NOVEJIBER 17, 192 l] 



NATURE 



381 



the hope that scientific workers would seek for repwe- 

 sentation before Parliament by one of themselves. 

 Dr. A. Griffith, of the Royal Aircraft Establishment, 

 was elected president for the ensuing year, and Prof. 

 J. Stanley Gardiner, of Cambridge, president of the 

 research council. 



The Advisory Committee for the Meteorological 

 Office, Edinburgh, met in Edinburgh on November 4, 

 under the presidency of Dr. G. C. Simpson, Director 

 of the Meteorological Office. This was the first meet- 

 ing of the Committee since the completed organisa- 

 tion under the Air Ministn,-. The Committee is com- 

 posed of representatives of the Fishen,- Board for 

 Scotland, the Board of Agriculture, the Scottish Board 

 of Health, the Scottish universities, the Royal Society' 

 of London, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and the 

 Roval Meteorological Society (with which the Scottish 

 Meteorological Societt is now amalgamated). Dr. 

 Crichton Mitchell, the superintendent of the Edin- 

 burgh Meteorological Office, was also present. After 

 paying a tribute to the memory of the late Dr. W. S. 

 Bruce, the Director, in a brief historical statement, 

 explained how the former relations between the 

 Government and the Scottish Meteorological Society 

 had gradually led to the establishment in Edinburgh 

 of a Scottish branch of the Meteorological Office, by 

 which the important voluntan,'^ work previously carried 

 out by the society would hencefcwth be controlled. A 

 description of the work now being developed was 

 given, including an account of the observatories, tele- 

 graphic reporting stations, climatological stations, and 

 rainfall stations. In the discussion which followed 

 the applications of meteorology to fisheries, agricul- 

 ture, and public health were considered, and various 

 suggestions were made as to the possibility- of closer 

 and more fruitful co-operation between the Meteoro- 

 logical Office and these public bodies. Perhaps the 

 most immediately practical point brought forward 

 was the question of issuing a daily weather report in 

 Edinburgh. .\ demonstration of this was carried out 

 successfully during the recent meeting of the British 

 .\ssociation. 



MoNTPELLiER, where the President of the French 

 Republic, M. Millerand, has just unveiled a monu- 

 ment to the great satirist Rabelais, boasts one of 

 the oldest universities. Its botanical gardens, in 

 which the statue has been erected, is the oldest in 

 France, and for more than two hundred years it has 

 possessed an Academy of Sciences. On two occasions, 

 in 1530 and in 1536, Rabelais was a student of medi- 

 cine there, and to him was due the introduction into 

 , France of the melon, the artichoke, and the cama- 

 * tion. Though best known for his "Gargantua" and 

 "Pantagruel," Rabelais, like his contemporarv Para- 

 celsus, was versed in all the learning of his day. 

 The Montpellier Academy of Sciences was founded 

 mainly through the efforts of the astronomers Plan- 

 tade and de Clapies, and the inauguration took place 

 on May 12, 1706, the day on which Plantade and de 

 Clapies watched a total eclipse of the sun, the first 

 eclipse of modern times of which the accounts are in 

 any way full and precise. Plantade was a lawyer by 

 profession, de Clapies a retired soldier and an en- 

 NO. 2716, VOL. I08I 



gineer. Both were natives of Montpellier. De 

 Clapies died in 1740, and the following year Plantade 

 expired suddenly when making scientific observations 

 on the Pic du Midi. Montpellier was also the home 

 of Balard, who taught in the School of Pharmacy 

 and, while botanising in the neighbouring salt 

 marshes, studied the crystallisation of salts, which 

 led him in 1826 to the discovery of bromine, for which 

 our Royal Society awarded him a Royal medal. Soon 

 after this Balard succeeded Thenard at Paris, and it 

 was in his laboratory at the Ecole Normale that 

 Pasteur, then his assistant, made his epoch-making 

 discoveries in tartaric acid. Another eminent chemist 

 connected with Montpellier was Gerhardt, who occu- 

 pied the chair of chemistry- from 1844 to 1848. 



We congratulate our contemporary-, The Electrician, 

 on the celebration of its diamond jubilee last week. 

 During the past sixty years it has minutely recorded 

 the growth of the numerous applications of electricity, 

 and the record contained in its pages settles, both from 

 the scientific and the technical p>oint of view, many 

 questions of priority. It is interesting to find that 

 Faraday was one of its contributors. In 1862 he pub- 

 lished a paf>er on " Electrical Illumination in Light- 

 houses." In 1861 telegraphy, the only practical appli- 

 cation of electricity, was in private hands. The 

 earliest telegraph was erected on the London and 

 North-Westem railway between Euston and Chalk 

 Farm so far back as 1837 by Cooke and Wheatstone, 

 but the lack of the means of making accurate measure- 

 ments of the new quantities involved hampered pro- 

 gress. The important paper on "The Measurement 

 of Electrical Quantities," published by Latimer Clarke 

 and Sir Charles Bright in The Electrician for 186 1 

 was a great step in advance. It is interesting to notice 

 that these authors call the volt the "oiima," the 

 ampere the "galvat," and the ohm the " volta." Fifty 

 vears ago submarine cables of more than 500 miles 

 in length were worked in one direction only. The 

 receiving instrument was a reflecting mirror galvano- 

 meter, the signals being read out by one operator and 

 written down by another. The operators in those 

 days were extremely skilful. From 125 to 150 letters 

 per minute could be transmitted. For long distances 

 the messages were sent in sections. For example, 

 from Gibraltar to London the message had to be 

 •' man-handled " eight times. Nowadays automatic 

 relays do the intermediate operations at far higher 

 speeds, and a message can be sent automatically from 

 London to Singapore. 



Mr. J. S. HiGHFiELD, in his presidential address 

 to the Institution of Electrical Engineers on Novem- 

 ber 3, discussed the education of an engineer and 

 various important financial problems concerning the 

 future of the industry. He impressed on engineers 

 the importance of giving their skilled assistants and 

 their apprentices theoretical knowledge and oppor- 

 tunities for improving their manual skill. Manual 

 skill can be acquired only from hand-skilled men. In 

 his opinion there were no unskilled trades, but, un- 

 fortunately, there were many unskilled workmen. He 

 considered that although trade unions had done good 



