546 



NATURE 



[April 4, 1901 



accurately known to one unit in that figure. Prof. J. Emerson 

 Reynolds was elected president of the Society, in succession to 

 Dr. Thorpe. At the annual dinner of the Society, held on 

 Wednesday, March 27, toasts were proposed and acknow- 

 ledged by Dr. Thorpe (who presided). Prof. Tilden, the Lord 

 Chancellor, Sir Herbert Maxwell, Lord Kelvin, Prof. Dewar, 

 Mr. A. B. Kempe, Prof. S. P. Thompson, Prof. Emerson 

 Reynolds, Sir W. S. Church, Sir Francis Mowatt and Sir 

 Henry Roscoe. 



At the annual meeting of the Institution of Naval Architects, 

 on March 27-29, the Earl of Glasgow was elected president. 

 The next meeting of the Institution will be held at Glasgow, on 

 June 25-28. An international engineering congress will be 

 held in Glasgow early in September, and the Institution has 

 undertaken the management of the section relating to naval 

 architecture and marine engineering. The Earl of Glasgow 

 delivered an address, in which he reviewed the progress of 

 shipping during the past year, commenting upon the announce- 

 ment recently made by the First Lord of the Admiralty, that, 

 for the first time in our history, submarine boats have been 

 ordered for experimental purposes. At the close of the presi- 

 dent's address, Prof. G. H. Bryan, F.R.S., was presented with 

 the gold medal of the Institution for his paper on the action of 

 bilge keels. Prof. J. H. Biles then read a paper on naval 

 construction in the United States. Among other matters he 

 noted some rather important details common to the larger 

 classes of American ships. Cofferdams filled with obturating 

 material, which is expected to expand when in contact with the 

 water, are fitted very generally at the sides of the ship. This 

 material is the pith of the corn stock, and has been experimented 

 upon very fully by the navy department, with the result that 

 designs have been prepared with the intention of adopting 

 it generally. It is evident that if the corn stock material swells 

 when in contact with water sufficiently to fill up holes made by 

 shot, it will have an important effect upon the margin of stability 

 and probably of buoyancy of a ship in action. Another paper 

 read before the Institution was on an instrument for measuring 

 the rolling of ships, by Mr. A. Mallock, who, after pointing out 

 the difficulty of accurately measuring the angle of roll of a ship, 

 described an indicator which would give a very accurate measure 

 of the rolls in all circumstances. 



Important papers were read at the meeting referred to in 

 the foregoing note. Herr Otto Schlick described experiments 

 to determine the cause of small vibrations in the Deutsch- 

 land during her trial trip in June last. The conclusion arrived 

 at from his experiments is that one blade of the propeller 

 has a greater resistance in turning than the other blades, or that 

 the opposite blade has a correspondingly less resistance. Such 

 greater resistance of the one blade is in most cases probably to 

 be attributed to its greater pitch. The least deviation in the 

 pitch, which cannot be proved by ordinary instruments, appears 

 to cause perceptible vertical vibrations, and therefore the 

 greatest care should be taken in the manufacture of propellers, 

 not only for the sake of doing away with vibration, but also to 

 save power and prevent breakage of the blades. Mr. C. H. 

 Wingfield discussed the view that the thrust of a submerged 

 propeller is greatest on those parts of the blade which are most 

 deeply immersed, and gave reasons for an opposite conclusion. 

 Papers on the mathematics of engine-balancing were read by 

 Mr. J. Macfarlane Gray and Prof. W. E. Dalby. Captain W. 

 Hovgaard, of the Danish Navy, dealt with the motion of sub- 

 marine boats in a vertical plane. He pointed out that for such 

 submarine boats as are now generally constructed, of from 100 

 to 200 tons displacement, and with our present means of under- 

 water propulsion^ a speed above twelve knots must be con- 

 sidered high. Mathematical considerations show that such 



NO. 1640, VOL. 63] 



boats should be long, deep, and comparatively narrow, with 

 great metacentric height. Moreover, the necessity for drawing 

 the centre of gravity forward and the centre of lateral resistance 

 aft leads to a deep, narrow forebody and a i^at and broad aft- 

 body, with large horizontal fins aft. The French submarine 

 boats Gusiave Zed^, Morse and others approximate to this type. 

 Boats of less than six knots may be regarded aS of low speed. 

 In such boats great length is not necessary, and, on the whole, 

 is objectionable as regards internal arrangements and weight of 

 hull. In them it is not requisite to draw the centre of lateral 

 resistance so far aft of the centre of gravity as in the high-speed 

 boat, and they should, therefore, be of short length, small 

 depth and great breadth. The metacentric height should be 

 made as great as possible by a low centre of gravity, and large 

 horizontal fins should be fitted aft. The Holland Torpedo 

 Boat Company's first boat, the Holland, approaches this type, 

 but differs in having greater depth and stability. For submarine 

 boats to be able to travel below the surface for a distance of two, 

 or perhaps three, miles is sufficient for most purposes. 



Mr. H. G. Wells commences, in the current number of the 

 Fortnightly Review, a series of speculative papers upon 

 some changes of civilised life and conditions of living likely 

 to occur in the new century. To construct a prehistoric 

 animal from one or two fossil bones is a much easier task 

 than the prediction of future developments from the point 

 of view of the present ; but Mr. Wells attempts to do this, and 

 even if his prophetic visions do not materialise they will con- J 

 vince the conservative mind that there is some virtue in dissatis- \ 

 faction at many of the methods of to-day. The subject of 

 the first article is land locomotion in the twentieth century, and 

 it scarcely requires a prophetic afflatus to know that the present 

 systems will be largely superseded or modified. Horse traffic, 

 with its cruelty and filth, while the animals exhaust and pollute 

 the air, must give place to motor carriages in a few years. The 

 railways will then develop in order to save themselves. There 

 will be continuous trains, working perhaps upon a plan like that 

 of the moving platform of the Paris Exhibition, or utilising the 

 principle'of the rotating platform outlined by Prof. Perry in these 

 columns (vol. Ixii. p. 412, 1900). Nothing is said about the 

 possibilities of aeronautics, not because of any doubt as to its 

 final practicability, but because "I do not think it at all 

 probable that aeronautics will ever come into play as a serious 

 modification of transport and communication." It is, of course, 

 impossible to project ourselves into the future so as to say 

 exactly what will or will not come to pass ; for an estimate of 

 future performances can only be made with the material now 

 available, and it leaves out of account the completely novel 

 discoveries which often revolutionise the whole conditions. 

 Nevertheless, it is not unprofitable to meditate upon the promise 

 of progress. 



An address on weather knowledge and agriculture, delivered 

 by Dr. Richar.d Bornstein at the Royal College of Agriculture 

 of Berlin, in celebration of the Kaiser's birthday and of the two 

 hundredth anniversary of the foundation of the kingdom of 

 Prussia, has recently been issued in pamphlet form (" Wetter- 

 kunde und Landwirtschaft." Berlin : Paul Parey). Its con- 

 cluding pages refer in most complimentary terms to the Kaiser's 

 generous share in the promotion of scientific ballooning in 

 Berlin, but the bulk of the address deals with the development 

 of the German service of weather forecasts, and with suggestions, 

 for improving their accuracy and utility. Dr. Bornstein would 

 have forecasts issued by local meteorological authorities, based 

 on information supplied by telegraph from a central depart- 

 ment and supplemented by knowledge of local climatology ; he 

 would also secure a more intelligent use of the information con*^ 

 veyed in the forecasts by the extension of instruction in the laws j 



