284 



NATURE 



[June 12, 1919 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for 

 opinions expressed by his correspondents. Neither 

 can he undertake to return, or to correspond with 

 the writers of, rejected manuscripts intended for 

 this or any other part of Nature. No notice is 

 taken of anonymous communications.] 



Wireless Telephony. 



It may be of interest to state that the Marconi 

 Co.'s demonstration at Chelmsford of wireless tele- 

 phony on May 28, alluded to in Nature for June 5, 

 was clearly heard on wireless apparatus in this house. 

 Every word could be clearly recognised, the speaking 

 being most distinct and very loud. What was heard 

 included the reading of several newspaper paragraphs, 

 the playing of gramophone records^ and some remarks 

 by Mr.' Godfrey Isaacs, in which he said that no one 

 would be able to overhear the conversation, as it 

 required very special apparatus to pick it up ! 



Since then other speech has frequently been heard 

 and understood. This apparently emanates from 

 some military wireless station, where the operator is 

 addicted to long poetical quotations, which he declaims 

 with much gusto. 



It is quite fascinating to listen to these voices from 

 the aether. A. A. Campbell Swinton. 



40 Chester Square, London, S.W.i, June 6. 



The Age of the Stars. 



The arguments detailed by Mr. Poole (Nature, 

 April 3) relative to the astronomical tests of the sug- 

 gestion that radiation passes only between bodies are 

 essentially those I had in mind in remarking on the 

 difficulties with "the ultimate trend of planetary tem- 

 peratures." The ways of getting around these diffi- 

 culties to me seem too artificial to make the " solid- 

 angle" hypothesis a reasonable one astronomically, 

 even though it may be the "rather preferable" type 

 of selective radiation from the point of view of a 

 corpuscular theory. The difficulties, however, might 

 be removed, or at least much lessened, if only a 

 diminution of radiation in the empty angle is pos- 

 tulated, for the diminution would probably be a 

 function of temperature. 



But the point I hoped chiefly to emphasise by the 

 data and arguments in my former letter is that we 

 now have various direct astronomical observations 

 indicating that the sidereal time-scale is enormously 

 longer than is generally acknowledged. If these 

 results from studies of Cepheid variables and globular 

 clusters, with the strong support of geological con- 

 siderations, are accepted, I desired also to emphasise 

 that the problem of accounting for the origin of stellar 

 energy and for concomitant phenomena of radiation is 

 of the highest importance, whether the solution involve 

 denying that radiation at high temperatures is pro- 

 pagated uniformly regardless of material surroundings, 

 or whether it He in the discovery (or acceptable 

 description) of other properly operative sources of 

 energ}' — ^such, for instance, as might be provided bv 

 the "general physics" suggested by Mr. Jeans, which 

 is to allow direct mass-energy transformations through 

 setting aside the accepted principles of conservation. 



Harlow Shapley. 



Mount Wilson Observatory, Pasadena, 

 California, Mav. 



Globular Lightning. 



As well-authenticated cases of globular lightning are 



comparatively rare, the accompanying note by Mr. 



Gilmore may be of interest to vour readers. Mr. 



Gilmore is a research student working in this labora- 



NO.' 2589, VOL. 103] 



tory. He is at present engaged on a research dealing; 

 with the electric charge on rain, and when he saw the 

 lirst luminous ball described in the note he had stepped 

 outside his rooms to decide whether it was likely to- 

 rain soon. He then went to the laboratory and was 

 busy with his observations during the thunderstorm. 

 When the rain ceased he was standing at the door of 

 the laboratory looking at the clearing sky, and then 

 saw the second ball. In the circumstances, we must 

 regard his observations as in every way trustworthy. 



I should mention that I have met two other persons 

 who claimed to have seen luminous balls during the 

 same storm. Their descriptions were, however, rather 

 vague. In neither of these two cases did the time 

 agree with the times of Mr. Gilmore 's observations. 

 Taken in conjunction with Mr. Gilmore's observations, 

 these further rather vague descriptions afford evidence- 

 that this thunderstorm was rich in phenomena of the 

 globular lightning t>pe. ]. A. McClelland. 



Physics Department, University College, 

 Dublin, May 28. 



On the night of May 14 a thunderstorm toolc 

 place over Dublin. A shower of rain fell after 

 9 p.m., but between about 9.25 and 9.40' 

 there was practically no rain, only a few drops 

 falling. At about 9.50 I went outside, and when 

 I had gone about two steps from the door I suddenly 

 saw a luminous ball apparently lying in the middle 

 of the street. It remained stationary iora very brief 

 interval — perhaps a second — and then vanished, a loud 

 peal of thunder occurring at the same time. The ball 

 api>eared to be about 18 in. in diameter, and was of a 

 blue colour, with two protuberances of a yellow colour 

 projecting from the upper quadrants. It left no trace 

 on the roadway. The street is about eight yards- 

 wide from footpath to footpath, with houses on both 

 sides, the total distance across the street between the- 

 houses being about twenty yards. There are no tram- 

 lines on the street. When I observed the ball its- 

 distance from me was about ten yards. The thunder 

 was heard just at the disappearance of the ball, but 

 the sound seemed to come from overhead rather than 

 from the place where the ball was. This was the first 

 peal of thunder that I heard, and there was no more- 

 thunder or lightning until after 10.15. From 10.40 

 onwards the thunderstorm was rather violent and the 

 rain heavy. The rain ceased about 12 midnight, but 

 sheet lightning continued to play over the sky. I was- 

 lopking towards the north at about 12.15, where the 

 sl<v was fairly clear, with small white clouds scat- 

 tered over it, when I saw a yellow-coloured ball which 

 appeared to travel a short distance and then disappear. 

 This ball was high up in the skv, and appeared' 

 smaller than the first ball described above. 



G. Gilmore. 



WAR AND WASTE. 



WAR, however conducted, is, from its very 

 nature, a wasteful business, and, if carried 

 on more teutonicum, is flagrantly so. Nothing- 

 affronted the righteous instincts of civilised 

 humanity more profoundly than the shameless and 

 unbridled lust of destructiveness in which the 

 Germans indulged so long as Belgium and 

 Northern France remained within their grasp ; 

 and nothing has excited universal contempt so 

 much as the way in which they are shuffling now 

 they are compelled to make good, so far as is 

 possible, the damage they so causelessly and' 

 wantonly inflicted. 



