July 5, 1900] 



NATURE 



231 



bottom deposits of the shallow water grounds in the neighbour- 

 hood of Plymouth, upon a systematic plan, has been continued 

 during the year. 



A SUCCESSFUL trip has at last beertmade with Count Jeppelin's 

 navigable balloon at Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance. On 

 Saturday evening the ascent was prev'ented by an explosion of 

 one of the segments of the balloon, and a similar accident is 

 stated to have befallen one of Count Zeppelin's benzine motors. 

 Or. Sunday evening, Count Zeppelin and four others made their 

 first ascent, and after drifting with the wind, turned and tried 

 to make headway against it ; but the wind appears to have been 

 too strong, and the balloon was quietly lowered to the lake, 

 where the cars floated and the occupants were brought to shore 

 without any damage. From another telegram dated July 2 

 (Monday) we learn that a successful ascent was made that 

 ening. This must have been a second attempt, and it is 

 ited that the ship travelled safely to Immenstadt, thirty-five 

 miles from Friedrichshafen, and landed all well. 



London was again visited by a sharp thunderstorm about 

 midday on Tuesday ; the rainfall and hail during the storm 

 amounted to 0"23 inch in Westminster. The weather has con- 

 tinued in a very unsettled condition, but, nevertheless, the mean 

 temperature in the neighbourhood of London for the month of 

 June exceeded the average by about 0*05. This result has 

 been caused chiefly by the amount of cloud which, while 

 making the days cool, has kept the nights relatively warm. 

 The rainfall for the month was o*66 inch above the average, 

 and in some parts of England it was double the average. 



The Lancet, quoting from a Buenos Ayres review of hygiene, 

 entitled La Saliid, gives some interesting particulars concerning 

 the plague. Formerly, according to a tradition common 

 amongst certain tribes of South American Indians, wide-spread- 

 ing fires used to sweep over the land. The inhabitants were in 

 the habit of taking refuge in caves and dens of the earth. From 

 time to time they poked out the branch of a tree, and if this when 

 pulled in again showed no signs of burning they considered it 

 safe to come out. So formerly when plague ravaged and deso- 

 lated various countries the inhabitants shut themselves up in 

 the cave of isolation and did not come forth until they learned that 

 plague had disappeared. Nowadays, however, just as the 

 Indian tribes possess herds of horses which they did not formerly 

 possess, and are able by these means to stamp out pampas fires, 

 so that there is no need to take refuge in a cave, so also modern 

 cities possess hygienic knowledge and conditions which render 

 isolation unnecessary, and a general dissemination of plague 

 throughout Europe and America is as impossible as a fire which 

 should affect the whole pampas. In India and in China only 

 those persons succumb who live under grossly unhygienic con- 

 ditions. With reference to the recent outbreak of plague in 

 Argentina, La Salnd says, " It would be greatly to the honour 

 of the Argentine Republic if she would invite other countries to 

 a conference to consider the question of meeting plague, if not 

 actually by abandoning all international action yet by leaving 

 commerce perfectly free and by treating the disease wherever it 

 a:ppears exactly like any other infectious disease which assumes 

 endemic characters." 



The annual report of Sir George Nares, F.R.S., acting 

 conservator of the Mersey, has just been issued, and shows that 

 considerable work has been done by the sand-pump dredgers 

 Brancker and G. B. Crow at the Queen's Channel Bar and at 

 certain shoals in the Queen's and Crosby Channels, at the 

 entrance to the river. For several months the surveys show 

 considerable improvement, many of them having no soundings 

 less than 27 ft. below low water spring tides within the dredged 

 cut. Though there has been slight shoaling at the outer end or 

 NO. I 60 1. VOL. 62] 



the north side of the channel, several good lines of sounding 

 run the full length of the cut with not less than 27 ft. During 

 the year 2,067,000 tons were dredged in Queen's Channel, 

 1,839,000 tons taken from shoals in that channel, and 2,735,000 

 tons from shoals in Crosby Channel, making a total of 6,659,000 

 tons, while since the commencement of the operations 45, 148,860 

 tons of sand have been removed. The number of inward and 

 outward bound vessels passing through Queen's Channel last 

 year was 45,158, against 44,376 in the previous year', and 35,932 

 in 1893. The daily average of last year was 124 against 98 in 

 1893. The total using all the channels increased from 41,439 

 in 1893 t" 50.964 in 1898, and 52,216 last year. The sand 

 removed from the river between Liverpool and New Brighton in 

 1899 was 1,374,670 tons. In the same period 1,375,272 tons 

 of silt and detritus were raised from the Manchester Ship Cana 

 and deposited at sea. 



The idea of substituting electiicity for horse-traction on canals 

 has not been so widely developed as one would have expected 

 to see, but some experiments of an instructive nature (Engineer- 

 ing, June 22) have been made by a German firm on behalf of 

 the Prussian Government, wherein electric locomotives were 

 employed for this purpose, and the mode of working may be 

 briefly stated as follows : — A section of the Finow Canal, which 

 forms a portion of the waterway between Berlin and Stettin, was 

 chosen, embodying as it does physical difficulties with reverse 

 curves, &c. On the towing-path a meter-gauge track of special 

 design with overhead conductor was laid, on which the electric 

 motor tows the barges ; and owing to the deficiency of adhesive 

 weight a steel rack is bolted to the permanent way, and the 

 rack-rail system is adopted. In spite of many difficulties the 

 experiments proved that the system was capable of meeting all 

 requirements, and worked with apparent ease. This is very 

 satisfactory, the more so because in one place, we are told, 

 the line was raised 9 feet 6 inches above the towing-path with 

 approaches of i in 8 J gradients. The electric motor used, we 

 are informed, developed from 14 to 15 horse-power, much more 

 than was necessary; but this was intentionally provided in view 

 of further experiments to deal with the possibility of electric 

 traction for barges of a heavier type. 



In Nature for September i, 1892, Prof. D. Kikuchi 

 announced the foundation by an Imperial ordinance of an 

 earthquake investigation committee in Japan. The objects of 

 the committee were to study the nature of Japanese earthquakes 

 and their distribution in time and space, to discover any means 

 of lessening their disastrous effects, and if possible to ascertain 

 laws by which their occurrence might be predicted. During 

 the eight years of its existence much successful work has been 

 done by the committee in two of these directions. They have 

 accumulated and discussed many series of observations and 

 records, and have conducted numerous experiments on the frac- 

 turing and overturning of columns and on the type and material 

 of building best suited to resist a strong shock. The results 

 are printed partly in Japanese papers ; partly, we are glad to 

 see, in their "Publications in Foreign Languages," the third 

 and fourth numbers of which have appeared this year. If 

 abstracts of the former could be given either in English or 

 French, the debt we already owe to Japanese seismologists 

 would be greatly increased. 



The Verein zur Forderung des Unterrichts in der Mathe- 

 matik und den Naturwissenschaften held its annual meeting 

 at Hamburg in the first week in June. This association, which 

 numbers some 900 members, includes many teachers in the 

 higher schools of Germany among its ranks, and it has taken 

 part in the preparation of reports on physical apparatus suitable 

 for teaching purposes. The programme included, among other 

 subjects of papers, the teaching of geometry of position, wireless 



