486 



NATURE 



[March 22, 1894 



serious loss. Although no commutator for this special 

 purpose is at present on the market, the solution of the 

 problem has been practically achieved, and may be ex- 

 pected in the immediate future to result in important 

 developments in the electrical distribution of power. 



With both the continuous current and the alternating 

 current of low frequency, then, for use at the far end of 

 the lines of suitable pressure, the pressure having been 

 reduced from that on the line wires by transformers, as 

 at the transmitting end it was increased, continuous cur- 

 rent motors can be used for power work where most 

 suitable ; the current can be used for electro-metallurgical 

 work and for electric lighting in the ordinary well-known 

 ways, and the alternating current can be used in motors 

 direct, without rectification, everywhere else. 



Already a great number of applications for power 

 have been made. As before noted, the Pittsburg Reduc- 

 tion Company has started works for the production of 

 aluminium, and will be supplied with power to the extent 



Fig. 4. 



of, at present, 7000 h.p., at 150 volts. The Niagara Falls 

 Paper Company have erected a mill on the lands of the 

 Power Company, for the making of their wood-pulp, and 

 have sunk their own pit for turbines to the extent of 

 6000 h.p. The Company will take water from the main 

 canal, and lease the right to use the great tunnel of the 

 Niagara Falls Power Company as a tail-race. This 

 mill, as a power consumer, is representative of a type 

 which will probably use largely the cheap power at the 

 Falls, needing as they do power continuously day and 

 night. Synchronising alternators, as motors, could with 

 effect be used in such cases, hardly ever requiring stop- 

 ping and starting as they would ; and they are of high 

 efficiency. The high pressure might be used in some of 

 these cases, without transforming down, in addition. 

 Applications for power have also been made from Albany, 

 350 miles from the Falls. 



Large as is the extent of the operations described 

 NO. 1273. VOL. 4Q] 



above, it is by no means all that is in contemplation, or 

 even being now prosecuted. On the same side of the 

 Falls, rights of way have been obtained for driving a 

 second tunnel, of the same capacity as the first — namely, 

 100,000 h.p. — and on the Canadian side powers have also 

 been granted to the Company to use the water-power 

 there, the extent contemplated to which it will be used 

 reaching, it may be, 250,000 h.p. Altogether the total 

 amount for which concessions have been granted amounts 

 to 450,000 h.p., which will involve the abstraction from 

 the Falls of about 12 per cent, of the water. But, large 

 as this may seem at first sight, admirers of the Falls, 

 from the aesthetic point of view, will be glad to hear that 

 it is thought that the diversion of this amount will not be 

 noticeable to visitors to the Falls. And the Niagara 

 Falls Power Company have limited their demands on 

 the side above the American Falls to the 200,000 h.p. 

 It will no doubt be a long time before the full amount 

 for which powers have been obtained will be taken up. 

 What may lie in the future it is impossible to 

 forecast. But, so far, lovers of nature need fear 

 little that they will be deprived of this great work 

 of hers ; they will still hear its thunder, be able 

 to watch its ceaseless changing aspects, and revel 

 in the other beauties of this mighty cataract. 



NOTES. 



The first (or gentlemen's) soiree of the Royal Society 

 is announced for Wednesday, May 2. 



The Duke of Bedford and Mr. Spencer Pickering, 

 F. R. S., have arranged to start an experimental fruit 

 station, in order to investigate both scientifically and 

 practically the culture of hardy fruits. About twenty 

 acres of land in the neighbourhood of Woburn Abbey 

 have been set apart for the experiments, and the ser- 

 vices of an able horticulturist, who will act as local 

 manager, have been secured. 



Prof. J. J. Sylvester, F.R.S., has been elected one 

 of the twelve foreign members of the Italian Scientific 

 Academy, founded in 1782, called "Dei Quaranta." 

 Among the other foreign members of this Academy are 

 Prof. Helmholtz, Lord Kelvin, Prof. Huxley, and M. 

 Pasteur. 



Dr. J. R. Reynolds, F. R. S., has been re-elected 

 President of the Royal College of Physicians. 



The death is announced of Dr. E. H. Jacob, Pro- 

 fessor of Pathology in Yorkshire College, Leeds, at the 

 early age of forty-four. 



The death occurred last week of General Fave, Academicien 

 Libre of the Paris Academy of Sciences, and for a long time 

 head of the Ecole Poly technique, where he was Professor of 

 Military Art and Fortification. 



We regret to record the death of Mr. W. Pengelly, F.R.S., 

 at Torquay, on Friday last, at the age of eighty-two. He was 

 the author of various papers on geological and other subjects, 

 and his exploration of Kent's Cavern, carried out under the 

 auspices of the British Association, was of extreme importance 

 in establishing the existence of prehistoric man. He also 

 accumulated and arranged a fine collection of Devonian fossils, 

 which, under the name of the Pengelly Collection, are now in 

 the Oxford University Museum. The President and Committee 

 of the Torquay Natural History Society intend to appeal to the 

 scientific world for funds to build a new lecture-room to their 

 museum, to be called the Pengelly Memorial. Mr. Pengelly ' 



