790 



NATURE 



[August i8, 1921 



to priority were in the end completely established. 

 The machine may be seen amongst the historical 

 apparatus at the South Kensington Museum. 

 His other inventions included a lightning protec- 

 tor for telegraph lines and cables, a polarised 

 needle telegraph instrument, and the time-ball as 

 now used at Greenwich Observatory and else- 

 where. 



Mr. Varley, following Lord Kelvin, contributed 

 a highly useful paper, in 1858, to the Institution of 

 Civil Engineers on the electrical qualifications re- 

 quisite in long submarine telegraph cables, as well 

 as another on the same subject to the .Society of 

 Arts. In setting forth here the true electrical 

 qualifications for the working of a submarine 

 cable, he showed in a very convincing way that 

 conductor resistance was as much a factor in 

 retardation as induction. He was the son of a 

 famous artist, Cornelius Varley, and was one of 

 a famous family of electricians. C. B. 



It is with much regret that we have to record 

 the death of M. Jules Carpentier on June 29. 

 M. Carpentier was born in 185 1, and received his 

 education at the Ecole Polytechnique. In 1876 

 he entered the service of the Paris-Lyons- 

 Marseilles railway as assistant constructional 

 engineer, and would probably have developed his 

 genius for machine construction in the service of 

 the railway had not the death of Ruhmkorff 

 directed his attention to the design of electrical 

 apparatus. He took over Ruhmkorff's work- 

 shops, reorganised them, and commenced to manu- 



facture standard electrical apparatus suitable for 

 the measurement of the heavy currents necessary 

 for the application of electricity to industry. 

 Amperemeters, voltmeters, electrodynamometers, 

 and other apparatus associated with the names of 

 d'Arsonval, Marcel Deprez, and Baudot were in a 

 large measure developed and made practical 

 instruments by the genius of Carpentier. His 

 activities did not end with electrical instrument- 

 making, for his name is also associated with three- 

 colour photography, while during the war his 

 workshops turned out a number of periscopes for 

 use on submarines. M. Carpentier was elected a 

 free member of the Paris Academy of Sciences in 

 1907, where he represented the mechanical arts 

 and the manufacture of instruments of precision. 



The death occurred on August 13, at the age of 

 sixty-five years, of Sir Alfred W. W. Dale, late 

 vice-chancellor of the University of Liverpool. Sir 

 Alfred was educated at King Edward's School, 

 Birmingham, and Trinity Hall, Cambridge. For 

 twenty years he was lecturer, bursar, and tutor 

 of his old college, during which time he established 

 for himself a reputation as an able administrator 

 of university affairs, as well as a classical scholar. 

 In 1899 he was appointed principal of University 

 College, Liverpool, and when Victoria L^niversity 

 was dissolved in 1903, and its separate colleges 

 assumed university rank, he became the first vice- 

 chancellor of Liverpool University, retaining this 

 post until 1 9 19, when he was succeeded by Dr. 

 J. G. Adami. 



Notes. 



The local secretaries of the British Association for 

 tile Edinburgh meeting desire to contradict the state- 

 ment which appears to be current in some quarters 

 that the hotels and boarding-houses of Edinburgh are 

 fully booked for the period of the meeting. There is 

 plenty of accommodation vacant in certain hotels, in 

 boarding-houses, and in apartments ; and in one of the 

 hostels — a- modern hall of residence— fifty places are 

 still available for the accommodation of members. 

 The Secretary for Hotels and Lodgings, the Univer- 

 sity, Edinburgh, will be glad to answer inquiries. 

 Members who write to hotels and boarding-houses 

 direct should enclose a stamped addressed envelope for 

 reply. 



The outbreak of smallpox in Nottingham is at 

 present kept within bounds by the incessant work of 

 the medical and civic authorities. The trouble is 

 that Nottingham has been for some years a hunt- 

 ing-ground of "anti " people. Still, we may be fairly 

 sure that Nottingham will not suffer the fate of 

 Gloucester, where 279 unvaccinated children died of 

 smallpox in 1895-96. But there is always this diffi- 

 culty, that vaccination in early childhood, though 

 it may fail to give complete protection against small- 

 pox some years later, may so modify the attack that 

 the case is mistaken for chicken-pox. This mistake 

 must be reckoned as well-nigh inevitable, now that 

 NO. 2703, VOL. 107] 



smallpox is so rare that many doctors have never 

 seen a case of it. The annual report (1920) of the 

 Scottish Board of Health contains a good summary 

 of the Glasgow epidemic last year. It is the old 

 story : that the general neglect of vaccination in 

 childhood is bringing about a reversion to the original 

 habits of the disease. Smallpox naturally prefers 

 children under ten years of age : and now it gets 

 them. Of course we all know that vaccination Is 

 not a perfect method ; we all hope for a perfect 

 method ; we all would like to get rid of the calf, to 

 be able to use a non-living vaccine, exactly stan- 

 dardised ; a hypodermic dose, and no scratching of 

 the skin. Some day, surely, this perfect method 

 will be worked out. Meanwhile we all know what 

 would happen if it were possible to take a school of 

 200 small children, to vaccinate 100, to leave 100 un- 

 vaccinated, and then to expose the whole school to 

 smallpox. Even the anti-vaccinationists know what 

 would happen. The present writer put this view of 

 the disease to one of them, and he answered that 

 God would interfere in favour of the unvaccinated 

 children : a fool's answer. Two cases of small- 

 pox have just occurred in Huddersfield (Times, 

 August 11). Let us hope that vaccination of con 

 tacts, quarantine, and other sanitary measures wij 

 prevent the spread of infection. Probably we sha 



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