May 9, 191 8] 



NATURE 



187 



economic value. He pointed out that the situation 

 •created by the war had intensified the national in- 

 terest in questions of economic importance, and 

 that the abuse and neglect of the natural resources 

 of this country were now being- closely investi- 

 gated, as evidenced by the report of the Coal Con- 

 servation Committee. Coal is certainly at present, 

 and will probably be for some time to come, our 

 principal source of power, but it should not be 

 overlooked that i cubic foot of water per second 

 falling through ii ft. can supply a horse-power unit 

 .to any modern turbine. The past neglect of the water 

 resources of the country is, therefore, an economic 

 waste which should not be tolerated any longer. 

 Of a total of 10^ million horse-power generated 

 in industrial engines in 1907 in Great Britain and 

 Ireland, only about 180,000, or i'6 per cent., was 

 attributable to water. 



Unfortunately, few of the larger English rivers 

 are trustworthy enough in discharge, or possess 

 sufficient intensity of fall, to render them utilisable 

 to any great extent. On the other hand, there are 

 large rivers in the Scottish Highlands which have 

 falls of 14 ft. to 16 ft. per mile, and several Irish 

 rivers have very considerable falls almost at the 

 points where they enter the sea. Scotland, 

 particularly the region which lies north of the 

 Forth and the Clyde, possesses greater potentiali- 

 ties of supply than any other part of Great Britain. 

 Taken as a whole, it has the greatest rainfall, the 

 only localities comparable with it being Seathwaite, 

 in Cumberland, and Snowdon, in Wales. (An 

 annual rainfall of 160 in. has been recorded on Ben 

 Nevis, 182 in. in Cumberland, and 193 in. on 

 Snowdon.) 



Mr. Newlands computed that in Scotland — 

 chiefly in the Scottish Highlands — there are about 

 11,500 sq. miles of country with a rainfall of 50 in. 

 or more, as compared with 3360 sq. miles in 

 England, 3390 sq. miles in Wales, and 5910 

 sq. miles in Ireland. By impounding the discharge 

 from the lock basins, and assuming an average 

 rainfall of 42 in. (representing a yield from the 

 catchment area' of 3 cubic feet a second per 

 ■sq. mile), of which two-thirds, or 28 in., would be 

 available for power purposes, he estimated that the 

 supply in Scotland would amount to 375,000 horse- 

 power in round figures. This is exclusive of the 

 basins of the Clyde, the Forth, and the Tweed, 

 on- account of their other important interests, and 

 of rivers and small streams. By diversions and 

 the linking-up of adjoining catchment areas, and 

 by impounding in excess of the quantity provided 

 for in the estimate, it might be assumed that for, 

 say, 100 days' supply 650,000 horse-power would 

 be available. 



According to the figures of Mr. Archibald Page, 

 of Glasgow, the power requirements of Scotland 

 in 1916 were 1,119,000 horse-power units, and it 

 would appear, therefore, that there is sufficient 

 water-power in the Scottish Highlands to meet a 

 large proportion of this demand, though it is 

 doubtful whether, after development and trans- 

 mission to existing industrial areas, the cost would 

 •be less than that of power generated there at the 

 NO. 2532, VOL. lOl] 



pit-head. One of the most interesting features of 

 this water-power was that it existed in a territory 

 destitute of coal. 



In surveying the situation in regard to England, 

 Wales, and Ireland, Mr. Newlands remarked that 

 the absence of large lochs and the lack of sufficient 

 elevation in the country as a whole detracted from 

 the possibilities of any great development of water- 

 power, which, so far as it was available, would 

 have to be derived from river-flow. The paper 

 concluded with a plea for more support and recog- 

 nition of the work of the British Rainfall Organisa- 

 tion and of the Scottish Meteorological Society 

 than those bodies receive. 



Brysson Cunningham. 



SOME AMERICAN VIEWS ON 

 AERONAUTICS. 

 r\N April 14. 1917, the American Philosophical 

 ^^ Society held at Philadelphia a "Symposium 

 on Aeronautics, " of which the papers are now pub- 

 lished in the society's Proceedings (vol. Ivi., No. 3). 

 The titles of some of the papers contributed to 

 the conference — namely, "Dynamical Aspects, "by 

 Prof. A. G. Webster; "Physical Aspects," by 

 George O. Squier; "Mechanical Aspects," by Dr. 

 \V. F. Durand; "Aerology," by William B. 

 Blair; and " Engineering Aspects," by Dr. 

 Jerome C. Hunsaker — show that every attempt was 

 made to ensure a thoroughly representative dis- 

 cussion. But in reviewing the proceedings one 

 cannot help being struck with the opinion that 

 modern aeronautics is too straggling a subject or 

 collection of subjects to be dealt with efficiently 

 in a meeting of this character. Thus, Dr. Web- 

 ster, the author of a standard treatise on "Rigid 

 Dynamics," reproduces certain familiar dia- 

 grams of lines of flow and explains the mean- 

 ing of lift and drag ; Mr. Squier tells us that in the 

 past few years several elements, helium, argon, 

 neon, krypton, and xenon, have been found in the 

 air; Dr. Durand enumerates the problems which 

 have to be solved in the development of the aero- 

 plane — problems more often enumerated than 

 solved; while in Mr. Blair's paper a large amount 

 of space is taken up with twelve diagrams, al- 

 though he fails to explain what connection these 

 figures have with the mean of wind observations 

 in "Highs" and "Lows," or what the diff"erent 

 parts of the diagrams represent. The three pages 

 which Dr. Louis A. Bauer devotes to his subject 

 refer to difficulties attending the use of the com- 

 pass in aeroplanes arising from deviations of the 

 apparent vertical due to normal and other 



accelerations. 



An original composition to the programme of 

 the meeting is represented by Prof. Edwin B. 

 Wilson's second paper on "The Theory of 

 an Aeroplane Encountering Gusts." The 

 first of these papers was published in 191 5 

 by the American Government Advisory Com- 

 mittee. Together the two constitute a mathe- 

 matical extension of the theory of small oscilla- 

 tions from free to forced oscillations. Apart 



