March m, 1920] 



NATURE 



55 



I 



Meteorological Observations at Calcutta.^ 



'X'HERE is a perpetual struggle between the advo- 

 ■■• cates of continuity and of uniformity in such 

 matters as meteorological observations. For a net- 

 work of otTicial stations under a central authority, the 

 results of which have to be co-ordinated, uniformity is 

 of very groat importance. On the other hand, experi- 

 ments with different methods are much less likely to 

 1)0 discouraged in an independent observatory, the work 

 if which has a value of a totally different kind. In 

 ~uch a place continuity has a sjjecial significance, and 

 ii is refreshing to meet with a volume of data from 

 a station that has been on the same site for fifty 

 years, even though that site was criticised very soon 

 after the beginning of the period. 



The official observatory at Alipore is only two miles 

 from St. Xavier's College, so that the latter is not 

 required as a vital station for the Indian Meteorological 

 Service, and the Jesuit Fathers, who have maintained 

 their observatory for half a century, have received no 

 special blame for departures from established practice, 

 or any financial support. The Rev. E. Francotte, S.J., 

 has been director for thirty-two years out of the fifty, 

 and is responsible for the present volume of some 

 350 pages of very clear print with large figures not 

 at all crowded. His full plan consists of four parts, 

 of which the volume before us is the first. It contains 

 for each day in the fifty years, 1868-1917, maximum, 

 minimum, and mean shade temperature, with maxi- 

 mum solar radiation and minimum terrestrial radia- 

 tion, barometric pressure, wind direction and velocity, 

 relative humidity and rainfall; the monthly extremes 

 in heavy type, with notes on absolute extremes where 

 tncounterod. This is intended to show the mutual 

 relations of climatic elements, and to further this 

 object, in addition to the tables, some graphs are 

 added. The original scheme was to publish at the 

 end of forty-six years, and part of the volume is sum- 

 marised for that period. The war, which held back 

 publication, enabled four more years to be included 

 in an appendix. 



We have not space to consider in any detail the 

 mass of data contained in the volume, but a few- 

 points of interest may be mentioned. In fortv-six 

 years the average number of days with at least i in. 

 of rain was nineteen per annum. Daily falls of at 

 least 10 in. occurred five times in the period, including 

 one total fall of 14 in. The shade temperature reached 

 100° F. on 527 days in forty-eight years : 59 in March, 

 .^82 in April, 136 in May, 48 in June, and only 2 in 

 July, both in 1897. Father Francotte examines some 

 of the tables for periodicity, but is reserving a great 

 deal more analysis for the second volume, the pub- 

 lication of which will be awaited with interest by 

 those who have seen the first. W. W. B. 



The Road to Industrial Peace.^ 



"pROM time to time the Advisory Council of Science 

 ^ and Industry in the Australian Commonwealth 

 issues bulletins dealing with various industrial 

 l)roblems, and the latest of its publications is 

 entitled "Welfare Work," though it is wider in scope 

 than the title is usually taken to imply. The preface 

 lolls us that the bulletin is prepared for the benefit of 

 all who are seeking for some road to industrial peace 

 and the establishment of more satisfactory and har- 



' "MeteoologTcal Observaiions at St. Xavier's Co'lege, Calcutta. (With 

 a Short. C-irsoty Discusion on the Same)." Part i., Forly-six Years, 1868- 

 1913. With Appendix, 1Q14-17. Bv E. Francotte. Pp. xIv+35q. (Cal- 

 cutta : Si. Xavier's College, iqiS ) Price, unbound, Rs. 3 per ro n'- 



2 "Welfare Work." Bulletin No. 15 of the Advisory Council of Science 

 and Industry. (.Melbourne, 1^19 ) Pp.no. Price f</. 



monious relations between capital and labour. It 

 points out that these relations are far wider than 

 questions of wages and hours of labour. A compre- 

 hensive industrial policy considers the responsibilities 

 which fall on the shoulders of employers, the effect of 

 industrial conditions on the employee, his well-being 

 outside working hours, the distribution of the wealth 

 produced, and the participation of the employees in 

 the management and control of industrial operations. ' 

 The bulletin sets out what has been done on the.so 

 lines in Great Britain, the United States, and other 

 countries, and in order to encourage its circulation it 

 is issued at a very low price. It is to be hoped that 

 it will receive the wide publicity it deserves, not only 

 in Australia, but in this country as well. It is, iii 

 fact, of more direct interest to us than to its countrv 

 of issue, in that all reference to welfare work m 

 Australia is reserved for publication in a later bulletin. 

 The bulletin is admirably written, and affords a 

 most valuable and impartial summary, especially 

 of the large body of information which has been 

 acquired during the war through the activity of the 

 Health of Munition Workers Committee and other 

 bodies. It describes the motives, scope, and adminis- 

 tration of welfare work, and the social life, recrea- 

 tion, education, and housing of the workers. It dis- 

 cusses wage-payments, profit-sharing and co-partner- 

 ship, provision for old age and sickness, and it got\s 

 somewhat fully into what is being more and more 

 recognised as the most important factor of all in 

 the attainment of industrial peace, viz. co-operation 

 between employers and employed in control. The 

 health and safety of the worker and the provision of 

 a healthy industrial environment are debated at some 

 Ienj?th, whilst there is an excellent summary of 

 problems of industrial fatigue in relation to hours of 

 labour, overtime, and rest pauses. An extensivo 

 bibliography is included. H. M. V. 



NO. 2628, Vol. 105] 



Wireless Telephony in Aeroplanes. 



T N a pai)er read before the Wireless Section of the 

 -*■ Institution of Electrical Engineers on February iS 

 Major C. E. Prince lifted the veil from the important 

 results in wireless telephony from aeroplanes which 

 were achieved in consequence of the stimulus of the 

 necessities of war. Up to the summer of 19 15, the 

 author believes, wireless speech had not been received 

 in an aeroplane, and, indeed, great were the difficul- 

 ties that had to be surmounted before practical 

 apparatus for working between ground and aeroplane 

 or between aeroplane and aeroplane could be pro- 

 duced. In the earlier experiments, transmission from 

 air to ground only was attempted by a small oscilla- 

 tion-valve set, but an aeroplane-carried receiving set, 

 also of the oscillation-valve type, was successfuUv used 

 in 1916. This, however, did not meet the immediate 

 military requirements overseas, and attention was 

 more particularly devoted to the urgent, but more 

 difficult, problem of telephonic communication between 

 machines in the air. 



Major Prince gave a good idea of the difficulti(\s 

 encountered and the ingenuity with which he and his 

 colleagues surmounted them. The crux of tho^ 

 problem is the method of controlling the radiation. 

 Direct control was found to suffer from grave dis- 

 advantages. Placing a microphone in the grid circuit 

 of the oscillation valve was tried with some success, 

 but finally a method known as "choke" control, in 

 which the modulation is applied tc the anode circuit 

 of a second or control valve, was emploved. The 

 grid of the control valve is acted on bv the micro- 

 phono transformer, the anode of which is in series 

 with a one-to-one transformer, or choke coil, in the 



