268 



NATURE 



[November 6, 1919 



in the census of 191 1, the difference being due to the 

 fact that the census covered the whole of India, while 

 farge tracts, like Burma, were excluded from the 

 operations of the Survey. In all, 872 different lan- 

 guages and dialects are recorded. The sub-family 

 which contains the greatest number of languages, 

 thirty-two in all, is the Tibeto-Burman, where the 

 population is split up into numerous sections owing 

 to their special environment in a mountainous region. 

 On the other hand, there are only seventeen Indo- 

 Aryan languages spoken by 226,000,000 in the wide 

 northern plains, where facilities of intercommunica- 

 tion promoted fusion of races. If, as an example of 

 similarly circumstanced Aryan groups, we take the 

 Eranian languages spoken in and near India and the 

 Dardic languages, we find that these two branches, 

 like the Tibeto-Burman languages, are spoken in 

 inhospitable mountain tracts, but that, unlike the 

 Tibeto-Burman group, they have a power of per- 

 sistence. If they do subdivide, the division is not 

 into mutually unintelligible languages, but into 

 mutually intelligible dialects, held together by a 

 common grammatical basis. This summary of the 

 work of a great scientific philologist may be warmly 

 commended to the notice of all students of language. 



In the course of his presidential address to the North. 

 East Coast Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders 

 on October 24, Mr. A. Ernest Doxford made strong 

 references to the present economic position of the 

 country, and said that much too little publicity has 

 been given to this important matter. This has 

 afforded the extremist his opportunity to inflame 

 the minds of the uninfoimed, and lead the country 

 perilously near to anarchy. Two great evils have to 

 be fought — greed and ignorance — and both of these 

 can be overcome by education. The first and most 

 important point to consider in education is the quali- 

 fication of the teacher. He must be sound in first 

 principles, in his facts, and in his reasoning, and must 

 be capable and willing to impart his knowledge to 

 others. One would have thought that a common- 

 sense nation, such as we certainly are, would have 

 seen the absolute necessity of paying well for such 

 qualities ; but, instead, we find that the teaching pro- 

 fession is one of the worst paid, with the natural 

 result that we get either inferior or discontented 

 teachers. This discontent is bound to be reflected, to 

 a greater or less extent, in the mind of the pupil, and 

 is the source of a great deal of our social unrest. The 

 brain-power of the teacher is often superior to that 

 of many in other walks of life who are being better 

 paid than he, and the injustice, in many cases, forces 

 him into the band of extremists, where he thinks that 

 a social upheaval may remedy his grievances. Mr. 

 Doxford feels sure that if, in our reconstruction, we 

 put education foremost, we shall remedy not only many 

 of the evils that existed prior to the war, but also the 

 more virulent types that have arisen since. 



Dr. Murray Stuart describes, in the Records of 

 the Geological Survey of India (vol. 1., p. 28, 19 19), 

 the deposits of potash salts in the Punjab Salt Range 

 and Kohat, and adds a paper on the probable origin 

 and history of the rock-salt deposits in this region. 

 The author believes that the salts were originally laid 

 down from an evaporating saline solution, but that 

 their present banded structure, of which a good illus- 

 tration is given, is due to subsequent flow under p"res- 

 sure. The salt, in fact, is now not a sediment, but a 

 schist. Included iron pyrites, liberating sulphuric 

 acid, has led to the formation of gypsum as a product 

 of contact with limestone, and is also responsible for 

 the presence of mirabilite. The potash salts, what- 



NO. 2610, VOL. 104] 



ever their original position in the series, now appear 

 as patches and lenticles in the rearranged foliated 

 mass, and no continuous bed can be expected. "The 

 prospects of obtaining potash from the salt of the 

 Salt Range are not promising." 



One of the most definite tendencies in British agri- 

 culture is towards greater use of mechanical power, 

 though the most satisfactory source of power remains 

 to be ascertained. In the Journal of the Royal Society 

 of Arts for September 26 and October 3 and 10, Dr. 

 J. F. Crowley discusses the use of electricity in 'agril 

 culture, with special reference to its development in 

 Germany. Farm conditions make portability essen- 

 tial, and a limit is set to the power obtainable from 

 steam or oil engines by their weight. These considera- 

 tions led to the development of electrical power, which 

 has been so notable a feature of German agriculture 

 in recent years. By far the greater amount of power 

 used on German farms is distributed from central 

 stations by high-tension overhead lines. The trans- 

 formers and motors may be either fixed or portable, 

 and may be separated by considerable distances! 

 Illustrated descriptions are given of the motors and 

 their use in ordinary agricultural operations. Thinlv 

 populated rural districts in Germany secured the 

 advantage of cheap electricity through the growth of 

 numerous rural co-operative societies, which either 

 produced electricity themselves or secured a cheap 

 supply by guaranteeing a certain consumption. The 

 author believes that considerable progress could be 

 made if steps were taken to promote such co-opera- 

 tive movements in the rural districts of this country. 



A SERIES of illustrated articles descriptive of the 

 Hell Gate Bridge at New York has been appearing 

 jn recent issues of Engineering. The article in the 

 issue for October 17 contains an interesting account of 

 the span measurements. It was impossible to secure 

 a satisfactory direct measurement, since no previous 

 structure crossed the river at the site, and the dis- 

 tance between the skewbacks was determined by 

 triangulation. To obtain a check a special steel tape 

 about 1100 ft. long was made, and repeated measure- 

 ments were taken, making calculated allowances for 

 tension, deflection, and temperature. Difficulty was 

 experienced in making the corrected measurements 

 agree precisely on account of the unequal tempera- 

 tures of different portions of the tape. There was, 

 however, substantial agreement with the triangula- 

 tion measurements. The day before the erection of 

 the last panel of the arch-trusses was commenced, 

 careful measurements showed a clearance of 175 in. 

 between the extremities of the semi-trusses. A rise 

 in temperature during the night produced a diminished 

 clearance of 075 in. next morning. Work was there- 

 fore accelerated in order to have the lower chord 

 inserted before the rising temperature eliminated the 

 whole of the clearance. The first chord piece had 

 to be lifted vertically into position rather than 

 revolved from an oblique position in a vertical plane 

 as is customary. The following day was rainy and 

 cloudy, affording more favourable weather conditions. 



An interesting survey of the general position of 

 chemical industries in the chief countries of the world, 

 and especially in France, is contributed by M. Ren6 P. 

 Duchemin to the Revue Scientifique for October 4. 

 Due to war demands, there has been a considerable 

 over-production of important "heavy" chemicals such 

 as sulphuric acid, nitrogen compounds, chlorine, and 

 bromine; and this not only by the belligerent nations, 

 but by neutral countries also. Factories have been 

 developed and extended, so that they now have much 

 greater productive capacity than heretofore; and. 



