of elephant remains in the Pliocene marine 

 sands of Italy is not new, but it is rare. 



A REMARKABLE paper on " The Ethnologic Affinity of the 

 Ancient Etruscans," by Dr. Daniel G, Brinton, was read before 

 the American Philosophical Society on October 18, and has now 

 been issued separately. Dr. Brinton 's attention was specially 

 called to the subject during a sojourn of some months in Italy, 

 early in the present year, when he had an opportunity of study- 

 ing many museums of Etruscan antiquities. The object of the 



