M' 



NATURE 



[September 15, 1892 



•sulphur, by E. Saniter ; on the elimination of sulphur from iron, 

 by J. E. Stead. On Tuesday evening the members and their 

 friends will dine together, and on Wednesday evening there will 

 be a conversazione in the Walker Art Galleries, offered by the 

 Mayor of Liverpool and Mrs. James De Bels Adam. A part of 

 each of the first three days will be devoted to the inspection of 

 various works, and on Friday there will be excursions, one party 

 going to Chester, another to Stoke-on-Trent. If a sufficient 

 number of names are given in, there will also be an excursion to 

 the new Water Supply of Liverpool at Lake Vyrnwy. 



The Sanitary Institute, whose Transactions for 1891 are re- 

 viewed elsewhere, is holding its thirteenth annual Congress this 

 week at Portsmouth. About 400 members are attending the 

 meetings. The proceedings began on Monday, when Sir 

 Charles Cameron, the president, delivered an address on " The 

 Victorian Era, the Age of Sanitation." He presented a very 

 interesting sketch of the good results which have sprung from 

 the improved sanitary methods of modern times. The frightful 

 mortality of London and other cities in the last century he de- 

 scribed as an evil due to insanitary conditions. By the earlier 

 part of the nineteenth century the grosser defects had been 

 remedied, and the death-rate had been greatly reduced. For 

 about half a century no further improvement took place, but 

 with the passing of the Public Health Acts of 1872 and 1875 an 

 era of active sanitation ensued, with the result that the death- 

 rate fell sensibly in nearly all the towns. Sir Charles urged 

 Ihat the success of past sanitary work ought to encourage us to 

 redouble our exertions to reduce the urban death-rate to at least 

 that of the most healthy of our towns. 



The International Congress of Orientalists finished its scien- 

 tific labours on Friday last, and every one connected with it 

 agreed that the meetings had been most successful. On Satur- 

 day a good many members visited Oxford, while others went to 

 Cambridge. Both parties were cordially received by repre- 

 sentatives of the Universities. A meeting held on Monday for 

 the despatch of business brought the proceedings to a close. At 

 this meeting a number of reports and resolutions were read by 

 the secretary, Prof. Rhys Davids. The first resolution pro- 

 ceeded from the Semitic section, and recommended that the 

 Government should be urged to subsidize the study of modern 

 Arabic. The Assyrian and Babylonian sub-section, and also 

 the Egyptian section, passed a resolution in favour of holding at 

 least one combined meeting of the Assyrian and Egyptian sec- 

 tions. The anthropological section expressed its sense of the 

 political as well as the scientific importance of the anthropo- 

 metric investigations now being conducted in Bengal. The 

 same section also expressed its view of the desirability of forming 

 a collection of Oriental folk-lore on a scientific basis. In the 

 Semitic section a committee had been formed, consisting of men 

 of science from different countries, for the purpose of preparing 

 an Arabic-Mahomedan encyclopedia. At the head of this 

 committee was Prof. Robertson Smith. The Australasian section 

 desired to express its sense of the immediate necessity of 

 pressing forward research into the physical character, languages, 

 arts, customs, and relij^ion of New Guinea. Count Angelo de 

 Gubernatis moved a resolution, which was seconded and carried, 

 in favour of the establishment of an International Institute of 

 Orientalists, with its headquarters in London. It was decided 

 that the next meeting of the Congress should be held at Geneva 

 in 1894 — the meeting to be postponed until the following year if 

 circumstances should render such postponement necessary or 

 desirable. On the motion of Prof. Ascoli, seconded by Prof, 

 Drouil, a vole of thanks to the President was cordially passed. 

 In the evening a dinner was given at the Hotel Metropole by 

 the Organizing Committee to the foreign members. 

 NO. II 94, VOL. 46] 



The Perthshire Society of Natural Science is one of the most 

 enterprising of British local societies, and we are glad to hear 

 that it is about to give fresh proof of its energy by extending its 

 museum. This includes two excellent collections — the one a 

 general or index collection, intended, by means of carefully- 

 selected specimens, to act as a guide to the study of natural 

 science ; the other, a Perthshire collection, intended to give a 

 complete view of the fauna, flora, and geology of the district. 

 These collections have grown so rapidly that there is not now 

 sufficient accommodation for them. It is proposed that the de- 

 ficiency shall be met by the erection of a supplementary museum 

 hall and gallery, in which the Perthshire collection will be dis- 

 played, while the present building will be devoted chiefly to the 

 index collection. 



An improved spherometer, constructed in Zeiss' optical 

 laboratory at Jena after Prof. Abbe's design, is described in this 

 month's Zeitschrift fiir Instrtimentenktinde. It is made to 

 measure down to o'ooi mm. To eliminate errors due to the 

 indefinite nature of the base circumscribed by the three legs of 

 the ordinary spherometer, the surface to be measured is laid 

 upon a circular ring, and the contact rod is screwed up from 

 below. This ring has two sharp concentric edges 0*5 mm. 

 apart, the one for convex and the other for concave surfaces, 

 made of hard steel and ground down to the same level, giving a 

 combination which is less liable to be damaged than a single 

 edge. The ring rests without fastening on a perforated hori- 

 zontal disc provided with a cylindrical projection which just fits 

 into a hollow in the bottom of the ring. The latter is thus free 

 from strain, and can be easily replaced by another of greater or 

 less diameter. The height of the graduated contact rod is read 

 by a micrometer microscope. The first reading is taken when 

 the contact piece touches a plate of plane-polished glass laid 

 over the ring. The plate is then replaced by the surface to be 

 measured, and its radius of curvature calculated by the usual 

 formula. 



On Thursday, the 8th inst., the Cunard Royal Mail twin 

 screw steamer Campania was launched from the yard of the 

 Fairfield Engineering and Shipbuilding Company. This is the 

 largest ship afloat, the dimensions being : length, 620 feet ; 

 breadth, 65 feet 3 inches ; and depth, 43 feet. It exceeds the 

 City of Paris or City of Neiu York by 60 feet in length and 

 2 feet 3 inches in breadth. The launch of the Campania was 

 an ideal one. Although the launching weight of the ship was 

 9000 tons, there seemed to be not the slightest hitch. At 2.45 

 p.m. Lady Burns performed the launching ceremony. The 

 huge ship immediately began to move and slowly travelled 

 down the ways, entering the water amidst the loud cheers of some 

 80,000 people. The Fairfield Company have every reason to 

 be proud of this feat. Not only was the weight to be launched 

 unprecedented, but, the Clyde at this point being very narrow, 

 the big ship had to be stopped immediately she was afloat 

 owing to her great length. The Campania will be driven by 

 two sets of triple expansion engines, each set having five 

 j cylinders arranged to drive a three-ihrow crank shaft, the 

 j cranks being set at the angle of 120 degrees from each other ; 

 there are two high-pressure cylinders, one intermediate, and two 

 } low pressure cylinders, the high-pressure being placed above 

 I the low-pressure cylinders. These engines together will indi- 

 I cate about 25,000 horse-power. Steam will be generated by 

 twelve large double-ended boilers with ninety-six furnaces. An 

 auxiliary single-ended boiler is used for supplying the steam for 

 the electric lighting and secondary purposes throughout the 

 ship. The main boilers are arranged in two groups, each group 

 having a funnel 19 feet in diameter. It is expected that the 

 speed attained will reach twenty-two knots on the trial, and it 

 is hoped, when the engines have settled down to their work, 

 that this speed may be attained on the Atlantic. 



