2lS 



NATURE 



{Jan. II, 1877 



greater precision than the lem I had noted in November. The 

 new radiant in Sextans, I now deduce at R.A. 148°, Decl. 2° N., 

 and that at t Leonis, as near Crater R.A. 165°, Decl. 6° S. The 

 meteors from these new showers are very rapid and white, usu- 

 ally leaving bright streaks for 2 or 3 sees, in their path. 

 Ashley Down, Bristol, January 2 W. F, Denning 



ALEXANDER BAIN 



T T is with much regret that we announce the death of 

 ■»■ Mr. Alexander Bain, which took place at Glasgow 

 on January 2. To many of our readers his name is per- 

 haps unknown, and yet the inventions of Mr. Bain, made 

 when telegraphy was in its infancy, were of the very 

 highest importance. They were perhaps made too soon. 

 Mr. Bain himself never reaped the benefit of them, and 

 would have died in great poverty had it not been for a 

 pension of 80/. a year obtained for him from Mr. Glad- 

 stone chiefly through the exertions of Mr. C. W. Siemens, 

 Sir William Thomson, and the Society of Telegraph 

 Engineers. 



One of the most important services of Mr. Bain to 

 telegraphy was the reinvention of the method of making 

 use of " bodies of natural waters " " to complete the 

 electric circuit by laying a single insulated wire be- 

 tween the given stations, having at each end a metallic 

 brush immersed in the water." In 1838 Steinheil dis- 

 covered the use of the earth for completing a circuit 

 instead of a return wire, but does not appear to have 

 taken steps to bring his discovery into notice, or to re- 

 move the prejudices with which a discovery so startling 

 would naturally be met. Mr. Bain seems to have esta- 

 blished the principle for himself, and he published it 

 in a patent of 1841, by Wright and Bain, for "Improve- 

 ments in applying electricity to control railway engines 

 and carriages, to mark time, to give signals, and to print 

 intelligence] at dififerent places." It is impossible to say 

 how large a part of the completeness of our present tele- 

 graphic system, particularly of our submarine telegraphic 

 system, is due to this great discovery of Steinheil and 

 Bain. 



An early invention by Mr. Bain, was that of the electro- 

 chemical telegraph. This was patented in 1846. Paper 

 chemically prepared is drawn under a metallic style which 

 rubs upon it. As long as there is no current passing in the 

 line the paper comes away from the style unmarked, but 

 each signal sent through the line passes by the style to 

 the prepared paper and leaves a mark. Combinations 

 of dots and dashes, as in the Morse system, formed Mr. 

 Bain's alphabet. 



At first the signals were sent by hand by a simple con- 

 tact key, but Mr. Bain soon found his system capable of 

 receiving signals at far higher speed than that of the 

 fastest hand sending. He was thus led to the invention 

 of automatic methods of transmitting signals of which one 

 is the basis of the most important method at present in 

 use. A slip of paper is perforated with holes arranged in 

 groups, forming the letters required in accordance with 

 ihe code of signals. This slip is passed between a metallic 

 roller and a contact point. As long as the contact point is 

 separated from the roller by the paper slip, no current 

 passes in the line. But when one ot the perforated holes 

 comes under the contact point, the point falls in and 

 makes contact with the metallic roller. The circuit is 

 tlius closed, and a signal is sent. 



This apparatus was tried before Committees of the In- 

 stitute and of the Legislative Assembly at Paris. Through 

 a line between Paris and Lilie, a message of 282 words 

 was sent. The time taken was fifty-two seconds ! The 

 fastest automatic receiving by mechanical instruments of 

 the most refined modern construction, such, for example, 

 as the instruments of Wheatstone, does not commonly 

 reach 100 words per manute. We hear from Sir WiUiam 

 Thomson, in his recent address to the British Associa- 

 tion, that he saw in America " Edison's Automatic Tele- 



graph delivering 1,057 words in 57 seconds— this done by 

 the electro- chemical method of Bain." That Mr. Bain's 

 method was not received in England cannot but be re- 

 garded as a great misfortune. 



These were, perhaps, Mr. Bain's principal inventions, 

 but there are others of such importance that they well 

 deserve notice. Several of his patents relate to the 

 keeping of time by clocks controlled or driven electrically 

 bv a standard clock. Jones' system, now so largely used in 

 England, is based upon the system of Bain. He invented the 

 earth battery in 1843, or rather reinvented it, as Gauss and 

 Steinheil had previously obtained a current, after the dis- 

 covery by Steinheil of using the earth for a return wire, 

 making one of the earth plates of zinc and the other of 

 copper. In 1844 he patented ingenious apparatus for 

 registering the progress of ships and for taking soundings. 

 Vanes caused to rotate by the motion of the "log" or 

 " sounding fly," through the water were employed, and an 

 electrical method of observing the result on board was 

 employed. The same patent describes apparatus for 

 giving warning when the temperature of the hold of a 

 ship rises above a certain point. An electric circuit was 

 employed, which was closed by the expansion by heat of 

 mercury contained in a tube. The current passing in the 

 circuit traversed coils which formed an electro-magnet. 

 A pointer or alarm connected with the magnet gave the 

 required warning. This method is now very commonly 

 employed for fire alarms ; and modifications of it have 

 been proposed for giving warning of over-heating in the 

 bearings of machinery. 



He had also an electric method of playing a keyed 

 instrument at a distance on more than one organ 

 or piano at a time ; and he applied his perforated 

 paper to the automatic playing of a wmd instru- 

 ment, such as' an organ. For this purpose the paper, 

 properly punched, was drawn between the openings of 

 the wind chest and the openings of the notes to be played 

 upon. Whenever and as long as there was a punched 

 hole of the paper between the wind chest and the pipe 

 the note of the pipe sounded. When there was a blank 

 space between the wind chest and pipe the pipe was 

 silent. 



In his later years Mr. Bain's inventions have been in- 

 considerable. Some years ago he was stricken down with 

 paralysis. He died at the age of sixty- six, on the second 

 day of this year, in the Home for Incurables, Broomhill, 

 near Glasgow. 



PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE SPECTRA 

 VENUS AND a LYR^ 



OF 



C INCE the spring of 1872 I have been making photo- 

 »^ graphs of the spectra of the stars, planets, and moon, 

 and pa.rticularly among the stars, of a Lyra; and a Aquilae, 

 with my 28-inch reflector and 12-inch refractor. In the 

 photograph of a Lyrs, bands or broad lines are visible in 

 the violet and ultra-violet region, unlike anything in the 

 solar spectrum. The research is difficult, and consumes 

 time, because long exposures are necessary to impress 

 the sensitive plate, and the atmosphere is rarely in the 

 best condition. The image of a star or planet must be 

 kept motionless for from ten to twenty minutes, and hence 

 the driving-clock of the telescope is severely taxed. 



During last summer I obtained some good results, and 

 in October took photographs of the spectrum of Venus, 

 which show a large number of lines. I am now studying 

 these pictures, and have submitted them to the inspection 

 of several of my scientific friends, among others, Pro- 

 fessors Barker Langley, Morton, and Silliman. There 

 seems to be in the case of Venus a weakening of the 

 spectrum towards H and above that line of the same cha- 

 racter as that I have photographically observed to take 

 place in the spectrum of the sun near sunset- 

 New York, December, 1876 Henry Draper 



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