June 21, 1900] 



NATURE 



181 



the greater the speed. (2) There is no need to stop for coal or 

 water. (3) Its natural tendency must be to increase in speed. 

 A photograph of a working model and diagrams illustrate the 

 article. 



Considering the advances that have been made in the rate of 

 travelling during the present century, it would be unsafe to say 

 that a speed of 120 miles an hour is not attainable The evi- 

 dence that was produced before a Committee of the House of 

 Commons, in a Bill recently brought forward, was not, however, 

 sufficient to satisfy the Committee that such a rate of speed can 

 be attained with safety to the passengers. The scheme of the 

 inventor, Mr. Behr, was for an electric railway to run between 

 Liverpool and Manchester, and to perform the journey of 35 

 miles, including stoppages, in 17^ minutes, which would mean 

 a speed of more than double that now attained by the best 

 express trains. The carriages were to be suspended on a single 

 rail resting on A-shaped iron tressels, with two side rails to keep 

 the carriages in place. The idea of carriages being suspended 

 from rails is not new, an electric railway on this principle, 8 

 miles long, having for some time been in use between Barmen 

 and Elberfeld. The trolley rails there are double, and the speed 

 attained is only \%\ miles an hour. In the Lartigue system, 

 which has also been in use for some years, the carriages are sus- 

 pended from a single rail, but no high speed is attempted. An 

 experimental railway was constructed at Brussels on the Behr 

 system, when a speed of 80 miles an hour was said to be 

 attained. The sensation produced by the sudden pulling up of 

 an ordinary express train is sufficiently uncomfortable, to say 

 the least, to create considerable doubt as to the safety of stop- 

 ping a train within any reasonable distance travelling at double 

 this rate. Anyway, the Committee, in the interest of the public, 

 declined to give their sanction to the scheme as presented to 

 them ; and while admitting that the mono-rail system when pro- 

 perly matured might make an important development in rail- 

 way traffic, yet as regards the method of applying the brake- 

 power to trains running at such high speeds, they were not satisfied 

 that the safety of the public was sufficiently provided for. 



The action which the vestry of the Parish of Hammersmith 

 has taken to make known the nature of consumption, and the 

 measures which should be adopted to prevent its spread, is alto- 

 gether praiseworthy, and other public authorities should emulate 

 it. At the request of the vestry, the medical officer of health, 

 Mr. N. C. Collier, has prepared a report upon the causes and 

 prevention of consumption, and it has been distributed in the form 

 of a leaflet. It is pointed out that " there is now no doubt that 

 consumption is caused by a minute living organism, the bacillus 

 of tubercle, and that the presence in the body of the tubercle 

 bacillus is most rarely inherited, but becomes introduced from 

 without. What is inherited is the non-resistile condition of the 

 vitality of certain cells in the body which are unable to destroy 

 the tubercle bacillus, when it has become accidentally introduced 

 into the system. To prevent consumption it is necessary, firstly, 

 to avoid all those means by which the tubercle bacillus may be 

 introduced into the body ; and, secondly, to avoid all those 

 causes which enfeeble the vitality of the cells of the body, and so 

 render them unable to destroy the tubercle bacillus should it 

 become introduced." The hygienic principles to be borne in 

 mind in order to prevent the spread of the disease are briefly 

 summarised, and the information given cannot be too widely 

 known to the public. 



The recent report of progress of the observatory at Colaba 

 (Bombay) shows the large amount of work accomplished during 

 the year ending March iQCxa. In addition to the usual magnetic 

 and meleorclogical instruments, one of Prof. Milne's horizontal 

 pendulums has been in action for nearly two years. During the 

 year covered by the report, twenty-seven earthquakes were 



NO. 1599, VOL. 62] 



registered, besides 1398 small and local movements. A second 

 horizontal pendulum, designed and made locally, was erected 

 last March. It is similar in principle to the other, but much 

 more sensitive. The record is made mechanically by means of 

 an ordinary crow quill and glycerine ink, writing on paper 

 driven at the rate of five inches an hour, excellent open diagrams 

 being thus obtained. 



The Deutsche Seewarte has recently issued its twenty-second 

 \Q\\xm^o{ Ausdem Archiv for the year 1899, containing valuable 

 discussions relating to the motions of air and sea. Among the 

 most popular subjects we may mention a paper, by Dr. van 

 Bebber, on a scientific basis of weather prediction for several 

 days in advance. The same subject has been treated of by the 

 author, in a preliminary way, in periodical publications, and has 

 already been noticed in our columns. The question is one of 

 great importance, and we therefore refer our readers to the pre 

 sent more elaborate discussion. An examination of the weather 

 conditions of twenty years, as shown by the daily weather charts 

 of the Deutsche Seewarte, has led the author to distinguish five 

 principal types, under one of which the actual conditions may be 

 classed, with a fair degree of probability that the behaviour of 

 the weather (on the Continent) will conform in its general features 

 to that of the type in question. The types all refer to the more 

 persistent areas of high barometric pressure, in contradistinction 

 to the more mobile areas of lower barometric pressure. The paper 

 is accompanied by sixteen charts and diagrams printed in the 

 text, and will repay careful study by those interested in weather 

 prediction. 



We have received a double number of they<?«r«a/ of the Scottish 

 Meteorological Society, completing vol. xi. (3rd Series) of this 

 useful publication. It contains the usual valuable meteorological 

 returns from the Scottish lighthouses, and from a large number 

 of stations belonging to the Society. These observations (which 

 refer to the years 1897 and 1898) have been carefully examined ; 

 and monthly means have been calculated and utilised in the 

 preparation of the annual reports on the meteorology of Scot- 

 land. In addition to this routine work, the number contains 

 several special discussions, e.g. the "Annual Rainfall of Scotland 

 from 1800 to 1898." This is a comprehensive and laborious com- 

 pilation, by Dr. Buchan, and will be of the greatest utility in any 

 inquiry bearing upon the rainfall of this part of the United 

 Kingdom. The tables are divided into two parts, showing (l) 

 the annual amounts, and (2) the average rainfall for the whole 

 period, the heaviest and least yearly amount, the height of the 

 station, and other particulars. Among the other papers may be 

 mentioned "Birometric and Thermometric Gradients, 1704- 

 1898," showinj; the differences in the mean monthly and annual 

 values of these elements at London and Edinburgh, by Mr. 

 R. C. Mossman. We are glad to see that the important 

 work of tlie Ben Nevis Observatories will be completed in the 

 way desired by the directors, thanks to the magnificent donations 

 of two of the members of the Society. 



The Wisconsin Geological Survey sends us the third number 

 of an "Economic Series," a "Preliminary Report on the 

 Copper-bearing Rocks of Douglas County, Wisconsin," by 

 Dr. Ulysses S. Grant. The copper occurs mainly as the 

 native metal, and most commonly in the upper amygdaloidal 

 parts of the old lavas belonging to the Lower Keweenawan 

 (pre-Cambrian) formation. It occurs also in small particles 

 scattered through both igneous and stratified rocks, in minute 

 seams and in veins. It was deposited in its present position 

 by circulating waters. At times, at the surface the native 

 copper is not discernible, and its presence may then be detected 

 by the green and blue alteration products or stains, malachite 

 or azurite. Areas where the rock is highly charged with 

 epidote are of a yellow or yellowish-green colour, and it is 



