November 29, 1900J 



NATURE 



113 



for that date will be postponed until the following day, Tuesday, 

 December 4, to suit the convenience of members and others who 

 might be prevented by the dinner from attending it. 



The Council of the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders 

 in Scotland is arranging an International Engineering Congress, 

 under the presidency of Lord Kelvin, in connection with the 

 Glasgow International Exhibition of 1901. The leading en- 

 gineering and kindred societies have already accorded their 

 hearty support to the congress. An influential London Com- 

 mittee has been formed, and the congress gives every promise of 

 being a success. 



Sir William MacCormac, president of the Royal College of 

 Surgeons of England, has received the Royal licence and authority 

 that he may accept and wear the Cross of Commander of the 

 Legion of Honour, conferred upon him by the President of the 

 French Republic, in recognition of services which he rendered 

 to the French wounded during the war of 1870-71, as well as to 

 the International Congress of Medicine held during the recent 

 Paris Exhibition. 



At the end of this year Dr. H. R. Mill will retire from the 

 post of librarian to the Royal Geographical Society, and will 

 be succeeded by Mr. E. Heawood. The scientific appointment 

 which he has accepted will enable him to devote more attention 

 to the investigation of meteorology and oceanography in their 

 relation to the configuration of the ground than has been possible 

 during his nine years' librarianship. 



At the Imperial Institute on Monday an illustrated public 

 lecture was delivered by Mr. Clement L. Wragge, Government 

 Meteorologist of Queensland, on " The Work of the Queensland 

 Weather Bureau, in its Relation to the Natural Resources and 

 Commerce of Australasia." The work of the Queensland 

 Weather Bureau is divided into two main parts, (i) the investiga- 

 tion of local climates, climatology, and (2) forecasting the weather. 

 In speaking of the daily forecasting service, Mr. Wragge said 

 that by an Inter-colonial system of exchange of data his Bureau 

 is daily placed in possession of barometric and other meteoro- 

 logical readings from every part of Australasia, and the forecasts 

 prepared therefrom are published in the principal daily 

 Australasian papers. He advocated the American system of 

 hoisting flags of different designs and colours at the telegraph 

 offices of every town. The comparison of simultaneous obser- 

 vations of the upper regions of the air, made at mountain obser- 

 vatories, with those made at the nearest point on the sea level, 

 are of great value, as meteorologists are thus enabled to obtain 

 practically vertical sections of the atmosphere. 



We have received the twenty-second report of the Deutsche 

 Seewarte, Hamburg, referring to the work of that important 

 institution for the year 1899. The meteorological services of 

 Germmy are divided into 'two parts. The Central Office at 

 Berlin, whose report we noticed in our issue of last week, deals 

 with the climatological observations over the whole Empire, in 

 co-operation with the various States of Germany ; while the 

 Hamburg Office deals with everything appertaining to maritime 

 meteorology, including storm warnings, and for this purpose has 

 under its control a number of independent stations, especially 

 along the sea coasts. In carrying out these objects. Dr. Neu- 

 mayer has the assistance of Drs. Koppen, van Bebber and other 

 well-known men of science. In glancing through the report, 

 one is at once struck by the persistent and successful endeavours 

 to collect observations made at sea ; the complete logs and ab. 

 stract books received during the year from the ships of the 

 Navy and Mercantile Marine numbered no less than 818. 

 For the supply of log-books the consuls in various parts of the 

 world, including this country, act as agents of the Seewarte. 

 The results are published in valuable tables and charts, which 



NO. 1622. VOL. ^-^ 



are frequently referred to in these columns. For the purpose of 

 issuing weather forecasts and storm warnings the institution is 

 in daily telegraphic communication with all the meteorological 

 services of Europe ; upwards of 3000 telegraphic storm warn- 

 ings were issued to various stations during the year 1899, ^ncl 

 the daily and ten-daily weather reports furnish most trustworthy 

 and useful information, the latter relating to weather conditions 

 over an area extending from North America across the North 

 Atlantic, and far into the continent of Asia. 



Some interesting particulars respecting the growth of the 

 acetylene gas industry are given in a recent report by the British 

 Consul at Stuttgart. Calcium carbide has been known to 

 chemists as an interesting chemical compound for several years, 

 but until recently it was practically unknown to the public. 

 Now its production is one of the most important chemical in- 

 dustries. Germany was foremost to recognise the new illumi- 

 nant, and it has secured the principal place in its production. 

 At present there are at least 200,000 jets of acetylene gas in use 

 in the country, and it is, the Consul says, impossible to predict 

 the result of the competition between it and its rival illuminants. 

 Probably petroleum will suffer most ; coal gas will be superseded 

 to a great extent, especially in lighting small towns, but elec- 

 tricity will not be appreciably affected. No other branch of 

 industry can point to such a large and steady increase in the 

 number of patents, showing that it has encouraged great fertility 

 of invention. Besides producing it at home, German capital has 

 gone abroad to produce carbide, especially to Norway and 

 .Switzerland. One of the greatest successes of the industry has 

 been its application to the lighting of railway carriages on 

 German Government lines. During the current year the con- 

 sumption of carbide in the country is estimated at 17,000 tons, 

 equal in illuminating power to about seven millions of gallons of 

 petroleum. Thirty-two small towns, with populations up to 

 5000, are lighted by acetylene, and many more contemplate its 

 adoption ; and the progress of the system of lighting, says the 

 Consul, is "another striking instance of the manner in which the 

 magnificent system of technical education has prepared the way 

 for the introduction of new scientific achievements." The 

 economic importance of the industry appears from the fact that 

 Germany annually pays about five millions sterling to the United 

 States for petroleum, while acetylene is a purely German in- 

 dustry, carbide being manufactured in the country, which 

 possesses in various parts all the necessary raw materials. 



We have received a copy of an illustrated memoir by Signer 

 Rina Monti, published in the Memorie of the Royal Institute of 

 Lombardy (vol. xix. pt. i.), detailing the results of experiments 

 on the power of regeneration displayed by marine planarians. 

 It was found that if one of these creatures was cut into two or 

 more portions by transverse section, as many complete indi- 

 viduals were produced. 



To the November number of the Zoologist Mr. A. H. Meikle- 

 john contributes a paper on the origin and meaning of the names 

 of British birds, a subject which, according to the author, has 

 hitherto received but little attention. " In most birds' names," 

 he writes, "special stress is invariably laid on some well-known 

 or easily distinguished peculiarity either in cry, flight or appear- 

 ance." Names from the cry, such as pipit, crake, cuckoo, hoo- 

 poe and kittiwake, are especially numerous. To the origin of 

 some, like gull, auk and garganey, there is no clue. 



Since the publication, some years ago, by Prof. D'Arcy Thomp- 

 son, of a paper on the affinities of the Eocene American cetacean, 

 commonly known as Zeuglodon, very little advance in our know- 

 ledge of the genus has taken place. It is, therefore, satisfactory 

 to find Mr. F. A. Lucas, in the Profeedings of the U.S. Museum 

 (vol. xxiii. pp. 327-331), giving an account of the pelvis and 



