DISCOVERY 



167 



" My invention consists of an entirely new method of 

 warning vessels electrically of their position or of their 

 approach to a coast, shoal, mines or other danger. The 

 apparatus consists of a submarine wire or wires, laid down 

 in the bed of the sea, river, or estuan,^ or out to any danger 

 or anchorage or safe channel, through which intermittent 

 currents are made to pass or the electrical state of which 

 is made to alter by means of some form of electrical 

 macliine, generator or battery. These currents or 

 changes of electrical state are detected by means of a 

 detector of such currents or of the change of magnetic 

 influence, or whatever it may be called, in the neighbour- 

 hood of the wire or wires through which such currents 

 are made to flow, which detector may be on the sliip or 

 let down by rope or cable or coiled round the hull of the 

 vessel, ^^^leneve^, therefore, a vessel comes into the 

 neighbourhood or over the top of the v%-ire those on board 

 can detect its presence, and in consequence can locate 

 their position. The currents have, if desired, different 

 characteristics just as lighthouse apparatus has." 



There then follows the description of a particular 

 method wliich had been successfully tried. 



In his report to the French Academy of Sciences (see 

 Comptes Rendus, T. 175, 1921, p. 1231) Vice-Admiral 

 Foumier, after a short introduction regarding M. Loth's 

 inventions (creations) , gives " the enumeration of his 

 various inventions " under five headings, of wlaich the 

 fifth, literally translated, is as follows : — 



" 5. Solution of the problem of the guidance of sliips 

 at their entrance into a port and at their e.xit in time of 

 fog and in time of war, during the night with harbour 

 lights extinguished, by means of a ' cable guide.' This 

 cable stretched out on the bottom of the sea is traversed 

 by an alternating current of musical frequency (600 or 

 1,000 periods per second). Tliis current generates in the 

 surrounding space a variable magnetic field of specified 

 type. The form of this field varies with the frequency. 

 Its lines of force cut through the surfaces of fixed coils 

 (cadres) placed on board and beneath the ships and dis- 

 posed, according to the special form of the field, in such 

 a manner that every vessel, without other means of 

 guidance may know at each instant : (i) the direction 

 of the cable ; (2) the inclination of its course to this 

 direction ; (3) its distance from the cable and the side 

 on which it follows it." 



The systems described in these two quotations are 

 fundamentally the same. It can hardly be questioned 

 that Vice-Admiral Foumier in his report to the Academy 

 of Sciences credits M. Loth with the solution of a problem 

 which had been solved by Mr. Stevenson in essentially the 

 same way twenty-nine years ago. 



The Council of the Royal Society of Edinburgh have 

 already drawn the attention of the Academy of Sciences 

 to the historical inaccuracy of the statement made in 

 Vice-Admiral Foumier 's report, an inaccuracy which is 

 reproduced with greater definiteness in the article con- 

 tributed by Mr. Lees, who even goes the length of using 

 the French name " cable guide " for the recognised 

 English name " Leader or Pilot Cable." 



M. Loth undoubtedly deserves the highest praise for 



the beautiful and sensitive devices which the modern 

 development of electrical science has enabled liim to 

 make. Compared to these the early methods used by 

 Mr. Stevenson cannot but appear primitive. But that in 

 no way detracts from him tlie credit that is his due as 

 the inventor of the " Pilot or Leader Cable." The 

 Council of the Royal Society of Edinburgh regard it as 

 a matter of simple justice that these facts should be known. 



Yours, etc., 



C. G. Knott, 



General Secretary, 

 Royal Society of Edinburgh. 

 April 20, 1922. 



[Unfortunately this important letter from the Royal 

 Society of Edinburgh arrived too late for us to send to 

 Mr. G. F. Lees for his reply, which we hope to publish in 

 our next issue. — Ed.] 



THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY 



To the Editor of Discovery 



Sir, 



You are to be congratulated upon the balanced 

 attitude you assume in your editorial notes in the April 

 issue of Discovery. Your recognition that physiologist 

 and psychologist are working from different angles is one 

 that is worthy of every consideration, and there is no 

 question that it is impossible for us to arrive at any 

 solution ot the problem of personality unless we regard 

 the whole matter from every possible point of view and 

 take all the facts into account. The trouble is that most 

 of us are far too anxious to establish a theory and so are 

 apt to recognise only such facts as support our theories, 

 ignoring all others. The materialist is especially subject 

 to this trouble and does not seem to think it possible that 

 his facts are capable of any other than a materiaUstic 

 interpretation. 



Your strictures on Dr. Berman's book. The Glands 

 Regulating Personality, are w-ell merited by that author. 

 The ver\' assertiveness and " cocksureness " of this 

 author are sufficient to discount his conclusions among 

 men who realise the immensity of the problem and its 

 many aspects. Personality is certainly more than a 

 matter of glands, no matter how the latter may affect 

 its operation. It seems to me that it is becoming in- 

 creasingly impossible for us to conceive of personality in 

 any other terms than those of mind, and to think of the 

 body as any other than an ultimation of personality and 

 the mechanism through which it is expressed. The 

 crude materiaUsm which gave rise to the statement that 

 the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile, is now 

 untenable in the light of psychological research. 



With regard to the ductless glands, I wonder if modern 

 workers have paid any attention to the remarkable work 

 of Swedenborg dating from more than 150 years ago. 

 I shall satisfy myself with pointing out that this patient 

 student, by liis wonderful deductions, anticipated many 

 of the pre-eminent offices of the ductless glands, which 

 the physiologist of to-day is just beginning to discover. 

 Tliis appears from a paper read by David Goyder, M.D., 

 at the International Swedenborg Congress held in London 



