NATURE 



[March 7, 191 1 



and also at Somerset College, Bath, he Ijecame 

 assistant to his father, who was then lecturer on 

 elocution in University College, London. In 

 1868-70 Dr. Bell matriculated at London Uni- 

 versity and attended medical classes at University 

 College. As he was very delicate and as two of 

 his brothers had died from tuberculosis, his father 

 decided to emigrate to Canada in the hope of sav- 

 ing his life, and took a house at Brantford, near 

 Tutela Heights, Ontario. In 1871 Dr. Bell gave 

 instruction to the teachers of deaf-mute children 

 in Boston, and in 1873 he was appointed professor 

 of physiology at Boston University. 



Dr. Bell began his career as an inventor very 

 early. When sixteen years of age he invented a 

 method of removing husks from wheat, and in 

 conjunction with one of his brothers made a speak- 

 ing automaton. In 1874 he invented a system of 

 harmonic multiple telegraphy, and greatly im- 

 proved his "articulating telephone." Amongst his 



him fame and wealth, he is one of the most modest 

 of men. As he is only seventy-one years of age, 

 we hope that he will yet be spared for a long time, 

 so that he may see the great expansion of the tele- 

 phone industry which we anticipate in the imme- 

 diate future. A. R. 



THE, RADIO-ACTIVITY 

 CANADIAN MINERAL 



OF SOME 

 SPRINGS. 



DR. J. SATTERLEY, whose work on the radio- 

 activity of the atmosphere, of river and well 

 waters, and of the ocean is well known, and Mr. 

 R. T. Elworthy, of the Canadian Department of 

 Mines, in Bulletin No. 16, part i., issued by that 

 department, report on the radio-activity of forty- 

 seven mineral springs and twenty-three deep-well 

 waters of the Dominion, the chemical character 

 and composition of which are later to be dealt with 



Memorial erected at Brantford, On 



ccmtnemorate the invention of the telephone. 



later inventions we may mention the photophone, 

 the induction balance, the telephone probe, the 

 spectrophone, and, with C. A. Bell, the grapho- 

 phone. In 1903 he invented tetrahedral kites, and 

 in conjunction with the Aerial Experiment Asso- 

 ciation (1903-8) suggested numerous improve- 

 ments in connection with aeroplanes. The outcome 

 of their joint work was the "Red Wing," which 

 made the first public flight in America at Hants- 

 port, Mass., in March, 1908. 



This country was in no hurry to honour Dr. 

 Bell. It was not until 1906 that Oxford Uni- 

 versity made him a Doctor of Science, and not 

 until 191 3 that the Royal Society gave him a 

 Hughes medal and the Institution of Electrical 

 Engineers made him an honorary member. Surely 

 never were honours better deserved. He is held 

 in universal esteem by electricians the world 

 , over, and although his inventions have brought 

 NO. 2523, VOL. lOl] 



in part ii. The examination was undertaken in 

 view of the belief that the therapeutic value of 

 mineral waters may be ascribed to their radio- 

 activity, a hypothesis which, on account of the 

 high radio-activity of many of the spas, celebrated 

 from very early times, and the lack of virtue in 

 the same water, transported from the spa, or 

 waters artificially prepared to identical chemical 

 composition, is certainly a plausible one. 



The content of the water, both in radium emana- 

 tion, which, of course, disappears spontaneously 

 on keeping, and in radium itself, which acts as a 

 permanent source of fresh emanation, has been 

 investigated, the Canadian waters being charac- 

 terised usually by the absence of dissolved radium, 

 although frequently possessing relatively consider- 

 able amounts of the emanation. Fifty of the 

 springs and wells examined were situated in 

 eastern Ontario and western Quebec, a map of 



