July 22, 1897] 



NA TURE 



'■77 



The article on " Styles of the Calendar," in a previous 

 number of Nature (No. 1443), has brought us several letters 

 -with special reference to the time of adoption of the " new- 

 style " by England and Scotland. One correspondent writes : 

 "Scotland, like England, adhered to the Julian Calendar till 

 1752. What has caused the error ... is the impression that 

 le Act of the Scottish Parliament in 1599, 'for the year of 

 . )d to begin the 1st of January yearly,' introduced the 

 Gregorian Calendar into Scotland. But all that that statute 

 did (as indeed its title indicates) was to enact that the year 

 should begin in accordance with classical usage, on the ist of 

 January, and not,* as was the mediaeval custom, on the 25th of 

 March." Another correspondent, besides endorsing the above, 

 adds: " That what is. meant by ' new style' is, of course, the 

 adoption of the Gregorian reckoning ; . . . this was done by 

 England and Scotland together in September 1752, by drop- 

 ping eleven in the numbering of the days. Accordingly, old 

 style was in use in Scotland till 1752, and indeed is by no means 

 M'holly disused yet. ..." The author of the above-mentioned 

 article, Mr. W. T. Lynn, writes : " The alteration made by 

 the Scotch in 1600 was restricted to the adoption of January i 

 Instead of March 25 as the first day of the legal year. This 

 was effected in England in 175 1 by the same Act of Parliament 

 which provided that the Gregorian reckoning should henceforth 

 be used in Great Britain. Perhaps I may point out the erroneous 

 statement in the subject in the current (ninth) edition of the 

 ■* Encyclopaedia Britannica,' where we read (vol. iv, p. 677) : ' In 

 Scotland the new style was adopted from the beginning of 1600, 

 according to an Act of the Privy Council in December 1599.' 

 The writer may have had in his mind what he was speaking of 

 in the preceding sentence on the alteration in the commence- 

 ment of the year (where, by the way, there is a slip or misprint 

 of April 25 for March 25), but the expression 'new style' could 

 not apply to that." 



Mr. a. T. Drummond, writing from Kingston, Canada, 

 says : — " In the course of an inquiry into the subject of old age 

 pensions in Canada, I have had occasion to investigate, among 

 other matters, the proportion which those who had in that 

 country attained sixty years of age and upwards bore to the 

 whole community. The result showed a constant increase in 

 this proportion from 1 85 1 onwards, as indicated by the follow- 

 ing figures: — 1851, 370 per cent. ; 1861, 4*49 per cent. ; i87i» 

 5-10 per cent. ; 1881, 6'32 per cent. ; 1891, 7-01 per cent. In 

 the earlier years given, the proportion relative to their respec- 

 tive populations was always somewhat greater in the Province 

 of Quebec than in the Province of Ontario ; but in 1891 this 

 was changed by those in Ontario reaching 7"i6 per cent. Nova 

 Scotia's proportion has always stood relatively high, and in 1891 

 was 8'9i per cent. Whilst emigration and immigration have 

 each in turn tended to increase or diminish these proportions, 

 and to qualify any conclusion which may be drawn, the general 

 impression from these figures is that the population coming 

 within the old age limit is increasing. This may be fairly con- 

 sidered as due to better food, improved sanitation in houses, the 

 use of new methods and appliances in daily life which result in 

 less wear on the system, and the more careful attention to rules 

 of health which better education and greater prosperity have 

 brought about." 



Experimental farms similar to those supported by various 

 continental Governments and in the United States have, unfor- 

 tunately for British agriculture, not yet been established in this 

 country. Researches in pots and plots are, however, carried 

 out by a few societies and technical colleges having the interests 

 of ^riculture at heart, and the results are made accessible to 

 farmers. The Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College 

 is one of the institutions which encourages work of this kind. 

 NO. 1447, VOL. 56] 



A report now before us shows the results of manuring experi- 

 ments conducted last year on farms in the .south-west and centre 

 of Scotland, under the direction of Prof. R. Patrick Wright. 

 The report will, doubtless, prove as helpful to agriculturists as 

 the official bulletins are to the farmers in America. 



An electrical method of determining the moisture content of 

 arable soils is described by Messrs. M. Whitney, F. D. Gardner, 

 and L. J. Briggs, in BiiUetin No. 6 of the U.S. Department of 

 Agriculture (Division of Soils). For a long time the importance 

 of having a trustworthy and convenient method for determining 

 the amount of moisture in soils has been recognised. It is 

 pointed out that the rain does plants but little positive good 

 until it enters the soil, where it can be absorbed by their roots. 

 A record of the actual amount of water in the soil from day to 

 day would, therefore, give the absolute value of the moisture 

 conditions under which plants are growing, and even withou 

 reference to rainfall data it would show, if the character of the 

 soil was understood, whether the conditions were favourable or 

 otherwise for the crop. The difficulty has hitherto been to 

 make this determination easily ; for though various methods 

 have been tried, very little success appears to ha%-e been achieved. 

 The method described in the present bulletin seems, however, 

 to be practicable and readily carried out. It consists in bury- 

 ing specially-constructed electrodes in the soil, so that by 

 measuring the resistance to the passage of a current through the 

 soil the amount of moisture in the soil can be determined. The 

 possibility of using the electrical resistance of soils for the deter- 

 mination of moisture was suggested to the authors some years 

 ago by the necessity of thoroughly grounding lightning rods, 

 telephones, and telegraph lines. If these are not carried to a 

 considerable depth, so that the terminals are constantly in a 

 moist soil, the lines do not work in dry seasons. A fair 

 number of observations have been made with the instru- 

 ments described, and they appear to be satisfactory. The 

 work was begun before the modern conceptions of the nature 

 and principles of salt solutions and electrical conductivity had 

 been developed, and it has been brought to a successful termi- 

 nation by regarding the soil as a difficultly soluble compound, 

 and the soil moisture as a salt solution derived therefrom. The 

 research is thus not only interesting from a practical point of 

 view, but also from the standpoint of physical chemistry. 



In the Bolkttino della Societd Sismologica Italiana, Signor 

 G. Agamennone gives an account of the determination of the 

 velocity of propagation of the earthquake shock which visited 

 Amed (Asia Minor) on April 16, 1896. This investigation re- 

 ceives additional interest from the fact of the earthquake being 

 the first occurring in the district, for the determination of whose 

 velocity trustworthy data exist, the time of the Imperial Observ- 

 atory of Constantinople affording an accurate means of timing 

 the passage of the shock. Observations in Asia Minor itself 

 gave a velocity of 1200 metres per second ; but by comparing 

 the observations with those made at Padua, a velocity of 3200 

 metres per second was obtained for the phase of reinforcement, 

 and 2400 for the maximum disturbance. — In another part of 

 the same journal, Signor Agamennone describes his photographic 

 tromometer for registering seismic and other disturbances by 

 means of a freely suspended heavy pendulum. In the present 

 modification of the original apparatus, the components of 

 the disturbance in two rectangular directions are separately 

 registered. 



We learn from the Annalen der Hydrographie und mart- 

 timen Meteorologie for June that a new system of storm signals 

 is to be established along the Dutch coasts. Nearly forty years 

 ago the question of storm warnings was discussed by Prof. Buys 

 Ballot at a meeting of scientific men at Bonn, and he sub- 

 sequently adopted the method of cone and drum signals similar 



