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NATURE 



[June 28, 1900 



The Pioneer Mail (Allahabad) of June I, 1900, has an in- 

 teresting article on the recent discoveries in the neighbourhood 

 of the previously identified birthplace of Buddha. Mr. W. 

 Peppe, owner of the Birdpur estate on the Nepal frontier, ex- 

 cavated in January 1898 a reliquary (stupa) of Buddha, and 

 found relics in a casket inscribed in characters not later than the 

 third, and possibly even of the fourth, century B.C. During 

 last winter Prof. Rhys Davids revisited the spot, and gave to the 

 Royal Asiatic Society at its meeting in April last the result of 

 his own local observations and examination of the relics, which 

 is that they have a very fair title to be considered genuine 

 remains of Buddha. These are stated to have been divided 

 after the cremation into eight portions, and distributed amongst 

 sections of the Sakya clan, which inhabited this region. The 

 relics themselves are fully described and illustrated in the Royal 

 Asiatic Society's Journai for July 1898, and further notices on 

 the subject are to be looked for in forthcoming numbers of the 

 same journal, and also (by Dr. Hoey) in the Journal of the 

 Asiatic Society of Bengal. It is hoped that the Government 

 of India may support Mr. Peppe in further excavations in this 

 evidently promising locality. 



The Scientific American for June 9 gives the following 

 interesting particulars of a specially built train used on the 

 Baltimore and Ohio Railway in a series of experiments upon 

 the atmospheric resistance to railroad trains. The trial train 

 was made up of six passenger coaches, such as are used on 

 suburban service. They were provided with four-wheeled 

 trucks, 33-inch cast-iron wheels, and 3f-inch journals, and the 

 total weight, exclusive of engine and tender, was 325,500 

 pounds. In preparation for the test all external obstructions 

 were removed from the train. The roofs of the cars were 

 arched ; the windows set out flush with the sides of the 

 cars ; and the sheathing was laid lengthwise instead of per- 

 pendicularly as in other cars. The sheathing extended to 

 within eight inches of the track and covered the trucks. 

 Suitable openings permitted access to the axle boxes, and a 

 sliding door led into the substructure at opposite sides of the 

 car centre. When the cars were coupled, two diaphragms 

 met and enclosed the space between the cars, from edge to 

 edge of the roof line. The platform doors consisted of roller 

 curtains which dropped to the steps and were flush with the 

 sides. Flexible spring curtains completed the vestibule from 

 the roof to the bottom of the car. When the train was coupled 

 it presented the appearance of one long sinuous and flexible 

 car. The tender was of peculiar construction, and continued 

 the unbroken line from the engine cab to the baggage car, to 

 which it was vestibuled. In its entire construction the train 

 complied with the varied demands of practical operation. 

 While the plans called for partial sheathing of the locomotive, it 

 was decided to make the first tests with remodelled cars only, 

 in order to prove how far the existing system of car construction 

 is responsible for the atmospheric resistance of trains. The 

 sheathed train, consisting of six cars and hauled by an engine 

 weighing 57 tons, made the run of 40 miles from Baltimore to 

 Washington in 37 minutes and 30 seconds. One mile was made 

 in 40 seconds, and two miles in 81 seconds. From Beltville to 

 College, a distance of 4^ miles, the time was 3 minutes and 10 

 seconds, a sustained speed of 85 miles an hour. By far the 

 most remarkable run, however, was from Annapolis Junction to 

 Trinidad, a distance of 20'i miles in 15 minutes and 20 seconds, 

 at an average speed of 78*6 miles an hour. The first seven 

 miles of this run was up a grade fiom 25 to 55 feet to the mile, 

 and it was covered in a fraction over 6 minutes ; while the last 

 5 miles on the down grade from Alexander Junction to Trinidad 

 was covered in 2 minutes and 55 seconds, a speed of 102 8 

 miles an hour. The locomotive used has cylinders 20 x 24, with 

 four coupled 78-inch drivers. The boiler carried 165 pounds of 

 NO. 1600, VOL. 62] 



steam. With ordinary firing the steam never dropped below 

 160 pounds during the entire run. The best time previously 

 made on the line was a few seconds less than 39 minutes, on 

 which occasion the train consisted of four Pullman cars hauled 

 by the company's fastest and most powerful passenger engine. 



The Report of the Kew Observatory Committee for the year 

 1899 has been published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society 

 in the usual form. From January i last the Observatory was 

 incorporated with the National Physical Laboratory, and will 

 no doubt greatly extend its useful work. The Observatory 

 Committee, as hitherto constituted, has ceased to exist, but the 

 work of the Observatory will be carried on by the same staff as 

 heretofore. During the past year the magnetic work is said to 

 have been unusually onerous, as many colonial and foreign 

 institutions have sent their instruments to the Observatory to be 

 verified No very large magnetic disturbances were registered ; 

 the mean Westerly Declination was 16° 57'. The electrograph 

 has worked in a satisfactory manner during the year, and, with 

 the sanction of the Meteorological Council, the records for a 

 complete year have been lent to Mr. C. T. R. Wilson, of Cam- 

 bridge, for investigation. The verification of instruments of all 

 kinds amounted to over 22,000, a falling off of nearly 2400 as 

 compared with the work of the previous year. A seismograph 

 has been in regular operation during the year ; a disturbance 

 was particularly noticeable on September 10. 



The dynamical principle of atmospheric circulation is treated 

 by Prof. V. Bjerknes in the Meteorologische Zeitschrift, 1900, 

 iii., iv. Starting with the property that the circulation theorems 

 of abstract hydrodynamics (according to which the circulation in 

 any circuit formed by the same particles is constant) only hold 

 good when the pressure is a function of the density alone. Prof. 

 Bjerknes points out that in the atmosphere this condition is not 

 satisfied owing to local differences both in the temperature and 

 in the degree of moisture present in the air. Of these two causes 

 the first seems to be the most important. The conception of 

 " solenoids " is then introduced, a solenoid being an elementary 

 unit tube bounded by pairs of consecutive surfaces of equal 

 volume and equal pressure respectively. The fundamental 

 proposition in connection with circulation asserts that the rate 

 of change of the circulation in any circuit is proportional to the 

 number of solenids enclosed by that circuit. A number of 

 diagrams are given representing the cases of land and sea 

 breezes, trade-winds, local upward currents, hill and valley 

 winds, cyclones and anticyclones. The omission to take ac- 

 count of the extra complications arising from viscosity and ter- 

 restrial rotation probably prevents these investigations from being 

 utilised for calculations in connection with weather prediction ; 

 and for this reason Prof. Bjerknes' theory must be rather re- 

 garded in the same light as other dynamical theories of physical 

 phenomena, in which certain simplifications not occurring in 

 nature are made in order to bring the calculations within the 

 range of mathematical analysis. But it is only by the aid of such 

 simplifications that order can be evolved out of the chaos of 

 statistics furnished by the experimentalist. 



An account of the seismological observatory of Quarto, near 

 Florence, together with the observations of more than 170 

 earthquakes made during the meteoric year 1899 (November i, 

 1898-October 31, 1899), is published by the director, Mr. 

 D. R. Stiattesi, in the first BoUettim Sisinografico of the ob- 

 servatory. Through the generosity of Count G. Bastogi, of 

 Florence, this must be one of the most completely equipped 

 observatories in Italy. It contains two Vicentini microseismo- 

 graphs (one with a mass of 500 kg. and a length of 9-28 metres), 

 a pair of horizontal pendulums with mechanical registration, and 

 a pair of geodynamic levels, besides a large number of seismo- 

 scopes and tromometers, all of Italian design. 



