July i8, 191 8] 



NATURE 



399 



The complete destruction often caused by a single 

 tornado makes it exirenoely unsafe for any local mutual 

 insurance company to insure over a small area only, 

 where the loss occasioned by one tornado may ruin 

 the company. On the whole, general tornado insur- 

 ance in the "tornado belt," and buildings erected 

 without regard to the possibility of tornado occurrence, 

 seems to be the best policy. The present status of 

 tornado insurance in the United States is an excellent 

 illustration of the mistakes which are made when 

 thoroughly well established scientific facts, which are 

 easily accessible to the public, are disregarded. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 

 The Education Bill was read for a third time in 

 the House of Commons on July i6, and will be con- 

 sidered at once in the House of Lords. It is expected 

 that the Bill will be passed into law before the Par- 

 liamentary recess. 



By the will of the late Lord Rhondda the governing 

 body of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, will 

 receive out of the residue of his estate the sum of 

 20,000/., to be applied at its discretion for the benefit 

 of the college, but preferably in the establishment 

 and maintenance of six to ten scholarships tenable at 

 the college for mathematics, natural science, or moral 

 science (including economics), preference being given, 

 ceteris paribus, in the awarding of such scholarships 

 to residents or sons of residents in Wales or Mon- 

 nmuthshire. 



The Industrial Reconstruction Council has arranged 

 a series of lectures to be given at the Saddlers' Hall, 

 Cheapside, October to December next. The lectures 

 will be as follows: — "Commerce and Industry after 

 the War." Sir Albert Stanley (President of the -Board 

 of Trade); "Principles of Reconstruction," Dr. 

 Christopher Addison (Minister of Reconstruction) ; 

 '• Functions of the Government in Relation to In- 

 dustry," Mr. W. L. Hichens (managing director, 

 Cammell, Laird, and Co.) ; " International Trade," 

 Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland (Department of Overseas 

 Trade); "Labour and Industrial Development," Mr. 

 Ernest J. P. Benn (chairman, Industrial Reconstruc- 

 tion Council); and "Science and Industry," Sir 

 William S. McCormick (Department of Industrial and 

 Scientific Research). 



The report of the librarian of the Congress of the 

 L'nited States for iqiy gives a full account of the 

 progress of this great library. A grant of no 

 less than 676,714 dollars was provided for the 

 institution by Congress. The library now contains 

 more than 2^ million volumes, besides manuscripts, 

 maps and charts, music, and prints. Among other 

 valuable acquisitions it contains the largest, most 

 readily accessible, best catalogued, and most used col- 

 lection in America of Chinese books. Large addi- 

 tions have been made to the valuable library of music. 

 Great stores of materials for the studv of social his- 

 tory have been brought together, including both 

 ancient and modern political documents, such as those 

 of Mr. Bancroft Davis, Israel Washburn, and others. 

 The collections are splendidly housed, and the work of 

 arrangement and cataloguing is in active progress. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 



Geological Society, June 19.— Mr. G. W, Lamplugh, 



president, in the chair. — Sir Douglas Mawson : Some 



features of the .Antarctic ice-cap. The ice-mantle of 



the south formerly involved the sub-Antarctic Islands, 



Patagonia, southern New Zealand, and the higher 



NO. 2542, VOL. lOl] 



mountains of Tasmania and of the neighbouring por- 

 tions of Australia, but it retreated to its present con- 

 fines — a circumpolar continent — at a time apparently 

 concurrent with the disappearance of the extensive 

 Pleistocene ice-sheets of the northern hemisphere. 

 The existence of a great land mass situated on the 

 face of the globe just where the sun's rays fall most 

 obliquely has the effect of intensifying the polar condi- 

 tions. This result is achieved by reason of the 

 elimination of the ameliorating influence of the ocean 

 and as a result of the acceleration of the circulation 

 of the moist atmosphere from the surrounding sea to 

 the land, owing to the wide differeoce in temperature 

 pertaining over the one and the other. Thus the 

 presence of extensive land at the Pole, in contra- 

 distinction to ocean, results, under present cosmical 

 conditions, in increased refrigeration, and consequently 

 in greater extension of the polar ice-cap. This, in 

 turn, reflects on the average temperature of other 

 regions of the globe, for an ice surface absorbs but 

 a relatively small proportion of the sun's radiant heat. 

 The existence of the Antarctic continent must there- 

 fore have some bearing on the climate of the northern 

 hemisphere, and be reckoned with as a factor con- 

 tributing to the refrigeration thereof. The shelf-ice 

 formations, including the Rpss Barrier and the 

 Shackleton Shelf, were specially referred to; mention 

 was made of their growth and decline, of a rnethod 

 of determining their depth below water, and of the 

 probability of specialised life existing beneath such 

 formations. 



Physical Society, June 28. — Prof. C. H. Lees, presi- 

 dent, in the chair. — I. Williams: A new method of 

 measuring alternating currents and electric oscilla- 

 tions. The method consists of the application of the 

 Crookes and Osborne Reynolds radiometers to the 

 measurement of the R.M.S. values of electric cur- 

 rents. Two types of apparatus are described. In 

 the first • of these the heat generated by the passage 

 of the current through a microhm resistance causes 

 the deflection of a light mica vane attached to the 

 extremity of a suspended beam. In the second type 

 the deflection of a fine fibre is employed. Tables and 

 curves are given connecting the indications of the 

 instruments with the current and with the degree of 

 evacuation.— Prof. E. H. Barton and Miss H. M. 

 BroM'ning : Demonstration of coupled vibrations. 

 The apparatus shown consisted of a pair of 

 pendulums, each of which was suspended from 

 the mid-point of a sagging string, the direction of 

 which was transverse to the direction of oscillation 

 of the pendulums. The two sagging strings were 

 connected by a light wooden rod at the points from 

 which the bobs were suspended. Each bob consisted 

 of a metal funnel, from the apex of which a fine 

 stream of sand fell during an experiment. .-\ hori- 

 zontal board could be moved slowly on rails just below 

 the oscillating bobs, and the fine sand falling on this 

 ^ave curves showing their motion. When one bob 

 is set in oscillation, the other being initially at rest, 

 the latter, as is well known, starts to vibrate with 

 graduallv increasing amplitude until the first bob has 

 been brought to a standstill, when the process is 

 reversed. From an examination of the equations of 

 motion it is found that the amount of sag in^ the 

 transverse strings governs the degree of "coupling" 

 of the oscillators, and bv varying this, and also the 

 relative mass and oeriods of the oendulums, curves 

 can be obtained illustrating all the phenomena of 

 coupled electrical oscillations. Bv stopping one of 

 the bobs when it has just been reduced to rest, 

 therebv preventins! the energy from being re-absorbed 

 bv it.' the conditions of the quenched spnrk ran be 

 imitated. 



