March 15, 191 7] 



NATURE 



55 



George Beilby's statement that the point of view of 

 the engineer is not so far removed from that of the 

 ordinary intelligent person that the latter cannot 

 grasp, in a general way, his aims and objects ; but 

 the thoughts and aims of the chemist are for the 

 most part quite inscrutable to the vast majorit}' of his 

 fellow-men. Since the chemist's views are so much 

 further removed from everyday notions and concep- 

 tions than are those of the engineer, it is wiser first 

 to imbue the mind of the student thoroughly with the 

 more difficult, because less ordinary, point of view. 



On the other hand, many of the speakers seemed to 

 advocate that chemists should be trained as chemical 

 engineers — that is, primarily to design and control 

 chemical plant ; and that the factor of cost in relation 

 to chemical processes should not be overlooked. 

 From the point of view of the chemical manufac- 

 turer, it was urged that the main requirement of the 

 industry was men fully equipped with a real know- 

 ledge of chemistry : the individual with mechanical 

 aptitude would without difficulty be able to learn 

 enough to think as an engineer, and appreciate en- 

 gineering problems. 



In addition to the scheme outlined by Prof. Donnan 

 for the training of the would-be works chemist in 

 engineering, papers were contributed by Mr. C. H. 

 Darling on the training in physics given at the Fins- 

 bur}- College, and by Mr. J. W. Hinchley on the 

 course at the Imperial College. The former course 

 is designed to make the student acquainted with the 

 type of instrument he will later meet with in works, 

 but it was recognised by Mr. Darling that the young 

 chemist who is to be of the maximum use to* his 

 employer must, in addition to the possession of speci- 

 fic knowledge, have his ideas running in the right 

 grooves. 



HIGH-SPEED TELEGRAPHY. 



THE report of the committee appointed by the 

 Postmaster-General in December, 1913, to con- 

 sider the question of high-speed telegraphy has now 

 been issued in the form of a White Paper (Cd. 8413, 

 price 3d.). Unfortunately the work of the committee 

 was interfered with by the outbreak of war in August, 

 1914, which cut short a series of tests designed to show 

 the best results which various competing systems 

 could produce under idientical conditions. In the 

 absence of comparative statistics the complete exami- 

 nation of all, the claims of rival inventions is im- 

 possible, but as such minute statistical comparisons 

 would be mainly valuable in connection with further 

 investigation, the considerations on which the com- 

 mittee's recommendations have been framed should 

 suffice for the present. 



The question before the committee resolved itself 

 into a rivalry between automatic high-speed systems 

 on one hand, and the multiplex on the other, 

 though the inventions of Mr. Creed and the advent 

 of various keyboard perforators affected the situation 

 of the former. .Automatic high-speed svstems were 

 fully reviewed, but the conclusion arrived at by the 

 committee is that for ordinary commercial telegraph 

 work between the main centres of the British Post 

 Office service the inventions based on the multiplex 

 method are superior, as they conduce to economy in 

 staff, are subject to fewer serious stoppages and 

 delays than automatic svstems, and necessitate less 

 Spare plant and less costlv maintenance. The funda- 

 mental principles of nearly all multiplex instruments 

 are based on the Baudot system, invented more than 

 thirty years ago. Ten years later it assumed, in the 

 hands of the original inventor, practically its present 



NO. 2472, VOL. 99] 



form. Although some of its main principles had been 

 anticipated by earlier inventors, Baudot was the first 

 who combined them into a system of practical utility, 

 and the production of the system may be regarded as 

 marking an epoch in the history of telegra^y. The 

 leading features of the Baudot system are : (i) its 

 method of obtaining synchronism ; (2) its direct trans- 

 mission from keyboard to line; (3) its cadence and 

 speed ; (4) its direct printing on slip. 



Of the multiplex systems at present available, the 

 Western Electric is said to have given the best re- 

 sults, and the committee recommends that a number 

 of quadruple duplex installations of this apparatus be 

 ordered. Seven or eight sets should suffice, as al- 

 though present conditions. favour the rapid application 

 of systems with the greatest output, it is desirable 

 to avoid too great a dislocation of working, and to 

 allow time, so far as possible, for other makers to 

 demonstrate their capabilities. Page- or column- 

 printing is preferable to tape-printing on the busiest 

 routes, and the Western Electric Company's page- 

 printing on a continuous roll of paper, cut off after 

 each message, is quite satisfactory. The com- 

 mittee does not consider it desirable that either 

 page- or column-printing should be adopted through- 

 out the service to the exclusion of tape-printing, 

 while the Creed receiving apparatus is recom- 

 mended for use in the Post Office news service. 

 The application of printing methods to the less im- 

 portant circuits should be kept steadily in view, and 

 early trials of the one-way and two-way installations 

 of the Western Electric, and of the light line printer 

 of the Automatic Telephone Manufacturing Company, 

 are recommended. The committee was impressed 

 with the possibility of two-way working with one 

 operator at each end, both to signal their messages 

 simultaneously to the other end, and then both to 

 gum the tape. An hourly load can be carried in this 

 way equivalent to the average Morse load with two 

 operators at each end, and having the additional ad- 

 vantage of printing the telegrams. The committee 

 predicts that the introduction of multiplex methods 

 for news work will call for serious consideration in 

 the near future, and it urges that the application 

 of these systems, to give simultaneous communication 

 on one wire between each one of three or possiblv 

 more offices, should be kept in view as multiplex 

 methods are extended. 



HEREDITY AND DISEASE. 



T N the lately issued Bulletins Nos. 16 and 17 of the 

 *■ Eugenics Record Office (Cold Spring Harbour, 

 New York) Prof. C. B. Davenport and Dr. Elizabeth 

 B. Muncey discuss "Huntington's Chorea in relation 

 to Heredity and Eugenics " and "The Hereditar}- Fac- 

 tor in Pellagra." Nearly a thousand cases of the 

 chorea "can be traced back to some half-dozen indi- 

 viduals who migrated to .America during the seven- 

 teenth century." The disease manifests itself in vari- 

 ous sets of symptoms — nervous tremors, dementia, etc., 

 — most of which act as dominants. Though the here- 

 ditary nature of the disease has been recognised for 

 generations, "there is no glear evidence that persons 

 belonging to the choreic lines voluntarily abstain to 

 any marked degree from, or are selected against, in 

 marriage." With regard to pellagra, there appears to 

 be a distinct hereditarv predisposition to infection ; 

 nearly half the children of a pair of susceptible parents 

 are themselves susceptible. 



The long-disputed question of the influence of poison 

 on germ-cells has received another contribution in Dr. 

 Raymond Pearl's paper on the effect of continued 



