August 25, 1898] 



NATURE 



399 



during the past few weeks by the Wireless Telegraph Company, 

 between the Royal yacht Osborne and Osborne House. Perfect 

 Signals are stated to have passed both ways during the whole 

 ten days of the trials, no hitch occurring from first to last. 

 Numerous messages passed between the Queen and the Prince 

 of Wales, and between the Prince and a number of other 

 members of the Royal family, and one or two Cabinet Ministers, 

 Mr. Marconi had charge of the trials. Every morning a bulletin 

 on the condition of the Prince was sent to the Queen by wireless 

 telegraph. The height of the mast on shore was 105 feet, and that 

 of the top of the wire from the deck of the Osborne was 83 feet. 

 The yacht was moored in Cowes Bay, at a distance of nearly 

 two miles from Osborne House, the two positions not being in 

 sight of one another, as they were intercepted by a hill to the 

 rear of East Cowes, which would have rendered signalling im- 

 possible between these two stations by means of any optical 

 system. The messages varied in length, some having as many 

 as 100 to 150 words. Towards the end of the period over which 

 the experiments extended, the yacht went on a cruise towards 

 Sandown, and the messages were received correctly close off the 

 Nab lightship, which is moored off Bembridge. On the way 

 there, when under steam, a lengthy message was received by 

 the Prince from the Duke of Connaught, and the reply was suc- 

 cessfully despatched, though well out of sight of Cowes and 

 Osborne. Upon another occasion the yacht cruised as far as 

 the Needles, or rather outside, and went on till the instruments 

 picked up Alum Bay station — the Needles Hotel — continuing 

 »n communication with them all the way. Communication was 

 kept up throughout the cruise with either the Osborne station or 

 the Wireless Telegraph Company's station at Alum Bay. During 

 the whole of the cruise the Osborne pole was obscured, and all 

 the txiessages had to pass overland, and the Alum Bay pole was 

 also obscured until coming right into the Bay, on account of the 

 station being situated very much below Heatherwood. The 

 messages were sent to Alum Bay from a distance of nearly seven 

 and a half miles, although the ground lying between was ex- 

 ceedingly high ; in fact, it was about the highest land met with 

 during the time. It was so high, that the poles were screened 

 by hundreds of feet of land. 



Herr Eduard Zache contributes a short article to the 

 Naturwissenschaftliche IVochensckri/t, on the identification of 

 tectonic structures in the Mark region in Prussia. The problem 

 is one of some difficulty in all parts of the North German Plain, 

 on account of the uniformity of the diluvial covering. The 

 results of the examination are exhibited in a sketch-map. 



The Hevue Ginirak des Sciences (No. 13) contains a valuable 

 paper by M. J. Machat, on the scientific basis of the Chinese 

 Question. The physical and economic geography of China is 

 sketched under the headings of soil, climatic conditions in re- 

 lation to vegetation, animal life, and hydrography, agriculture, 

 industries, internal commerce, demography, and foreign com- 

 merce A series of extremely interesting maps illustrates these 

 sections. 



We have received a reprint of a paper read at the Toronto 

 meeting of the British Association by Mr. J. B. Tyrrell, on the 

 glaciation of North Central Canada. The conditions supposed 

 to prevail during the existence of the great central continental 

 ice-sheet — or, as it is now called, the Keewatin glacier — are 

 described, and its life-history is traced as far as possible. The 

 glacier appears to have been similar in character to the great 

 glacier of north-western Europe, but with the difference that 

 while the centre of the latter was over a high rocky country 

 from which the ice naturally flowed outwards, the centre of the 

 former was over what was probably then, as now, a low-lying 

 plain. 



NO. 1504, VOL. 58] 



In order to make known the scientific value of the collections 

 in the South African Museum and the original work done by 

 the staff, as well as to promote the increase of the library by 

 means of exchange with museums and scientific societies, the 

 Trustees have commenced a serial publication entitled "The 

 Annals of the South African Museum." The first part of this 

 addition to scientific serials contains descriptions of new South 

 African Scorpions in the collection of the South African 

 Museum, by Dr. W. F. Purcell ; description of some Mutillidse 

 in the Museum, by Mr. L. Peringuey ; list of the reptiles and 

 batrachians of South Africa, by Mr. W. L. Sclater ; and a 

 catalogue of the South African Hispinse (Coleoptera), by Mr. 

 Peringuey. 



Dr. Friedrich Katzer contributes to Globus a paper on the 

 volume of the Amazon at Obydos. Below Obydos the Amazon 

 flows through so many channels that accurate measurements 

 of its total discharge are impossible, and even there — 900 kilo- 

 metres from the mouth — a considerable fraction of its waters 

 does not pass through the main channel. Dr. Katzer discusses 

 former measurements, and gives new ones of his own ; he finds 

 as mean values — breadth, 1890 metres; rate of current, i "2 

 metres per second ; discharge, 120,000 cubic metres per second. 

 Analyses of two samples of water, taken at depths of 05 metres 

 and 25 metres, gave 0*056 and 0*039 grammes per litre as 

 total dissolved matter ; suspended matter, three to four times as 

 much ; thus placing the Amazon amongst the purest river-waters 

 of the globe. 



It is reported in the Times that MM. Dex and Dibos, two 

 French aeronauts, who recently submitted their scheme for the 

 exploration of Africa by means of a balloon to the French 

 Academy and the Smithsonian Institution, which bodies are 

 stated to have approved of the plans, have now, in conjunction 

 with M. Hourst, the African traveller, invoked the aid of the 

 Paris Municipality in support of the great undertaking. They 

 do not profess to be able — and in this they are in accord with 

 workers in the same direction — to construct a completely dirig- 

 ible balloon ; but they believe in the practicability of their 

 scheme, assuming the air currents of tropical Africa are fairly 

 regular, at least at certain seasons. The balloon they intend to 

 construct is to be 92 feet in diameter, with a capacity of 406,134 

 cubic feet. It is to be made of silk, and covered with an eight- 

 fold coat of varnish, so that only a very small quantity of gas 

 will be lost per day. The car will be in two storeys, connected 

 by a rope ladder, the upper storey providing living and sleeping 

 accommodation for six travellers, the lower being reserved for 

 the apparatus used in manoeuvring the balloon. Another smaller 

 car, anchored to the balloon, is to serve as a means of com- 

 munication with terra firina, and to be lowered when the balloon 

 has been anchored. The sum of 15,000 francs, for which the Paris 

 Municipality has been asked, is intended for preliminary trials, 

 as the cost of the actual journey through Africa, it is hoped, 

 will be defrayed by rich members of the Committee for French 

 Africa. M. Dex describes the scheme in the current number of 

 the Revue Scientifique. 



The U.S. Pilot Chart of the North Atlantic Ocean for August 

 contains a type of the summer chart of that ocean, representing 

 the condition? of wind, cloud and barometric pressure, com- 

 piled from Greenwich noon reports returned to the Hydro- 

 graphic Office at Washington. The chart shows very clearly 

 the right-handed or clock-wise circulation of the winds around 

 the region of high barometric pressure, the central area of 

 which, at this season of the year, is in the region of the 

 Azores. Another special chart shows the drifts of floating 

 bottle-papers returned to the Hydrographic Office during the year 

 ending July i last, and referring to the Atlantic Ocean. Some 

 of the present papers offer interesting particulars ; one, which 



