410 



NATURE 



\_March 2r, \2>'/^ 



The death is announced of Dr. Joseph Henry Corbett, of 

 Dublin. The deceased was formerly Professor of Anatomy and 

 Physiology, and an Examiner in the Queen's University in 

 Ireland. 



We understand that the herbarium of the late eminent 

 botanist, Alexander Braun, has been purchased by the German 

 Government for the sum of 21,000 marks. 



The cryptogamic herbarium of the late Italian botanist, 

 G. De Notaris, has been acquired by the Italian Minister of 

 Public Instruction for the Botanic Garden at Rome. 



We are happy to state that a decree has established in Lyons, 

 in Bordeaux, and in Besangon observatories for astronomical, 

 meteorological, and horological purposes. For the two former 

 towns, and especially for Lyons, this decree is merely an ac- 

 knowledgment and regulation of former efforts, but the merit of 

 this measure is not lessened by that consideration, as it puts an 

 end to all local opposition. 



Easter being very late this year, the meeting of the delegates 

 of the French learned societies will take place in the last days of 

 April, only three or four days before the opening of the Interna- 

 tional Exhibition. 



At a meeting at the Mansion House last week an influential 

 committee was formed to promote the holding of a great agri- 

 cultural exhibition in London next year, under the auspices of 

 the Royal Agricultural Society of England. HydCj Park was 

 proposed as the place for holding the show. 



A SHOCK of earthquake is reported to have been felt at Deben- 

 ham, a few miles from Ipswich, on Saturday morning. 



Though the cultivation in India of the best quinine-yielding 

 species of Cinchona (C officinalis) has not proved a success, it is 

 satisfactory to know that one species at least thrives most 

 abundantly in the Sikkim plantations. From a paper read at 

 the last meeting of the Pharmaceutical Society by Mr. Wood, 

 the Government Quinologist in India, it seems that out of a total 

 of about three million trees, comprising four or five species of 

 Cinchona it is estimated that there are as many as 2,500,000 

 belonging to the species succirubra. It is from this bark that 

 the now well-known " Cinchona febrifuge " is prepared. This 

 substance, according to many well known medical practitioners in 

 India, possesses to so very nearly the same extent the anti-periodic 

 properties of quinine that it may be safely substituted for the 

 latter in the treatment of ordinary fevers and ague. 5,000 lbs. 

 of this febrifuge, we are told, has already been made and issued, 

 and it is now being made at the rate of 4,000 lbs. a year ; the 

 demand, however, is so rapidly overtaking this scale of produc- 

 tion that a further extension will shortly be necessary. For use 

 it appears in the form of a fine white powder, which, however, 

 becomes in a short time of a pale buff tint. It does not agglu- 

 tinate even in the Indian cUmate. It is freely soluble in weak 

 acids and is readily taken up by lemon-juice, which constitutes 

 a pleasant vehicle for its administration. 



The Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain has just issued 

 an excellent catalogue of the fine collections of Materia Medica 

 and chemical products in their museum in Bloomsbury Square. 

 The catalogue is the work of the Society's Curator, Mr. E. M. 

 Holmes, F.L.S., and includes a great deal of information 

 regarding the several products mentioned. The alphabetical 

 classification of the plants according to their genera in each 

 order and the numerous references to figures in English, Ameri- 

 can, and foreign works will make this book valuable not only to 

 students of the collection it illustrates, but also for handy refer- 

 ence on the subject generally. 



Those who are interested in the subject of railway brakes will 

 obtain much instruction and pleasure by a visit to the offices 

 of the Westinghouse Brake Company, at St. Stephen's Palace 

 Chambers, Westmmster, where the Company's Automatic Brake 



may be seen at work. By an ingenious arrangement the brake- 

 power sufficient for a train of ten carriages is represented. At 

 one view the whole of the apparatus that would be brought into 

 play to bring such a train to a stop is seen. A steam-engine 

 compresses the air and distributes it through all the tubes and 

 the ten reservoirs extending over the whole length of the train, 

 and which, by simply turning a handle, acts upon the brake?, 

 one of which is ready to clasp each wheel of the train. The 

 brake can be applied by engine-driver or guard in little more 

 than five seconds, and its action is so powerful that a train going 

 at forty miles an hour can be brought to a dead stop in something 

 like fifteen seconds and within a distance of about 500 yards. 

 The essential principle of this system is the admission of com- 

 pressed air into a cylinder attached underneath a carriage, and 

 containing the ends of two pistons acting by leverage upon the 

 brakes ; the compressed air is stored in pipes attached to the 

 cylinder, and is thus ready for instantaneous admission, which is 

 effected by producing a reduction of pressure, and thus opening 

 a set of valves that admit the air into the cylinder. The air 

 thus admitted acts upon the pistons by pushing them out and 

 causing the brakes to clasp the wheels and instantly stop their 

 revolution. The distinctive feature of the automatic brake is 

 that in case of the train breaking into one or more parts or in 

 case of its meeting with any obstruction or leaving the rails, the 

 brakes are at once appli'ed automatically, and thus the risk 

 of disaster is immensely diminished. Our examination of the 

 apparatus has convinced us of its perfect efficiency, which we 

 find is testified to by all the railway companies that have used it ; 

 and any one who has recently travelled north by the Midland 

 Railway must admit that it would be difficult to improve upon a 

 system that can bring a long train going at full speed to a stop 

 within a few seconds. The brake can be applied with any 

 strength, and thus is of great service in going down inclines 

 and taking sharp curves. On the apparatus at St. Stephen's 

 Chambers is a nozzle from which the compressed air may be 

 allowed to escape, and with which some curious phenomena with 

 a hollow elastic ball are shown. The ball is placed within the 

 current of escaping air, and if the tap is kept upright the ball 

 is sustained as if by a jet of water, but with little or no revolving 

 motion. If the tap be brought to an angle of say thirty or forty 

 degrees from the perpendicular, the ball is still sustained by the 

 current, receding and advancing in the line of the tap and revolv- 

 ing rapidly outwards in the direction of the current, so rapidly 

 as to produce a most marked flattening at the poles or sides at 

 right-angles to the direction of motion. Ultimately it becomes 

 almost a disc. Gradually the axis of rotation changes till it is at 

 right -angles to its original position, when the speed of rotation 

 diminishes and the ball gradually comes to rest. Again it begins 

 to spin upon its new axis, going through the same changes 

 again and again so long as it is kept within the action of the jet. 

 In concluson we may say the brakes are comparatively simple 

 in construction ; it is almost Impossible to put them out of 

 order, and they may be effectually handled by ordinary railway 

 officials. 



The method of coincidences has recently been applied by M. 

 Szathmari, to determine the velocity of sound in free air, as 

 follows : — A pendulum, whose rate was accurately known, closed, 

 at each passage through the vertical position, a battery circuit, 

 the line of which was 220 m. long, and included two electric 

 bells. When both bells are placed before the observer, he hears 

 them simultaneously. If one be moved a little way off this 

 simultaneity ceases ; and if the bell be moved still further a point 

 is reached, at which both bells are heard simultaneously again. 

 The distance is that through which the sound moves in the 

 interval between two successive ringings of the bells. The pen- 

 dulum, in the present case, had a period of 0-2961 seconds ; the 

 distances at which the sounds of the two bells were heard at 



