March 7, 1901] 



NATURE 



4+9 



tions of life of the people they might send to the tropics to push 

 their commerce. Hitherto Liverpool merchants had had more 

 to do with the development of trade in that part of the world 

 than perhaps any other merchants. That trade promised to be 

 of great magnitude, and no amount of time and money could 

 be devoted to a better purpose than to improve the conditions 

 of life on the West Coast. They in Liverpool had done some- 

 thing by establishing the School of Tropical Medicine, which 

 had inspired the whole world with a sense of its responsibility. 

 Prof. Boyce suggested that the chambers should send out an 

 expedition of experienced medical men and a young engineer to 

 draw up definite schemes for drainage and water supply. Mr. 

 A. Hutton, chairman of the African section of the Manchester 

 Chamber of Commerce, declared that the sanitary condition of 

 some West African coast towns was disgraceful. If they, de- 

 decided that a commission should be sent out they had better 

 send it themselves, and not wait for the Government. Major 

 Ross agreed with the suggestion to send out another commis- 

 sion. Municipal regulations, he said, were absolutely ignored 

 on the coast, and the Government should be urged to take an 

 interest in the matter. It was unanimously decided to ask Mr. 

 Chamberlain to receive a deputation to consult with him on the 

 questions of sewage disposal, water supply, malaria, and 

 dysentery in West Africa. 



A REGRETTABLE State of affairs with regard to the prepara- 

 tion of a Lexicon of the native language of New Zealand, is des- 

 cribed in an obituary notice of the Rev. W. Colenso, F.R.S., 

 just published in the "Year Book of the Royal Society." We 

 trust that the following plain statement of the position of the 

 work will lead to something being done to ensure its completion. 

 "In 1 86 1 Mr. Colertso entered Parliament as representative of 

 Napier, when he moved and carried a resolution that the time 

 had come for the State to make an organised attempt to rescue 

 the dying language of New Zealand from oblivion. Being at 

 the time unable to undertake such a work himself, he offered to 

 present the Government with his whole collection of materials 

 for it. In 1865 the Government took up the subject, and in 

 1866 Mr. Colenso, then being more at liberty, was successfully 

 urged, as the one man in New Zealand thoroughly qualified, to 

 take up the work. Seven years was fixed for its completion, 

 the remuneration to be 300/. per annum. Before half that 

 period had expired, another Ministry, with other views of the 

 value of a Lexicon, had supervened, by whom its author was 

 informed that, half the time allowed for the completion of the 

 work having expired, one-half of the work itself should have 

 been in the press. On the unreasonableness of this view in the 

 case of a work requiring innumerable cross references being 

 represented, a committee of qualified persons was appointed to 

 exatiiine and report on the progress made. The report was to 

 the effect that the author had advanced further In his work than 

 was due up to the time employed, that thousands of pages |had 

 been written from the first word to the last, and that seven 

 years was too short a time for the completion of a work of such 

 magnitude. The report was withheld from Parliament, funds 

 for proceeding with the Lexicon were refused, and the unfinished 

 materials were thrown upon the author's hands, one finger of 

 which was permaliently disabled by writer's cramp, due to his 

 labours on the Lexicon. A sample portion was, however, 

 demanded to be laid before the House, and letter. A produced, 

 but this was "lost," and not discovered till eighteen years 

 afterwards in a departmental pigeon-hole. It was then printed 

 and distributed by Government, partly at its author's expense, 

 in the year preceding his death. Its appearance, dedicated to 

 his old friend Sir George Grey, has been followed by urgent 

 representations to the Colonial Government that the whole 

 ■materials, which are bequeathed to the State, should be entrusted 

 to a competent editor for publication." 



NO. 1636, VOL. 63] 



We have received from Dr. Ilergesell, president of the Inter- 

 national Aeronautical Committee, a preliminary account of the 

 results of the ascents on February 7. A manned balloon from 

 Cracow attained a height of 4000 metres and recorded a mini- 

 mum temperature of -11° F. One of the unmanned balloons 

 from Berlin reached an altitude of 9490 metres and registered a 

 temperature of -67°; a manned balloon was also sent up. 

 Two unmanned balloons ascended from Trappes (near Paris) ; 

 one of them reached 12,700 metres and recorded a temperature 

 of - 67°. From Strassburg two ascents were made ; a paper 

 balloon rose to 8000 metres and a temperature of -49" was 

 registered. Ascents were also made from Vienna and Bath. 

 M. Teisserenc de Bort has promised to send one of his co- 

 adjutors to Moscow with the view of organising unmanned: 

 balloon ascents from that place. 



An interesting description of the Lake Superior mining district 

 is contributed to the Century Magazine by Mr. W. Fawcett. 

 The yearly output of ore in the district amounts to twenty 

 million tons, which is more than double the product of any 

 other iron- mining region in the world during any single year in 

 history. None of the mines in the Lake Superior country are 

 more than a hundred miles from the lake, but the hills on the 

 summits of which the deposits are found are, in some cases, 

 more than a quarter of a mile above the level of the lake. 

 Several methods of mining are in vogue in the four ranges of the 

 iron region. On the Mesabi range the ore is taken out by 

 means of steam-shovels. The Mesabi ore is found in great 

 masses on the slopes of hills, and virtually the only task 

 before the miner is to scoop it up and load it into the trucks 

 standing on the siding, which are run into the mine just as 

 trucks are often backed into a stone-quarry. Out of some of 

 these immense holes in the ground more than a million tons of 

 ore are taken every year, and it is all dipped up by steam- 

 shovels. Improved systems of mine haulage are also used. 

 Electric or compressed-air motors draw trains, each composed 

 of about twenty trucks, from the mouth of the shaft to the 

 point underground where the ore is being dug out, and machine- 

 drills, driven by compressed air, have displaced the hammer and 

 drill of the pioneer miner. 



At the Institution of Civil Engineers on Tuesday, February 26, 

 Messrs. W. H. Stanger and B. Blount described the rotatory 

 process of manufacturing cement. By this process it is possible 

 to approach the theoretical ratio of acids to bases, and to obtain 

 a cement which is stronger and sounder than the best cements 

 commercially prepared by discontinuous processes. The largest 

 and most complete installation of rotatory kilns is that at the 

 works of the Atlas Cement Company of Northampton, Pennsyl- 

 vania. The output of this works is between 8000 and 9000 tons 

 per week, i.e. about four times the amount of most large European 

 works, and the whole quantity is obtained from rotatory kilns. 

 The raw materials used by the Atlas Company are a calcareous 

 shale and a limestone. These are crushed, dried, finely 

 powdered and fed mechanically into rotatory kilns. The kilns 

 are steel cylinders 60 feet by 6 feet 6 inches, set on a slight 

 incline and capable of being rotated by suitable gearing. The 

 fuel is powdered coal driven in by a blast of air through an 

 injector burner at the lower end of the kiln. An intensely hot 

 flame, readily controllable, is thus produced, and heats the raw 

 materials introduced at the upper end of the kiln, and caused to 

 travel downwards in a direction opposite to that of the blast. 

 The materials are thus heated systematically, and at the lower 

 end of the kiln near the burner become converted into clinker. 

 This falls into a rotating cylinder lined with firebrick, through 

 which passes a current. of air serving to feed the coal-dust flame. 

 A great part of the heat of the clinker is thus regenerated. The 

 clinker is then roughly crushed between rolls which work under 



