I go 



NATURE 



[November 8, 19 17 



of experimental skill and have perhaps never been 

 sufficiently appreciated. 



His later researches were concerned with the 

 peroxides, the constitution of Caro's acid, and par- 

 ticularly with the constittition of the oxonium salts 

 and of the coloured derivatives of triphenyl- 

 methane, and his last research, published in 191 1 

 togfether with Jean Piccard, was on the oxonium 

 salts derived from dimethylpyrone {Annalerij 

 ccclxxxiv., 208, 224). 



W. H. Perkin. 



NOTES. 

 The announcement made by the Admiralty on Satur- 

 day that "an attack was made on our vessels patrol- 

 ling the Belgian coast by an electrically controlled 

 high-speed boat " (which was destroyed in the attempt) 

 recalls the various suggestions and experiments made, 

 ever since Hobson's "bottling" exploit at Santiago, to 

 devise an unmanned craft capable of being steered for 

 attack from a safe distance. Brennan's wire-con- 

 trolled torpedo was a clumsy device compared with the 

 radiotelegraphic control worked out by J. H. Ham- 

 mond in America, and tested before the present war 

 commenced. There is no doubt that it is possible to 

 construct a craft steered by wireless which will attack 

 and hit a target two or three miles off. The difficulty 

 of seeing the craft at such distances from the steering 

 station can be overcome at night by attaching to it 

 a light directed backwards and invisible from the 

 target. But the main objection to wireless control is 

 that it can be "jammed" by the enemy. To meet 

 this difficulty it has been proposed to use a selenium 

 control actuated by a searchlight. There is little 

 doubt that this can be successfully worked over a 

 range of several miles, but here again the objection 

 is that something must emerge and be illuminated, 

 and that this something is liable to destruction by the 

 enemy. The question resolves itself into one of adapt- 

 ability to exceptional circumstances. It will be in- 

 teresting to learn which of the various possible con- 

 structions has been adopted by Germany. The Press 

 Association is authorised to state that four electric- 

 ally controlled boats have already been destroyed. The* 

 boat destroyed last week had a petrol engine, was 

 electrically controlled from the land, and was convoyed 

 by an aeroplane. 



~ An article of considerable length upon the stabilisa- 

 tion of aeroplanes and ships by means of the 

 gyroscope appears in La Nature for October 20. 

 The apparatus designed by Sperry for these purposes 

 is described in some detail. The application to the 

 Case of ships and the superiority of Sperry 's stabiliser 

 to that of Schlick are fairly well known, but the applica- 

 tion to the aeroplane is perhaps less familiar and 

 deserves a word of comment. The claims made for 

 the apparatus are that it relieves the pilot of all control 

 except that of the rudder, and that the machine will 

 continue to fly for almost any length of time at the 

 attitude for which the gyro controls are set. But this 

 is also true of an inherently stable machine, and in- 

 herent stability can be obtained without any addition 

 of weight and without any increase of head resistance 

 such as that due to the windmills which drive the 

 servo-motor and generator of the Sperry apparatus. 

 The Sperry stabiliser may be of some utility for large 

 aeroplanes used for commercial purposes or long 

 passenger flights, but it is certainly not required for 

 military aircraft. One of the greatest necessities for 

 the military machine is flexibility of control and ability 

 to execute manoeuvres, such as looping, spinning, and 

 steep nose-diving. For such a machine the Sperry 

 NO. 2506, VOL. 100] 



stabiliser is worse than useless ; indeed, the construc- 

 tion of the apparatus appears to be such that looping 

 the machine would completely derange the adjustment. 

 The additional weight of the apparatus and the extra 

 head resistance involved are serious drawbacks to its 

 use in any machine, and the great complexity of its 

 mechanism is antagonistic to the best principles of 

 aeroplane design — simplicity and directness of control. 



The Journal of the Royal Society of Arts for Octo- 

 ber 19 contains an extensive extract from Capt. B. C. 

 Hucks's paper enthled "A Further Three Years' Fly- 

 ing Experience," which was read before the Aero- 

 nautical Society last June. This paper is an exceed- 

 ingly interesting one, coming from such an experienced 

 pilot, and contains many points of scientific interest. 

 Possibly the most interesting of these is the question 

 of flight in a cloud, or when the earth is not visible. 

 Capt. Hucks vividly describes his own experience of 

 such flights, and states that in gusty weather it is 

 exceedingly ditlficult to keep the machine on a straight 

 path, and that once control is lost it is almost impos- 

 sible to regain it until out of the cloud. The air- 

 speed indicator and other instruments fitted do not 

 give sufficient indication of the machine's actual 

 motion through space, and Capt. Hucks suggests that 

 some instrument should be fitted which shows a line 

 fixed in space, whatever be the motion of the machine. 

 Such an instrument must apparently depend either on 

 the earth's magnetic field or on gyroscopic action, and 

 the latter seems the more promising. The chief diffi- 

 culty in designing an instrument of this kind is to 

 render the supporting gimbals suflficiently frictionless, 

 as friction will cause the gyroscope to deviate from 

 its initial position. It seems doubtful if an instru- 

 m.ent can be made for continuous use throughout a 

 long flight, but it should be quite possible to design 

 one for intermittent use. The instrument could be set 

 with the gyro axis in some definite direction, such as 

 the vertical, when the machine was flying normally, 

 and then set free when a cloud was encountered. The 

 gyro would maintain its direction sufficiently well for 

 a short time, and could be reset whenever an oppor- 

 tunity afforded. Such an instrument should prove an 

 interesting problem in design for the scientific inven- 

 tor, and would undoubtedly be a valuable addition to 

 the instrument board on an aeroplane. 



We notice with much regret the announcement of 

 the death on November 4, at forty-five years of age, 

 of Mr. W. Duddell, F.R.S., C.B.E., past-president 

 of the Rontgen Society and of the Institution of Elec- 

 trical Engineers. 



We regret to announce the death on November 4, 

 at seventy-two years of age, of Sir David C. McVail, 

 professor of clinical medicine in St. Mungo's College, 

 Glasgow, from 1889 to 1906, and author of a 

 number of publications on physiological subjects, espe- 

 cially on diseases of the heart and lungs. 



The following is a list of those who have been re- 

 cornmended by the president and council of the Royal 

 Society for election into the council at the anniversary 

 meeting on November 30 -.—President, Sir J. J. Thom- 

 son ; Treasurer, Sir A. Kempe ; Secretaries, Prof. A. 

 Schuster and Mr. W. B. Hardy; Foreign Secretary, 

 Prof. W. A. Herdman; Other Members of the Coun- 

 cil, Dr. H. K. Anderson, Sir G. T. Beilby, Prof. G. C. 

 Bourne, Prof. A. R. Cushny, Dr. M. O. Forster, Prof. 

 P. F. Frankland, Dr. J. W. L. Glaisher, Prof. B. 

 Hopkinson, Mr. J. H. Jeans, Prof. W. H.Lang, Major 

 H. G. Lyons, Dr. W. H. R. Rivers, Prof. C. S. 

 Sherrington, Prof. R. J. Strutt, Mr. J. Swinburne, 

 and Prof. W. W. Watts. 



