470 



NATURE 



[February 14, 1918 



"Naturalist's Calendar," gives February 28 as the 

 earliest date of occurrence of this butterfly near Carn- 

 bridge, it is not unusual for specimens to be seen in 

 the south of England several u-eeks earlier. Two pea- 

 cock butterflies were seen by the present writer near 

 Arundel, Sussex, a fortnight before the date of Miss 

 Martyn's record. They were no doubt insects which 

 had hibernated and had been stirred into flight by the 

 warm sunshine. 



At the anniversary meeting of the Royal Astronom- 

 ical Society held on Vebruary 8 the officers and council 

 were elected as follows -.—President, Maj. P. A. Mac- 

 Mahon; Vice-Presidents, Prof. A. S. Eddington, Dr. 

 J. W. L. Glaisher, Prof. R. A. Sampson, and Prof. 

 H. H. Turner; Treasurer, Mr. E. B. Knobel; Secre- 

 taries, Dr. A. C. D. Crommelin and Prof. A. Fowler; 

 Foreign Secretafy, Dr. A. Schuster; Council, Mr. A. E. 

 Conrady, the Rev. A. L. Cortie, S.J., Dr. J. L. E. 

 Dreyer, Sir F. W. Dvson, Col. E. H. Hills, Mr. J. H. 

 Jeans, Mr. H. S. Jones, Mr. E. W. Maunder, Dr. 

 W. H. Maw, Prof. H. F. NevVall, Prof. J. W. Nichol- 

 son, and the Rev. T. E. R. Phillips. 



The possibility of -producing from home sources, 

 hitherto neglected, a certain proportion of the vast 

 amount of mineral oil and its kindred products, now 

 so vital a necessity to our national existence, has been 

 much discussed for some time past in both' the general 

 and technical Press. Particular interest, therefore, is 

 attached to the paper entitled "A New British Oil 

 Industry," by Mr. E. H. Cunningham Craig, Dr. F. 

 Mollwo Perkin, Mr. A. G. V. Berry, and Dr. A. E. 

 Dunstan, to be read at the meeting of the Institution 

 of Petroleum Technologists on February 19, at 8 p.m., 

 at the house of the Royal Society of' Arts, Adelphi, 

 W.C.2. The president of the institution, Mr. C. Green- 

 way, will occupy the chair. 



The council of the Paisley Philosophical Institution 

 has decided to initiate a special research section, and 

 to equip a laboratory for the use of members who 

 desire practically to investigate problems of geology and 

 biology. The institution has a practical interest in the 

 well-equipped Coats 's Observatory, in which research 

 in astronomy and meteorology is provided for. It 

 possesses, also, an outfit for the encouragement of 

 photography. Members are to be at liberty to join the 

 new section by paj'ment of an additional subscription. 

 The satisfactory equipment of the laboratory will cost 

 money ; and this has to be found. The institution has a 

 small reserve fund, but it is proposed to raise a special 

 fund of 150L by subscription, and towards this Mr. 

 Robert Russell, a vice-president, has given 50I. 



In a report presented to the Imperial Institute Com- 

 mittee for Australia on the recent work of the institute 

 for the Commonwealth, particulars are given of the 

 results of an investigation into a series of oils pre- 

 pared during the Australasian Antarctic Expedition 

 and forwarded to the institute by Sir Douglas Mawson. 

 These materials included sea-leopard oil, Weddell seal 

 oil, and penguin oil. The oils have been carefully 

 examined in the Scientific and Technical Department 

 of the Imperial Institute in order to determine their 

 characters in comparison with commercial oils of a 

 similar kind, and have also been submitted to buyers 

 of such oils in the United Kingdom. The oils were 

 of good quality, and could be utilised for the purposes 

 to which commercial seal and whale oils are applied, 

 viz. for soap-making, leather-dressing, burning, etc. 

 There is no doubt that there would be a ready sale for 

 consignments of any of these oils at about the current 

 price of whale and seal oils if thev should become 

 available in commercial quantities. 



NO. 2520, VOL. 100] 



Prof. Magnus Maclean, of Glasgow, gave the Kel- 

 vin lecture to the Institution of Electrical Engineers 

 on February 7. He took for his subject Kelvin as a 

 teacher; and as he was for fifteen years Lord Kelvin's 

 official assistant at Glasgow University, he threw 

 many interesting sidelights on the everyday life of thi 

 great physicist. The lecture consisted mainly of extracts 

 from Kelvin's letters to his assistant, generally giving 

 him instructions to carry out researches. They all 

 show intense eagerness to extend the boundaries of our 

 knowledge of physical science and impatience at the 

 length of time requisite to carry out the necessary 

 experiments. Kelvin's experiments on electric fuses in 

 1886 and on "ampere gauges" (ammeters) in 1888 

 showed how he almost intuitively knew the difficulties 

 that would arise, and apparently that he never was at 

 a loss for methods of obviating these difiiculties. In 

 connection with his ampere gauges, for instance, he 

 suggested that they might be made "dead heat" by 

 means of a dash-pot. His first suggestion for making 

 the latter was a metal plate dipping into a solution 

 of sugar in water contained in a test-tube, as by this 

 means any desired amount of viscosity could be ob- 

 tained. Prof. Maclean also stated that Kelvin never 

 regarded seriously any suggestions for " rationalising " 

 our system of electric units. In fact, he regarded the 

 proposals as " frivolous nonsense." 



In the old days electricians used to regard a " mag- 

 neto" as a toy dynamo, and thought that it would 

 be beneath the dignity of a first-rate designer to sug- 

 gest improvements. Now neither labour nor expense 

 is being spared in order to perfect it. Before the war 

 there were only two or three firms in this country which 

 made magnetos ; there are now at least twenty times 

 as many. As most of the pre-war magnetos came 

 from Germany, our manufacturers were hard put to it 

 in the early days of the war, and many of them 

 slavishly followed the well-known design patented 

 by Bosch. Great improvements were soon made 

 by the British engireers m the ignition cir- 

 cuit, and there are now many types of mag- 

 neto which are greatly superior to the Bosch. There 

 is still a great demand for further improvements, but 

 the engineer finds it difficult to determine whether he 

 has to design for a minimum amount of energy or for 

 a big potential gradient in the sparking-plug, and this 

 hinders progress. The Students' Section of the Insti- 

 tution of Electrical Engineers ably discussed this ques- 

 tion at a meeting at Faraday House on February 8, 

 when Mr. R. W. Corkling read a paper on magnetos. 

 Mr. Corkling showed all the latest types of magneto. 

 He gave a full description of the one taken from a 

 Zeppelin brought down in this country in 1916; its 

 finish and accuracy of manufacture left little to be 

 desired, but the design was poor. Mr. James, the 

 vice-chairman of the section, suggested that the problem 

 of "jamming" the ignition circuit of an enemy aero- 

 plane by a suitable wireless method ought not to be 

 an insuperable one; men of science had solved much 

 more difficult problems in the past. There was a large 

 number of youthful electricians present, who all took 

 the greatest interest in the proceedings. 



An account of the life and mathematical work of 

 Giuseppe Veronese is given by Prof. Corrado Segre in 

 the Atti dei Lincei, vol. xxvi., (2), 9. Born at Chioggia 

 on May 7, 1854, the son of a small painter, Veronese 

 early showed a taste for art, which he later culti- 

 vated as a hobby, but after studying at the technical 

 schools in Chioggia and Venice (where he partly sup- 

 ported himself by copying and giving lessons), Veronese 

 went to Vienna, undertaking work there in connection 

 with the Danube and designs for the exhibition. A 

 year later he went to the Polytechnic at Zurich, study- 



