October 7, 191 5] 



NATURE 



153 



E.N.E. course of those set adrift in the forties in 

 contrast to the general E.S.E. track of those from the 

 thirties south of Australia. As most of the floats were 

 cast up on relatively unfrequented shores where they 

 may have lain a considerable time before discovery, 

 it is impossible to form any estimate of their rate of 

 travel. Nor can any conclusions be drawn from the 

 absence of floats on a coast, as, for example, the 

 western coast of the south island of New Zealand, 

 where none have been found; this may be due to 

 that coast being less frequented than the western 

 coast of the north island, where many were picked 

 up. 



The rainfall in Australia in 1914 is shown in a series 

 of charts prepared by Mr. H. A. Hunt, and issued by 

 the Commonwealth Government. The year was 

 noticeable for its drought, and in South Australia, the 

 Riverina, western Victoria, and much of Tasmania it 

 was the driest year on record. These conditions 

 resulted in a failure of the crops over the greater part 

 of the wheat belt, with a production only some 30 per 

 cent, of the previous season. Tasmania suffered least 

 of all parts of the wheat belt, but in other parts of 

 southern Australia the deficiency of rain in the cool 

 part of the year averaged from 25 per cent, to 72 per 

 cent. These conditions were related to anti-cyclones 

 of great intensity, which kept south of their normal 

 track across Australia, and moved very slowly, with 

 the result that the "Antarctic" disturbances failed to 

 reach Australia to any great extent. The weakness 

 and failure of the winter rains were partly counter- 

 balanced in the warmer months by unusually strong 

 monsoons. In western Australia, Victoria, central and 

 southern New South Wales in November and 

 December, these rains were far above the average. 

 On the whole, the drought of 1914 was not so wide- 

 spread as the droughts' of 1888 and 1902, but was 

 locally more intense. Queensland and tropical Aus- 

 tralia largely escaped. 



In the TShokii Mathematical Journal (viii., i) Mr. 

 Kihizi Yanagihara, in a note entitled "A Theorem 

 on Surface," offers a proof of the statement that 

 if one surface always cuts a second surface in a 

 plane curve or several simply closed plane curves, 

 then the first surface must be a sphere. 



In a paper on "General Expression for Stress 

 Components" (Proceedings of the Tokyo Mathematical 

 Physical Society, viii., 2 (1915)), Mr. Senien Yokota 

 considers the problem of an infinite plate containing 

 a circular hole in which a plug can be inserted, or 

 having complete or partial contact with its periphery. 

 The plate is supposed to be under a uniform tension 

 in a fixed direction. It would appear that whether 

 the plug is loose or just fits the hole, the maximum 

 tangential tension on the periphery of the hole is 

 three times the tension applied to the plate. This 

 result is no doubt of interest in connection with the 

 problem of rivets. 



It is remarkable that while aeroplanes the engines 



of which have been disabled by shrapnel can pursue 



their erratic paths to earth without any prospect of 



having their equations of motion solved, mgthe- 



NO. 2397, VOL. 96] 



maticians are still covering pages of formulae with 

 attempts to solve the problem of three (hypothetical) 

 bodies. We have before us a paper by Prof. T. Levi 

 Civita on "The Reduction of the Problem of Three 

 Bodies" (Venice: Carlo Ferrari, 1915; reprinted 

 from the Atti del R. Istituto Veneto, Ixxiv., 2, pp. 

 907-939), and Mr. D. Buchanan discusses a new 

 isosceles solution in the Transactions of the American 

 Mathematical Society, xvi., 3, pp. 259-274. We can 

 only hope that these and other writers on this 

 problem will speedily bring their investigations to 

 such a state of perfection as to render it impossible 

 to discover anything further on the subject. When 

 this is done, they will find aeroplanes clamouring for 

 a little attention. 



In response to numerous requests for information 

 as to the melting points of the chemical elfements, 

 the Bureau of Standards at Washington has issued 

 a table of melting points according to the most trust- 

 worthy data. The following are the melting points 

 on the thermodynamic scale used by the bureau as 

 standard temperatures in the standardisation of ther- 

 mometers and pyrometers : Mercury —38-9°, tin 

 231-9°, cadmium 320-9°, lead 3274°, zinc 419-4°, 

 antimony 630-0°, aluminium 658-7°, silver 960-5, gold 

 1063-0°, copper 10830°, nickel 1452°, iron 1530°, 

 palladium 1549°, platinum 1755°, tungsten 3000°. 

 At temperatures of 1000° the uncertainty is of the 

 order o-i°, at platinum 5°, and at tungsten 100° C. 

 A further table of other standard temperatures is 

 given in which the following are included : normal 

 boiling point of oxygen — 1830°, sublimation of 

 carbon dioxide in an inert liquid -78-5°, normal 

 boiling points of water 100°, naphthalene 217-96°, 

 benzophenone 305-9°, sulphur 4446°, freezing point 

 of sodium chloride 801° C. 



There is an interesting description with photographs 

 in Engineering for October i of what is in many 

 respects the most remarkable old steam engine in 

 existence. This is a Newcomen engine used at the 

 Farme Colliery, Rutherglen, near Glasgow. The valve 

 gear is of the simplest possible kind, and is worked 

 by hand, just as was the case with the original New- 

 comen engine. . The engine is used for winding, and 

 draws a cage up in 35 seconds, making 16 revolutions 

 while doing so. The cylinder has a diameter of 2 ft. 

 8| in., and the stroke is 5 ft. 6 in. The mean pressure 

 is 7-35 lb. per sq. in., and the boiler pressure is 3 lb. 

 per sq. in. The maximum indicated horse-power is 27. 



In addition to the works referred to in the last two 

 numbers of Nature, the following forthcoming books 

 of science are announced : — In Agriculture — The Spirit 

 of the Soil : An Authorised Exposition of the Theories 

 and Results evolving from Prof. Bottomley's Inocula- 

 tion of Soil by Means of Bacteria, G. D. Knox, illus- 

 trated (Constable and Co., Ltd.); Poultry Husbandry, 

 E. Brown, illustrated (E. Arnold). In Anthropology 

 and Archaeology — Savage Man of Central Africa, Dr. 

 A. L. Cureau (T. Fisher Unwin, Ltd.). In Biology — 

 The Hill Birds of Scotland, S. Gordon, illustrated; 

 Thirty-five Years in the New Forest, Hon. G. Las- 

 celles, illustrated (E. Arnold); Trout Fly-Fishing in 



