88 



NA TURE 



[May 27, 1897 



which is attached to a beam. Ten feet below from this beam a 

 saddle is suspended, with pedals like a bicycle, by which the 

 four-biaded propeller, 10 feet in the rear of the aeronaut, is 

 turned. Hydrogen gas was used to inflate the ship. After the 

 ship had risen to the height of about 500 feet, the aeronaut 

 turned completely around, to show that the propeller was 

 effective. He continued rising till he was out of sight, and 

 propelled the machine in a direction diagonally to the wind at a 

 rate of ten or twelve miles an hour. After travelling fifteen 

 miles, he returned to within four miles of the city ; but he had 

 to rise and fall so many times that his supply of gas became 

 exhausted, and also one of the blades of his propeller broke, 

 and he descended. 



It is stated in the Times that, in accordance with the recom- 

 mendations of the Departmental Committee on Dogs, upon 

 which the Board of Agriculture have already taken action in 

 London, Lancashire, Yorkshire and the Midlands, a muzzling 

 order will shortly be issued by the Irish Privy Council, and that, 

 as the cases of rabies in Ireland are so widely scattered, the 

 order will extend to the whole of that country. The Irish 

 Privy Council intend also to issue an order relating to the im- 

 portation of dogs, following closely upon the lines of the order 

 already sanctioned for Great Britain, and referred to last week 

 (p. 60). This combined action gives us reason for hope that 

 rabies will some day be exterminated from our islands. 



The President of the Board of Trade has appointed a Com- 

 mittee, consisting of Sir Charles Hall, Q.C., K.C.M.G., M.P. 

 (Chairman), Mr. James Alward, Mr. T. Gibson Bowles, M.P., 

 Captain A. J. G. Chalmers, Rear- Admiral W. J. L. Wharton, 

 C.B., F.R.S., Mr. Charles H. Wilson, M.P., to consider and 

 report whether any, and, if so, what, alterations or additions 

 are required in the regulations for preventing collisions at sea, as 

 regards (i) the lights to be carried and exhibited, and the 

 signals to be carried and used, by sailing ships, steam ships, and 

 boats when engaged in fishing ; (2) the expediency of requiring 

 all ships to keep out of the way of steam ships when such ships 

 are engaged in fishing ; (3) the lights to be carried and exhibited 

 by steam ships carrying pilots when engaged on their stations on 

 pilotage duty. 



A REMARKABLE glacial eruption occurred in the early months 

 of the present year in the south of Iceland. A postman was crossing 

 the sands of Skeidara, when suddenly he heard the glacier abput 

 two miles in front of him emit a long, groaning sound, and saw 

 large masses of ice being hurled into the air from the glacier, 

 immediately followed by a flood that descended upon the level 

 sands, surging to and fro and carrying everything before it; He 

 promptly turned his horse and rode away to the station of 

 Nupsstad, on the western side of the glacier. Six days 

 later he returned to the sands, and saw them as a belt of 

 ice- waves extending from the glacier to the sea, a distance of 

 at least twenty-five miles. The average breadth of this belt 

 was about four miles. The height of the ice-floes or waves 

 varied from 70 feet to 90 feet. It was impossible to cross this 

 wall of ice except close by the foot of the glacier where the floes 

 were far apart. On the other side of the ice-field were six 

 newly-formed torrents rushing from the glacier. No damage to 

 life or property was caused by this eruption, which is believed 

 to have some connection with the severe earthquakes of last 

 summer. 



The Report on Admiralty Surveys for the year 1896, by the 

 Hydrographer, Rear-Admiral Wharton, C.B., F.R.S., has just 

 been published as a Blue-book. Notwithstanding the progress 

 of hydrography, and the constant employment of our own and 

 foreign surveying vessels in many parts of the world, the re- 

 NO. 1439. VOL. 56] 



quirements of modern steam navigation increase more rapidly 

 than the advance of surveys. Every year newly-discovered rocks 

 are reported, the number of which shows no signs of diminishing. 

 During the year 1896 no less than 209 rocks and shoals which 

 were dangerous to navigation were reported, and required to be 

 notified to the public by notices to mariners. Among the many 

 observations recorded in the report, we notice that the Goodwin 

 Sands has continued its general movement towards the coast, 

 and the area of drying sand has very largely increased since the 

 last ten years, when only small parts of the bank were above 

 low water. An account is given of the part taken by H.M.S. 

 Penguin in the coral-boring expedition sent by the Royal Society 

 to Funafuti Island, Ellice Group. Reference is made to the 

 determination of the contour of the outer slopes of the atoll ; 

 and it is also pointed out that the soundings obtained by H.M. 

 surveying ships during the past few years in the south-western 

 part of the Pacific, on the course of their voyages from and tO' 

 Australia, have very largely added to our knowledge of the con- 

 formation of the bottom, and valuable information has been col- 

 lected for submarine telegraph cables, if required. H.M.S- 

 Watei-witch was engaged at Tasmania and the Fiji Islands in 

 1896. A line of soundings run towards Norfolk Island, and 

 from thence to Smoky Cape on the Australian coast, passing 

 between the Elizabeth and Middleton reefs, disclosed the inter- 

 esting fact that these reefs are not on the comparatively shallow 

 ridge that connects New Zealand with Queensland, but rise from 

 deep water on its flanks. 



We have received the Report of the Director of the Liverpool 

 Observatory for the year 1896. In addition to the transit and 

 other astronomical observations required by the Mersey Docks 

 and Harbour Board, special attention has been given at this 

 observatory to anemometrical observations, and various interest- 

 ing papers have from time to time been published upon this 

 subject, e.g. one on the velocity of the wind at Liverpool, by 

 the late W. W. Rundell, based upon the data between 1852 and 

 1866. During the past year, Mr. W. E. Plummer has made a 

 number of comparisons between the results obtained from a Dines' 

 tube anemometer and the Robinson cup and Osier plate anemo- 

 meter. The values of the first two have been recorded under 

 eight principal points of the compass, and Mr. Plummer states 

 that the result of the comparison is to some extent a surprise, 

 as it was anticipated that the record of the Robinson instrument 

 would be much too great, owing to the wind velocities being 

 computed on the assumption, now generally regarded as 

 erroneous, that the wind travelled at three times the velocity of 

 the cups. The experiments, however, go to show that the 

 appropriate factor to reduce the Robinson velocities to the 

 Dines standard is not so low as was expected, and that the 

 velocities published in past years have not been in error by so 

 great an extent as 10 per cent. It is important to remember, 

 however, that in such comparisons much depends not only upon 

 a proper exposure, but upon the size of the cups and the length 

 of the arms of the instrument employed. 



Dr. C. Diener, of Vienna, contributes to the Mittheilungen 

 der K. K. geographischen Gesellschaft in Vienna an exhaustive 

 discussion of the bearing of geological research on the destruc- 

 tion of Sodom and Gomorrah. The Scriptural account of the 

 catastrophe is examined in detail, and the descriptions of 

 travellers are employed to work out a complete picture. From 

 a comparison with similar more recent disturbances in various 

 parts of the globe. Dr. Diener concludes that the cities of Pen- 

 tapolis were overwhelmed by a violent earthquake affecting the 

 whole basin of the Dead Sea, and following upon a series of 

 minor undulatory movements. Masses of subterranean water were 

 forced up to the surface, giving rise to extensive landslips, and 



