March 15, 1917] 



NATURE 



53 



The boundaries must be drawn so far as possible 

 along the more thinly peopled tracts of land. Each 

 province must have a regional capital. This is essen- 

 tial to the development of a provincial patriotism 

 necessary- for good government. The minimum of 

 population in each province should be about one 

 million, and no province should be so populous as to 

 dominate the others. It is a sound geographical 

 principle that a valley forms a unity, and so 

 boundaries should be drawn near watersheds. Lastly, 

 as the new boundaries to some extent supersede the 

 ancient counties, county patriotism must be allowed 

 for in determining the new provinces. The result, 

 as illustrated by a map, is to divide England and 

 Wales into thirteen provinces centred respectively 

 round London, Cambridge, Oxford, Southampton, 

 Bristol, Plymouth, Cardiff, Birmingham, Notting- 

 ham, Leeds. Manchester, Newcastle, and an un- 

 chosen capital for the south-east province. While the 

 various provinces are not intended to be equal in 

 importance any more than they are in area, it is diffi- 

 cult to admit of any adequate division of Metropolitan 

 England, to use Mackinder's term, which is, and 

 must be, dominated by London. In the north the 

 problem is easier. 



We have received a copy of the Egyptian Almanac 

 for the year 1917 (Government Press : Cairo). The 

 almanac is descriptive rather than statistical, and so 

 forms a complementary volume to the Annuaire Statis- 

 tique. There are chapters on the geographical features, 

 agriculture and industries, and on the work of the 

 various public departments. The section on the an- 

 tiquities department has been considerably extended, 

 and contains a list of the principal antiquities and 

 monuments of art. A transliteration system of Arabic 

 is added to the almanac. It would have enhanced the 

 usefulness of the volume if a list of maps published by 

 the survey department had been added. 



A RENEWAL of wintry weather occurred in all parts 

 of Great Britain on the three days March 7-9, and 

 the cold snap was greatly intensified by a keen and 

 searching easterly wind. Slight snow was experi- 

 enced generallv. On March 7 the highest day tem- 

 peratures failed to rise above the freezing-point at 

 most of the health resorts reporting to the Meteoro- 

 logical Office in the northern and eastern English 

 districts. On March 8 the minima, or lowest tern- 

 peratures, in the early morning were below 20° over 

 Scotland, as well as at places in the north of England. 

 At Aberystwyth the sheltered thermometer fell to 19° 

 and at Bournemouth to 22°. In the London suburbs 

 the lowest temperatures in the screen were generally 

 about 22°, and at Hampstead the thermometer fell 

 below 20°. The day temperatures were almost as 

 low as on March 7. On the morning of March 9 

 the thermometer reading was again ver\- low, regis- 

 tering 15° in parts of Scotland, and 20° at several 

 stations in the east and south-east of England, as well 

 as in the London suburbs. Much milder weather, with 

 rain, set in over the south-west of England, and tHe 

 change spread rapidly to other parts of Great Britain- 



CoMMUMCATiox 149 from the Physical Laboratory 

 of the University of Leyden contains the results of 

 the measurements of the specific heat at constant 

 pressure of solid and liquid nitrogen carried out by 

 Prof. Kamerlingh Onnes and Dr. W. H. Keesom. The 

 pure nitrogen used was condensed and entered the 

 calorimeter at a low temperature. It was there heated 

 electrically through a range of temperature of about 

 a degree, and the work done and the rise of tempera- 

 ture observed. The catorimeter was enclosed in_ a 

 vacuum jacket kept at a low temperature to diminish 



NO. 2472, VOL. 99] 



the flow of heat from its surroundings. The atomic 

 heat of the solid nitrogen at 15° Absolute is i-6, at 20*^ 

 24, at 40° 45, at 50° 49, and at 60° 5-3. The atomic 

 heat of the liquid nitrogen above the triple point 63° 

 is 6-6 up to 76° Absolute. 



A NEW list of small electric furnaces, for tempera- 

 tures up to 1000" C, has just been issued by Messrs. 

 A. Gallenkamp and Co., Ltd. These furnaces are 

 characterised by a simplicity of construction and ease 

 of manipulation which should render them of consider- 

 able value in chemical and other laboratories. The 

 general advantages of electric furnaces are well known, 

 but by many it may not yet be realised how much 

 more convenient their use has become since the intro- 

 duction of high-resistance, high-melting-point alloys, 

 such as are emploved in the apparatus referred to here. 

 These materials enable small furnaces to be wound for 

 use on voltages up to 250 (direct or alternating), while 

 the low-temperature coefficient of the winding obviates 

 the continued attention during heating-up that is 

 demanded by a platinum or nickel wound furnace. 

 In addition, the renewal of the heating tube, should 

 breakdown occur through accidental over-running, is 

 quickly carried out and at small cost. The types 

 listed comprise a good selection of single and multiple 

 tubular furnaces for combustion and explosion tube 

 work. Muffle furnaces suitable for general chemical 

 analysis and for small metallurgical operations are 

 constructed on similar lines, while a vertical crucible 

 furnace has recently been included in .the list. This 

 latter piece of apparatus is provided with a device for 

 lifting the crucible from the heating tube from bek>w 

 — an arrangement which should greatly conduce to 

 ease of working. The list gives useful information as 

 to the power consumption for each size of furnace, 

 while prices of renewal tubes and of suitable regu- 

 lating resistances are quoted in each instance. 



A PAMPHLET entitled " Slav Achievement in Ad- 

 vanced Science," by Prof. B. Petronievics, of Bel- 

 grade (American Book Supply Co., Ltd., p.), 

 contains brief accounts of the following worthies : 

 (i) Copernicus, (2) Boscovich, (3) Lobachevski, 

 (4) Mendeleeflf. They are all interesting, and 

 (2) and (4) are particularly good. Even to an 

 English reader (i) goes over familiar ground, 

 and (3) contains blemishes in detail which make it 

 rather untrustworthy. Thus from p. 19 the reader 

 would infer that CD in the figure is a "straight" 

 line; on p. 21 it appears as the locus of points "equi- 

 distant " from AB, and is, therefore, not a straight 

 line. Riemann's "plane " (p. 22) cannot be con- 

 structed, in Euclidean space, but we have an exact 

 image of it in ordinary spherical geometry; i.e. we 

 can translate any formula of the latter into a formula 

 for the Riemann plane. Similarly, formulae for the 

 so-called pseudosphere in ordinary space can be applied 

 to the geometry of a plane in Lobachevski 's space. 

 As illustrations of recent advance in scientific thought, 

 we may remark that no one now would claim for 

 Copernicus's theor\' any absolute superiority over 

 Ptolemy's; it is only a matter of choosing axes of 

 reference assumed to be fixed, and since the sun 

 undoubtedly moves with refe-ence to the fixed stars, 

 the simplest explanation of celestial motions compels 

 us to discard the Copernican axes, at any rate as a 

 fixed system. Again, the theory of electrons has 

 brought in a mathematical analysis which in some 

 respects is analogous to Boscovich 's. We are erlad to 

 learn that Prof. Petronievics is about to publish a 

 work "On Simultaneous Discoverers"; this ought to 

 be very interesting. 



From the early days of the industries based on coal- 

 tar products it has been fashionable to illustrate the 



