Junk 6, 1895] 



NA TURE 



141 



lered liy a committee of the Glasgow Town Council, from 

 which it obtains a grant of £,zrxx> a year, from the moneys 

 received under the Local Taxation (Customs and Kxcise) Act ; 

 it is also fortunate in being the recipient of several bequests 

 from persons interested in its work. A noteworthy point is 

 that, out of a total of 112.447 volumes contained in the library, 

 no less than 20,812 are classified under " .\rts. Sciences, 

 Natural History." This is two thousand volumes more than are 

 included under any other head. The most important accession 

 10 the library during the three years covered by the report 

 (1892-94) consists of a complete set of the Transactions of the 

 Royal Society, in 183 volumes. X very valuable addition to the 

 scientific resources of the library has resulted from agreements 

 entered into with the Glasgow Natural History Society, and 

 with the Glasgow Geological Society. These societies have trans- 

 ferred to the library their sets of the Transactions and Memoirs 

 of foreign scientific societies, the Library Committee undertaking 

 on their part to continue to the members their privilege of 

 borrowing the books, to bind such as required it, and to bear 

 the expenses attending the printing extra copies of the Trans- 

 actions of the Glasgow societies, and forwarding the same to 

 the foreign societies as an exchange. During last year, 1 15,788 

 scientific works were issued, the daily average being 386. It 

 would be well if there were more public libraries conducted on 

 the enlightened plan of the Mitchell Library. 



Anothkr library of which we have received the report 

 (in this case the first report) is that of St. George, Hanover 

 Square. Though on a much smaller scale than the Mitchell 

 Library, the Commissioners appear to aim at making the 

 library a means of education as well as of recreation. There 

 are 11,860 volumes in the lending library, of which twenty per 

 cent, are fiction, and 6206 in the reference library, none of which 

 are novels. To obtain a satisfactory conclusion as to the work 

 of a library, the use made of the library as a whole, and not of 

 any particular department, ought to be taken into account. 

 The records of the institution show that out of 416,760 

 visitors during the ye.ir, only thirteen p2r cent, of the readers 

 went for the purpose of borrowing works of fiction from the 

 lending library. .\ rioteworthy feature iri connection with the 

 library is a museum of objects arr,lnged as an elementary and 

 self-explanatory collection, as an introduction to larger museunis 

 of natural history. 



It' is iiropnsed to hold a Technical Education Conference at 

 the Society of .Arts on Jime 20. The Society has addressed a 

 letter to Technical Education Committees, asking them to send 

 delegates to the Conference. Among the .subjects to be con- 

 sidered is the " lack of a central organisation which might deal 

 especially with such questions as the examination and inspection 

 of classes. In spite <jf the valuable work which has been done 

 by the City and Guilds of London Institute, and by other bodies, 

 it is only in a pr>rtion of the subjects sanctioned as sidjjects of 

 technical instruction that examinations are held. The wide field 

 of agriculture and home intlustries is untouched ; while no means 

 are provided for anything like a general system of inspection 

 which local authorities may call to their aid should they desire to 

 do so." There are also other points with regard to which 

 common action would be desirable, and it is ho)jed that by 

 bringing together those who are interested in technical educa- 

 tion the best way in which the Society can enlarge the scope 

 <if its present action in connection with thesub-ect will be found. 



The Technical Instruction Committee of the Essex County 

 • ouncil have arranged for a short course of elementary in- 

 ■ruction in horticulture, to be given at the County Technical 

 Laboratories, Chelmsford, during the first three weeks in July. 

 The course of study is intended to give sound elementary in- 

 struction in the cultivation of plants, liased upon a knowledge 

 of plant physiology. The teaching throughout will be practical ; 

 every lecture will be abundantly illustrated and immediately 

 followed by demonstrations and individual jiractical work by the 

 students themselves. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 



Internationales Archir fiir Elhno!;raphie, Band viii. Heft ii.— 

 On the ethnography of Slitty Island, by Dr. K. von Luschan. 

 Although Matty is a small island, about ninety-three miles north 

 of (;erman New I'.uinea, between 142' and 143' E. long., Dr. 



NO. 1336, VOL. 52] 



von Luschan comes to the conclusion that the natives are not 

 .Melanesians ; they are much lighter than almost any Melan- 

 esians, some being of a deep red flesh colour, eyes slit-like, nose 

 narrow, hair Vjlack and in long locks. Of the thirty-eight 

 weapons and utensils in the Berlin .Museum not one can with 

 certainty be allocated to any known culture-mixture ; any 

 .Micronesian resemblance is purely superficial. It seems probable 

 that the people have remained isolated for at least 300 years. 

 Three plates of utensils, &c., illustrate the paper. — Dr. O. 

 Schellong's note on some Melanesian drawings is illustrated by 

 two coloured plates, and is sujiplcmented by some notes by J. 

 D. E. .Schmeltz. The draw ings are interesting as showing how 

 unlike the oVijects intended native delineations may be. It is to 

 be hoped that more illustrations of this aspect of the art of 

 savages will be forthcoming. Of the notices of recent publica- 

 tions, tho.se on " .\rrow-poison " and "Ethnological Botany" 

 are especially interesting. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 



Royal Society, May 2. — ".Alternate Current Dynamo 

 Electric Machines." By J. Hopkinson, F.R.S., and E. 

 Wilson. 



The paper deals experimentally with the currents induced in 

 the coils and in the cores of the magnets of alternate current 

 machines by the varying currents in and the varying positions of 

 the armature. It is shown that such currents exist, and that 

 they have the effect of diminishing to a certain extent the electro- 

 motive force of the machine when working on resistances as a 

 generator without a corresponding eftect tipon the phase of the 

 armature current. It is also shfjwn that preventing variations 

 in the coils of the electromagnet does not, in the machine 

 experimented upon, greatly afiect the result, and that the eftect 

 of introducing copper plates between the magnets and the 

 armature has not a very great eftect upon the electromotive force 

 of the armature, the conclusion being that the conductivity of 

 the iron cores is suflrcient to produce the main jjart of the effect. 

 .\ method of determining the efficiency of alternate current 

 machines is illustrated, antl the results of the experiments for 

 this determination are utilised to show that in certain cases of 

 relation of phase of current to phase of electromotive force, the 

 eftect of the local currents in the iron cores is to increase, 

 instead of to diminish, the electromotive force of the machine. 



May 9. — Bakerian Lecture : "On the Laws of Connexion 

 between the Conditions of Chemical Change and its Amount." 

 By .\. \'ornon Harcourt, F.R.S., and William Esson, F.R.S. 

 " III. Further Researches on the Reaction of Hydrogen and 

 Dioxide and Hydrogen Iodide."' 



In this paper are considered the effect upon the reaction of 

 (I) .substances not directly participating in reaction, (2) tem- 

 perature. 



The general conclusion as to the effect of the medium upon 

 the reaction is expressed as follows ; — 



Each constituent of the medimn produces an effect on the 

 rate of change of unit peroxide and unit iodide, jiroportioned to 

 the mass, aiul vary'ing with the nature of the constituent. The 

 increment of this rate per unit mass of each constituent is 

 constant so long .as the quantity of the predominant constituent 

 present in the inediun) is sulVicienlly large, in comparison with 

 the other constituents of the medium, to render the media in 

 successive experiments practically honiogene<nis. For example, 

 when the ratio of the numbers o{ ff-SO' and HT'm the medium 

 exceeds 20, the fornnda for the rate at a given temperature is 



a-i\a + b(i-\) + ds\, 



a being the theoretical rate with unit of HI, h the increment 

 per unit of hyilrogen iodide per unit of iodide, and d the incre- 

 ment per unit of hydrogen sulphate per unit of iodide. If the 

 ratio falls below 20 the formula is 



a = I \a ■\- h' {i - i\+ d's\, 



in which h' and eC depenil upon the relative masses of sulphate 

 and iodide present in the medium. 



/ 'ariation of Temperature. 



The discussion of the nimierous experiments made at lem- 

 ]5erature5 ranging fron o^ to 50', in media in which the quan- 



