424 



NA TURE 



[Februarv 28, 1901 



for lumber or wood pulp. The manufacture of this pulp from 

 -spruce is an industry yet in its infancy, only a few mills being 

 in operation. The demand for the product for paper-making is 

 practically unlimited, and the sup ply in New Brunswick very great, 

 while the transport facilities of the province for shipment either 

 to British or Eastern American ports are excellent. In 1891 there 

 were no Government -supervised butter and cheese factories, 

 now there are about lOO; in 1895 there were no modern roller 

 wheat mills, in 1900 about 80,000 barrels of flour were manu- 

 factured. The dykelands round the Bay of Fundy are the most 

 fertile agricultural lands in the temperate zone, and perfectly 

 self-sustaining ; as also is the majority of the land situated along 

 the shores of the rivers and lakes. 



The difiSculties involved in the manipulation of a long celluloid 

 film have prevented the extensive use of kinematographic appara- 

 tus by amateur photographers. To avoid this objection, Mr. Leo 

 Kamm has invented a camera — the Kammatograph — in which a 

 circular glass plate takes the place of the celluloid film. The 

 plate can be made to rotate rapidly by means of a multiplying 

 gear, and at the same time it travels laterally. A small lens 

 forms an image upon the plate, and when the plate is put in 

 motion these images are multiplied into a series of pictures 

 -arranged in a spiral. The character of the pictures and their 

 distribution will be understood from the accompanying reproduc- 

 tion of a small part of a series produced in this way. The plate 



is, of course, developed precisely in the same way as an ordinary 

 negative, and a positive is then taken from it. To display the 

 series of pictures it is only necessary to place the positive in the 

 camera and to arrange the camera so that the beam from a 

 lantern close to it can pass through the lens. The plate is then 

 rotated as before, and the succession of the pictures projected 

 upon the screen reproduces the original movements. About six 

 hundred pictures can be photographed during the motion of a 

 single plate, at a rate of about twelve or fourteen a second. 

 The camera is very compact, and both as regards price and 

 adaptability is within the reach of any photographer who wishes 

 <to secure pictures of rapidly changing scenes and moving objects. 

 The small size of the pictures will not permit of projection upon 

 a large screen, but the views can be shown large enough for 

 ordinary purposes. 



From the point of view of public health, it is undesirable to 

 cut up open spaces used for recreation near large cities. The 

 Commons and Footpaths Preservation Society directs attention 

 to the fact that there are several private bills, now 

 ■before Parliament, which propose to take power to interfere 

 with commons, village greens and open spaces. The City and 



NO. 1635, VOL. 63] 



North-East Suburban Electric Railway will seriously aflfect 

 Hackney Marshes and Leyton Marshes, and, in a lesser degree, 

 Victoria Park. The line is to be for the most part in tunnel, 

 but where it crosses Hackney Marshes and Leyton Marshes, two 

 exceptionally valuable open spaces, it will emerge from the 

 tunnels and run on an embankment varying from 5 feet to 

 20 feet in height. Two short branch lines will also be erected 

 on the surface of the Marshes, and altogether about twenty-five 

 acres of common land will be abstracted. The North-East 

 London Railway also seek powers to run a line on an embank- 

 ment, varying from 14 to 31 feet in height, over Walthamstow 

 and Leyton Marshes. The construction of more than two miles of 

 high embankments on a much-used and highly valuable stretch 

 of common land would practically destroy its utility as an open 

 space and injure its amenity. The Society has therefore 

 resolved to oppose the bills. 



We learn from the Scientific American that the Niagara Falls 

 Power Company has about completed its second power trans- 

 mission line between Niagara Falls and Buffalo. The new line 

 possesses special interest because of the fact that the cables are 

 made of aluminium. The three-phase current is transmitted 

 by three cables, each composed of thirty-seven strands. The 

 old line consists of six copper cables, each of which has nine- 

 teen strands. One advantage gained in the use of aluminiam is 

 that the cables being so much lighter, the span between poles, 

 which in the old line is about 75 feet, averages 112^ feet in the 

 new line. On the completion of the aluminium line, the 

 voltage of the current that is transmitted will be raised from 

 11,000 to 22,000 volts. 



We have received from Mr. R. F. Stupart, director, a copy 

 of the Report of the Meteorological Service of Canada for the 

 year 1897, a large quarto volume of 292 pages. Observations 

 were made at 314 stations ; at the chief stations, where all the 

 ordinary observations are taken day and night at equal intervals 

 of time not exceeding four hours, at the telegraphic reporting 

 stations, where the observations are taken three times daily, 

 and at some few of the special stations, the observers are paid 

 for the time which they devote to the duties required of them, 

 but at the bulk of the stations the work is purely voluntary, the 

 Meteorological Department at Toronto simply supplying the 

 necessary instruments. A liberal exchange of telegraphic 

 reports takes place between the United States and Canada, from 

 which data a very comprehensive daily weather chart is con- 

 structed and on the basis of these charts forecasts and storm- 

 warning notices are issued. The storm warnings are very 

 successful, about 86 per cent, being fully verified, while the 

 direction from which the wind would blow was fully verified, 

 to the extent of about 94 per cent. The daily forecasts obtain 

 an average success of 81 per cent. They are disseminated to 

 the agricultural community by discs on the baggage vans of out- 

 going morning trains. The tables of observations and results 

 are very carefully prepared, and the whole report furnishes an 

 important contribution to climatological knowledge. 



The Society for the Protection of Birds has issued a small 

 pamphlet, by Surgeon-General Bidie, urging the need of effective 

 protection for wild birds in India. 



Two numbers (18 and 19) of the Circular of the Royal 

 Botanic Gardens, Ceylon, have reached us ; the one giving a 

 list of the kinds of ornamental and timber trees best suited for 

 planting in the island, and the other describing certain cater- 

 pillars which infest the tea-plant. 



Much interest attaches to Mr. J. P. Smith's account, in the 

 American Naturalist , of the coiled larval shell found attached 

 to the lower extremity of many specimens of Baculites from the 

 Cretaceous beds of Dakota. This straight-shelled Cretaceous 



