August i6, 1900] 



NATURE 



371 



the like. Dr. Haddon promises an account of his recent 

 visit to Borneo, with special reference to the industries 

 and daily life of the natives. A discussion is being 

 arranged on the subject of " .A.nimal Worships," with 

 reference to the vexed question of the significance of 

 totemism ; and Mr. David Boyle, of Toronto, will con- 

 tribute a study of the phenomena of Neo- Paganism 

 among the natives of certain parts of the Dominion of 

 Canada. Among other archcX>ological papers, special 

 interest attaches to Mr. Arthur Evans's account of his 

 recent discovery of tablets inscribed with an yEgean 

 script, in the Mycenaean palace of Gnossus in Crete ; and 

 to Mr, F. LI. Griffith's discussion of the origin of the 

 Egyptian hieroglyphic system. There will be papers, as 

 usual, on objects of archaeological interest in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Bradford. 



Botany. 



Prof. Vines, the President of Section K (Botany), in 

 his address on Thursday, September 6, will take as his 

 subject the progress of botany in the nineteenth century. 

 It has been arranged to hold a joint discussion with some 

 of the members of the Geological Section on the con- 

 ditions under which the forests of the Coal Period grew. 

 The origin and manner of formation of Coal, the climatic 

 and physical conditions which prevailed during the 

 deposition of the Coal-measures, the most striking 

 characteristics of the vegetation, and other questions will 

 probably be dealt with. The local committee propose 

 to form a small museum of specimens and photographs 

 to illustrate the botany and geology of the Coal Period. 



On Friday afternoon a semi-popular lecture, illustrated 

 by lantern slides, will be delivered by Mr, Percy Groom, 

 on " Plant-form in relation to nutrition." 



Among the papers already promised, the following 

 may be mentioned : —On the presence of seed-like organs 

 in certain PaLneozoic Lycopods, by Dr. D. H. Scott ; the 

 origin of modern Cycads, by Mr. Worsdell ; the fertilisa- 

 tion of Call ha pa/ush-is, by Miss Thomas ; on a new 

 type of transition from stem to root in seedlings, by Miss 

 Sargant ; the anatomy of the stem oi Angiopteris evecia, 

 by Miss Shove ; the structure of the nucleolus, also a 

 demonstration of the structure of the eye-spot and 

 tlagellum of Eu^lena^ by Mr. Wager ; the biology and 

 cytology of a new species of Pyihium, by Dr. Trow ; the 

 biology of Acrospeira niirabilis^ by Mr. Biffen ; the 

 histology and reproduction of the Laminariaceae, and 

 additional notes on the cytology of the reproductive cells 

 in the DictyotaceiE and Fucaceae, by Mr, J. Lloyd 

 Williams ; on the effect of salts on the CO.^ assimilation 

 of Ulva latissima, by Mr. Arber ; on fungi "found on the 

 scale-insects of Ceylon, by Mr. Parkin ; the structure 

 and affinities of Dipteris conjugata, with notes on the 

 geological history of the Dipteridinas, by Mr. Seward 

 and Miss Dale. 



RECORDING TELEPHONES. 

 XT OW that the telephone has become, even in this 

 ^^ country, an instrument of such universal com- 

 mercial and general employment, the advantages of an 

 apparatus that will satisfactorily record the messages 

 transmitted through an ordinary telephone line are so 

 strikingly apparent that it is unnecessary to enlarge upon 

 them. That it should have been possible to construct such 

 an apparatus has been evident since the invention of the 

 phonograph. But the direct combination of the phono- 

 graph with the telephone, which seems so simple in 

 theory, has presented difificulties in practice which up to 

 the present have not been successfully overcome, and 

 the phonograph of to-day, over twenty years since its 

 invention, remains little more than a scientific toy, 

 whereas its contemporary, the telephone, has become an 

 almost indispensable adjunct of civilisation. It would 



NO, [607, VOL. 62] 



appear, however, that the problem of recording tele- 

 phone messages is nearing a practical solution, for 

 there have been quite recently put forward, under the 

 names respectively of the "Telephonograph " and the 

 " Telegraphone," two separate inventions of a recording 

 telephone. 



The first of these instruments — the "Telephonograph " 

 — is the invention of Mr. E. O. Kumberg, and contains 

 little that is novel in principle, being siinply a combina- 

 tion of the phonograph with a loud-speaking telephone 

 receiver, in which the inventor has sought by a suitable 

 design of apparatus to diminish the distortion of voice 

 which is usual with such an arrangement. The invention 

 consists of a phonograph in which a loud-speaking 

 telephone receiver is substituted in place of the ordinary 

 diaphragm to which one speaks. The telephonic currents 

 varying in the receiver set up vibrations in a soft iron 

 diaphragm which is attached by a short stiff wire at its 

 centre to a second diaphragm of mica. The centre of 

 this mica diaphragm is connected by a link with the 

 cutting style, which accordingly traces on the wax. 

 cylinder of the phonograph a record of the message 

 transmitted through the telephone. The cylinder can 

 then be subsequently used in connection with the 

 speaking diaphragm of the phonograph to repeat the 

 recorded message. Unfortunately, neither the telephone 

 nor the phonograph is free from distortion, and the 

 "Telephonograph" may be expected to possess in an 

 enhanced degree the imperfection of each of its com- 

 ponents ; from what we learn, it seems that Mr. 

 Kumberg's invention is by no means perfect in 

 articulation. 



The second instrument which has been brought for- 

 ward under the name of the "Telegraphone" is, we 

 believe, entirely new in its principle, and if it realises but 

 a part of what is claimed for it by its inventor represents 

 a very great advance in telephony. This instrument is 

 the invention of Herr Valdemar Poulsen, a Danish 

 electrician, and is on view at the Paris Exhibition. It is 

 briefly described in a note contributed by Herr Poulsen 

 to the Comptes rendus for June 25, and somewhat more 

 fully in an article which appears in the Revue Gen^rale 

 des Sciences for June 30. 



It is, of course, perfectly well known that if a piece of 

 steel be placed between the poles of an electromagnet 

 which is excited by a current, a magnetic field is set up 

 in the steel, the strength and direction of which depend 

 upon the strength and direction of the current in the 

 exciting coils of the electromagnet, and the magnetism, 

 thus induced in the steel is still retained by it when, 

 removed from the inducing magnetic field. This is the 

 principle which Herr Poulsen has utilised in the con- 

 struction of his new recording telephone. In place of 

 the ordinary telephone receiver he uses a simple electro- 

 magnet, the current transmitted through the telephone 

 line passing round the exciting coils of the magnet. 

 When, therefore, any one speaks into the transmitting 

 instrument at the far end of the telephone line, the 

 magnetic field due to the electromagnet will vary ia 

 strength and direction in accordance with the varying^ 

 electric currents transmitted through the lines. Between 

 the poles of the magnet is passed a steel wire or band, 

 which is moved forward in the direction of its length at 

 a uniform and rapid velocity. At each point of this wire 

 there will be produced a magnetisation proportional to- 

 the current which was flowing through the coils of the 

 electromagnet at the moment when that section of the 

 wire was passing between its poles. There will thus be 

 established in the steel wire a magnetic record of the 

 telephonic message, and just as the varying electric 

 currents have been utilised to produce in the wire a 

 magnetisation varying from point to point along its 

 length, so, by the converse process, may this magnetisa- 

 tion be employed to set up currents in a telephone; 



