S EPTEMBER 3 . 1 9O3] 



NATURE 



421 



Marconi added that he was going to consult Mr. Edison 

 on four inventions he has recently made for improving his 

 system, one being a method of reducing by one-half the 

 high power now necessary for transmitting messages. 



The inaugural address of the new session of the School 

 of Pharmacy, in connection with the Pharmaceutical 

 Society, will be delivered on October i by Dr. J. W. Swan, 

 F.R.S., and the bust of the late Mr. W. Martindale will 

 be unveiled on the same date, and the Hanbury gold medal 

 presented to M. Eugene Collin for his researches in the 

 natural history of drugs. 



The Swiss Alpenklub will, according to the Athenaeum, 

 hold its Klubfest at Pontresina on September 12, 13, and 14. 

 The Morteratsch glacier has been chosen for the excursions. 



A GENERAL meeting of mining engineers is announced to 

 take place in \'ienna from September 21 to 26, at which 

 many. papers of interest will be read and discussed. Simul- 

 taneously, there will be held a meeting of the Boring and 

 Mining and Metallurgical Engineers for Styria and district. 



The British Mycological Society will hold its seventh 

 annual week's fungus foray at Marlborough from October 

 5 to 10. On the evening of Wednesday, October 7, Miss 

 A. Lorrain Smith will read a note on Gloeosporium Tiliae, 

 a disease of lime leaves, and Mr. Carleton Rea, the hon. 

 sec. of the Society, will read a note on the occurrence of 

 a Phalloid new to Britain. On the following evening the 

 Rev. W. L. \V. Eyre will deliver his presidential address, 

 entitled " Mycology as an Instrument of Recreation." 



The fine chemical laboratory of the University of Modena, 

 Italy, was recently completely destroyed by fire, and the 

 library of scientific works in connection with it, comprising 

 60,000 volumes, also perished. 



An exhibition of electric automobile chairs is to take place 

 in connection with the World's Fair at St. Louis next year. 

 The chairs, according to the Electrical IVorld, of New York, 

 will have a uniform speed of three miles per hour, the 

 operator having no control over the speed, and the same 

 rate is maintained uphill, downhill, or on the level. The 

 chair takes the form of a low phaeton without a cover. 

 There are two large rear wheels and two small ones under 

 the foot-rest. All are pneumatic-tyred ; the seat is up- 

 holstered in cane. Behind the seat is a box which contains 

 the batteries to operate the machine. If two persons desire 

 to occupy the chair, and the service of a guide is wanted, 

 the latter can sit on an adjustable seat at the rear. On the 

 inside of the chair, attached to the arm, is a lever which 

 puts the chair in motion or stops it at the will of the rider. 

 A long lever attached to the front truck has its handle 

 directly in the centre of the chair within easy reach of the 

 driver. A gentle pressure guides the machine in the desired 

 direction. A feature of the machine is a " sensitive rail " 

 which surrounds the chair on all sides save at the rear. 

 This prevents any accidents, for when the rail comes in 

 contact with any object, even though it weighs but i lb., 

 it presses against a device that locks the wheels and brings 

 the chair to a dead stop. 



We learn from the Scientific American that Prof. 

 Langley's i2-foot aerodrome was tested on August 8. The 

 model flew a distance of 600 yards and then sank in 22 feet 

 of water. When it was finally recovered, all that was left 

 was a tangled wreck of twisted wires. The time consumed 

 in flight was not more than 45 seconds. The course de- 



NO. 1766, VOL. 68] 



scribed was a semicircle. According to accounts which 

 have been published, the motor of the machine and the 

 rudders failed to work properly. The altitude of the 

 machine at the time of the fall was not greater than 50 feet. 

 The airship is stated to have been driven by an 8 horse- 

 power hydrocarbon engine connected up with two two- 

 bladed propellers located one on each side of the machine 

 at about its middle point. One four-bladed wind vane 

 rudder was mounted behind the engine ; then came the 

 rudder proper. On each side the airship was supported by 

 a pair of white silk wings, 4^ feet long by 2 feet in width. 

 The propellers were located on the side between the wings 

 and turned toward each other. The wings, rudders, 

 engine and other running gear were fastened to a central 

 cylindrical tube of aluminium 18 inches in length and about 

 4 inches in diameter, and tapering at both ends. The test 

 of the small model will, it is said, be followed at an early 

 date by a trial by the 60-foot aerodrome which is owned 

 by the Government, the cost of which was 70,000 dollars. 



With reference to the letter which appeared in our issue 

 of August 6 from Prof. C. V. Boys concerning " The 

 American Tariff and the St. Louis Exhibition," Mr. George 

 C. Comstock, director of the Washburn Observatory, 

 Madison, Wis., U.S.A., writes to say that the following 

 letter received by him from the office of the secretary of 

 the Treasury Department, Washington, illustrates the 

 manner in which, in one class of cases, the American 

 customs authorities have apparently overruled the plain in- 

 tent of the statute cited by our correspondent. " The 

 Department is in receipt of your letter of the 12th inst. in 

 which you inquire whether photographic lenses imported 

 for colleges and universities can be admitted to entry free 

 of duty as scientific apparatus. Paragraph 638 of the Act 

 of July 24, 1897, provides for the free entry of scientific 

 apparatus, &c., when imported for educational institutions 

 and the Department, and the Board of U.S. General 

 Appraisers, have held that photographic apparatus, dry 

 plates, lantern slides and lenses are not scientific apparatus 

 within the meaning of said paragraph of law, and such 

 articles, therefore, when imported for the use of educational 

 institutions would be liable to duty." Whether the above 

 represents a policy of the Treasury Department in cases 

 other than those named it is impossible to say, but it may 

 serve to illustrate the danger of relying upon a lay inter- 

 pretation of the Tariff Act, and the need for determining 

 in each particular case the policy pursued in the custom 

 house. The possibilities of interpretation presented by a 

 Board of Appraisers that holds photographic lenses not to 

 bf scientific apparatus seem unlimited. 



A FEATURE of the mosquito as the agent of malaria that 

 ha.- in the past been difficult to understand is that occasion- 

 ally a locality is found where the physical conditions appear 

 to be such as to favour the development of malaria, 

 susceptible species of anopheles abound, and yet malaria 

 is absent. Not only do such areas exist in some cases in 

 immediate proximity to active foci of the disease, but the 

 introduction of persons whose blood contains the malarial 

 parasite is unattended by the development of malaria in 

 others. The mosquitoes of such immune areas appear, in 

 fact, to be insusceptible, but the cause has been hitherto 

 unknown. The researches of Dr. Schoo, however, to which 

 Lieut. -Colonel Giles directs attention in the April number 

 of the Indian Medical Gazette, offer an explanation. Dr. 

 Schoo observed that, so long as they were fed on acid fruits, 

 it was extremely difficult to infect mosquitoes with the 

 malarial parasite, while they were easily infected when the 

 acid food was withheld. This observation accords with a 



