rsS 



NATURE 



[June i8, 1903 



are: — (i) Analytical chemistry, G, von Knorre ; (2) 

 inorganic chemical products, A. Heinecke, director of 

 the Berlin porcelain manufacture ; (3a) mining- and 

 metallurgy, G. Weeren ; (36) explosives, W. Will ; (4a) 

 organic products (including tar), H. Wichelhaus ; 

 (4b) dyes, A. Lehne; (5) sugar, A. Herzfeld; (6) fer- 

 mentation and starch, M. Delbriick ; (7) agricultural 

 chemistry, O. Kellner; (8) Hygiene, E. A. Merck; 

 subsections (a) foods, K. von Buchka ; (b) pharmacy, 

 H. Thorns; (c) hygiene, M. Rubner; (9) photo- 

 chemistry, A. Miethe; (10) electro- and physical chemis- 

 try, H. Bottinger (of Elberfeld) ; (li) legal and 

 economical questions, C. A. von Martius. Before 

 adjourning each day, the sections, however, nominated 

 the president and vice-presidents for the following 

 meeting. As a result, the time limits, twenty minutes 

 for the reading of a paper, five minutes for each 

 speaker, were not well adhered to. Each speaker is 

 at once presented with a slip of paper on which he is 

 to condense his remarks for publication in the daily 

 journal or later in the reports. Some sections gave 

 brief abstracts of the proceedings in the daily journals, 

 others merely stated titles of papers and names of 

 authors and speakers. A not inconsiderable number 

 of the 457 reports and papers announced were not read 

 owing to the— frequently only momentary — absence of 

 the authors. Brief abstracts of some of the most im- 

 portant papers will follow. H. Borns. 



NOTES. 



The annual conversazione, or ladies' soiree, of the Royal 

 Society will be held on Friday, June 19. 



Prof. J. J. Thomson has had the honorary degree of 

 doctor of science conferred upon him by the Columbia 

 University, New York. 



Sir Oliver Lodge delivered the Romanes lecture in the 

 Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, on Friday last, on the subject 

 of " Modern Views of Matter." 



A GENERAL meeting of the Institution of Mining Engineers 

 will be held in London on Thursday, July 2, and the 

 following day in the rooms of the Geological Society. 



Mr. E. T. Whittaker, of Trinity College, Cambridge, 

 will deliver an address before the Mathematical Society of 

 University College, London, on Thursday, June 25, at 

 5.30 p.m., on " Some Present Aims and Prospects of 

 Mathematical Research." 



The Moniteur Officiel du Commerce of Paris announces 

 that an International Exhibition of the Industrial Appli- 

 ances of Alcohol will be held at Rio de Janeiro in August. 



A Reuter telegram from Cape Town states that the 

 Gauss expedition has disproved the existence of Termination 

 Island, which is marked on maps, the expedition passing 

 over the alleged site of the island. 



That the Soufri^re in St. Vincent is still in a state of 

 slight agitation is recorded by Dr. E. O. Hovey (Sentry, 

 Kingstown, March 13). Outbursts issue from time to time 

 from the centre of the lake in the crater. The most im- 

 pressive changes which have taken place are in the erosion 

 of the lately-erupted volcanic material, and he estimates 

 that twenty-five million tons have been carried to sea from 

 the valley of the Wallibou. 



We referred last week to the demonstration of the prac- 

 tical working of the Marconi long-distance wireless tele- 

 graphy given by Prof. Fleming during his lecture at the 

 Royal Institution. Prof. Fleming has written to the Times 

 NO. 1755, VOL. 68] 



complaining that the experiments were made particularly 

 difKcult to carry out towards the end of the lecture as the 

 signals were being wilfully interfered with by an outside 

 source. Mr. Nevil Maskelyne, in a reply to Prof. Fleming's 

 letter, admits that he was the author of the interference, 

 which was designed to demonstrate that the Marconi Com- 

 pany was not justified in its claim that it had solved the 

 question of interference." A lecture at the Royal Institu- 

 tion scarcely seems a suitable occasion for settling com- 

 mercial or semi-scientific disputes, nor can the result of 

 the experiment be regarded as convincing. It shows, no 

 doubt, that it is possible for an outsider to interrupt the 

 signalling, but then it is also possible to throw stones at 

 telegraph wires and break them ; it does not demonstrate 

 that two different systems working legitimatelj side by 

 side would interfere with one another when the ordinary 

 precautions necessary in commercial work were being 

 taken. 



Last week telephonic communication was opened between 

 London and Brussels. The line is particularly interesting, 

 as the submarine portion forms the longest submarine tele- 

 phone cable yet laid. The total length from St. Margaret's 

 Bay (Dover) to La Panne, Belgium, is a little more than 

 forty-seven miles ; this is rather more than double the 

 length of the Dover-Calais cable (twenty-three miles), which 

 forms part of the London-Paris telephone line. The cable 

 was made by Henley's Telegraph Works, and was laid in 

 three sections by the Alert and the Monarch, the two joints 

 being made at sea. The Alert laid 16^ miles of cable, 

 chiefly in the shallow water off the Belgian coast, the re- 

 maining 305 miles being laid by the Monarch ; the cable 

 crosses one of the Anglo-Belgian telegraph cables in deep 

 water at about one-third of the total distance from La 

 Panne. The length of the whole line from London to 

 Brussels is 210 miles, made up as follows : — 83 miles over- 

 head lines in England, 80 miles overhead lines in Belgium, 

 and 47 miles submarine cable. 



The promoters of the mono-rail high speed electric rail- 

 way between Liverpool and Manchester hope to be able 

 to start the work of construction this summer. When the 

 railway is completed, a service of trains running at 1 10 

 miles an hour will be started ; this will reduce the time 

 taken over the journey from Liverpool to Manchester from 

 forty to twenty minutes. Those interested in the scheme 

 regard it as being the prelude to a reorganisation of ex- 

 press railway service throughout the country, and believe 

 that once the possibility of working at these high speeds 

 has been clearly demonstrated, the railway companies will 

 be induced to build special mono-rail tracks alongside their 

 existing lines for express services. It is already rumoured 

 that the Great Western Railway is considering the advisa- 

 bility of constructing such a track for an express service 

 between Bristol and London. In connection with high 

 speed traction on railways, the experiments to be carried 

 out in Germany during the next few weeks will be watched 

 with interest. All the leading locomotive builders and 

 electrical firms have been invited to submit designs, and 

 trials will be made on the lines between Hamburg, Hanover 

 and Berlin ; it is hoped to attain speeds of 90 to 100 miles 

 an hour with safety. 



Mr. a. Meek informs us that a full-grown male beluga 

 (Delphinapterus leucas) came ashore at the mouth of the 

 Tyne on June 10, and was captured by the salmon fisher- 

 men. It measured 14 feet 2 inches. The specimen has 

 already been cut up by the purchasers, so that it was 

 possible to see that the teeth numbered eight on each side 

 of each jaw, or thirty-two altogether, and that there were 



