April 27, 189; 



NATURE 



617 



would be of the first importance. In orbit computation the 

 judges will regard with special attention care exercised in 

 revision of published observation, ingenuity displayed in search- 

 ing out and evaluating systematic errors, completeness and 

 soundness of discussion, ability shown in indicating probable 

 limits of uncertainty in adopted elements, &c. With regard to 

 variable stars, enough has already been said, but the judges 

 remark that definite reductions cannot of course be expected, 

 as from the nature of the case many years must elapse. 



GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 



The Hon. G. N. Curzon, M. P., read a paper on his recent 

 journey in Indo-China at the meeting of the Royal Geographical 

 Society on Monday. The whole region, he pointed out, is 

 dominated by its great rivers, and may be divided into the 

 mountain district of the north cleft by vast gorges, and the low 

 plains of the south mainly composed of alluvial deposits, 

 where the coast lands are steadily encroaching on the sea. In the 

 seventh century Tongking, now 60 miles inland, was on the 

 coast. A very remarkable feature which gives to parts of the 

 coast a beauty comparable with that of the Inland Sea of Japan is 

 a broken belt of limestone cut into curious flat-topped sections 

 of all sizes, and perforated by the sea or rivers with many 

 fantastic caverns and tunnels. The masses of caverned rock 

 rise to a height of from 50 to 500 feet, and are best seen in the 

 Bay of Along in Tongking. In Annam Mr. Curzon travelled 

 to Hue by the " Mandarin's Road," a track which is carried over 

 several cols by some skilful engineering in the form of rock stair- 

 cases. Throughout Annam the_traveller is much confused by the 

 number of names applied indiscriminately to each village, 

 and the maps hitherto constructed by the French officials 

 are far from satisfactory. The people of Annam have the 

 submissiveness without the nerveless apathy of the Hindu, 

 and as craftsmen they are industrious and artistic. Coal 

 is abundant, some seams being more than 180 feet thick at 

 Raton, on the Bay of Along. Hue is a city of great interest, 

 being beautifully situated and near a number of magnificent 

 ancient tombs. Cambodia or Cambogia, as Mr. Curzon pre- 

 fers to spell the name, is of interest, mainly on account of its 

 ruins, the number and character of which make a long stay 

 desirable, if the traveller would do justice to his opportunities. 



The newly published report of the Bengal census reveals the 

 interesting fact that there is a steady transference of popula- 

 tion from the most densely to the more thinly peopled parts of 

 the province, the former prejudice against leaving the native 

 village having apparently vanished. Mohammedanism is in- 

 creasing rapidly in Bengal, and the custom of widow ma rriage 

 amongst Hindus has become common. These facts are signi- 

 ficant of progress. 



The supremacy of the great ports of Europe as entrepots for 

 the trade of the world is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. 

 Two recent instances of independent action on the part of the 

 colonies are of more than local importance. One is the estab- 

 lishment of a line of steamers trading direct from New York to 

 Cape Town, another the commencement of a regular service of 

 fast steamers from Vancouver to Sydney, N.S. W. 



A COMMUNICATION was lately made to the Paris Geographical 

 Society on the strength of a statement in a Russian newspaper, 

 describing a curious mountain group in Podolia. This is said 

 to rise abruptly from the plain with a grandly rugged crest 

 composed of a broken circular rmi surrounding a crater-like de- 

 pression. The whole mass is composed of limestone, in which 

 fossil corals abound, and the inference drawn is that this is, in 

 fact, a full-sized fossil tertiary atoll. The name of the moun- 

 tain is given as Miodoborski, but it is called Toltra by the 

 natives. 



At a general meeting of the Royal Geographical Society 

 called by the requisition of a few Fellows who objected to the 

 action of the Council in the manner of admitting women to the 

 Fellowship of the Society, it was proposed to Irame a bye-law 

 restricting the privileges of lady Fellows, and rendering them 

 incapable of serving on the Council or in any office in the 

 Society. The question whether ladies should be admitted at 

 all was voted upon after a somewhat heated discussion, and it 

 was decided by 147 to 105 that women should not be admitted 

 as Fellows of the Society. This decision was entirely unfore- 

 seen ; it is a retrograde step which, we feel sure, will be 

 disapproved and regretted by the majority of the Society. 



NO. 1226, VOL. 47] 



The Royal Medals of the Royal Geographical Society have 

 been awarded to Mr. F. C. Selous for his travels in Africa, and 

 to Mr. W. W. Rockhill for his journeys in Tibet. The Gill 

 Memorial was awarded to Mr. H. C. Forbes, and the Cuthbert 

 Peek Grant to Mr. Charles Hose for his travels in Sarawak. 

 Major Powell, Washington, Prof. Ratzel, Leipzig, and M. 

 Vivien de St. Martin, Paris, were elected honorary corresponding 

 members of the society. 



INSTITUTION OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERS. 

 C\^ the evenings of Thursday and Friday last week, April 20 

 ^-^ and 2r, an ordinary gereral meeting of the Institution of 

 Mechanical Engineers wa< held in thethea"re of the Institution 

 of Civil Kngineers, by permission of the Council of the latter 

 body. There were three papers on the Agenda, but only two 

 were read, namely, Mr. Dean's paper on copper plates for 

 locomotives, and the second report of the Alloys Research 

 Committee, the author of which was Prof. W, C Roberts- 

 Austen, C.B., F.R.S. Our readers will remember that the 

 first report of the Alloys Research Committee was read, and 

 discussed at the October meeting of 1891, and an abstract of it 

 appeared on page 22 of our 45th volume. A large part of the 

 first report was taken up by the consideration of the effect of 

 various alloys on gold, and it will be remembered that the author 

 was somewhat sharply criticised for the course he had taken in 

 framing his report, gold being a metal not used by engineers, 

 at least for constructive purposes. This second report carries 

 the matter further, and it is possible now to appreciate Prof. 

 Roberts-Austen's reasons for taking the course he did. In 

 opening the subject he referred agpin to the "periodic law " of 

 Newland and Mendeleeff, and upon it he based a large part of 

 his reasoning in the first report. The researches of Raoult 

 Van't Hoft", and Arrhenius, led to the view that the molecules 

 of small quantities of elements, distributed through a mass of a 

 solvent, retain their individuality. The work of Heycock and 

 Neville (and also the experiments described in the author's pre- 

 vious report) point to the conclusion that the added eleinents 

 may retain their freedom when they are present in much larger 

 quantities than o'2 per cent., which is the amount of added 

 matter the Committee usually dealt with in their researches. 

 The point raised was whether the added element does, or does 

 not, remain free in the mass of the solvent, and as the author 

 pointed out, it is a vital one in limiting the scope of the inquiry. 

 If the added element enters into combination with the solvent 

 its individuality will be changed, and it might be that the me- 

 chanical properties of the metallic mass would mainly depend 

 on the degree of fusibility of the compound formed. If the 

 concentration of the solution is such that a fraction of the dis- 

 solved body alone remains isolated, the influence of the volume 

 of the added elements, will evidently be disturbed, as this in- 

 fluence is supposed to be exerted only by a single constituent 

 of the mixture, whilst the mechanical properties of a solidified 

 mixture are functions of both constituents, in the favourable 

 circumstances where the solvent is not started by the added 

 element, and where the law of atomic volumes is applicable. A 

 metal is seldom homogeneous and is more often formed of 

 rounded polyhedral grains, and the cohesion in the interior 

 of a grain differs from the adherence between the neigh- 

 bouring grains. The law of atomic volumes cannot apply, the 

 report pointed out, to the adherence of the grains, that being 

 regulated by other causes, such as the rate of cooling and pressure, 

 and whether a compound be formed, which solders the grains 

 together. Arguing from these facts, the author pointed out that 

 an attempt to prove the nature of the influence of atomic volumes 

 by mechanical tests only led to anomalies, and more or less 

 grave irregularities being encountered. The investigation was 

 not, however, limited to mechanical tests, independently of 

 which it had been shown that the influence of impurity on the 

 molecular transformation in iron, studied by Osmond, may be 

 shown in several ways. Transformation may be assisted by the 

 presence of impurity, the temperature at which they occur may 

 be altered, or the molecular changes may even be entirely pre- 

 vented by the presence of elements which behave in strict 

 accordance with the law of atomic volumes. The author re- 

 ferred to the remarkable series of experiments recently made by 

 E. Warburg and F. Tegetmeier, which would seem to demon- 

 strate the possibility of producing eventually a degree of porosity 

 in vitreous bodies, which will admit the passage of elements 

 having comparatively small atomic volumes,while other elements, 

 having larger atomic volumes, are strained off, thus occasioning 



