634 



NATURE 



[October 29, 1903 



was a graphical method of analysing a Fourier series, the 

 author's methods being exceedingly neat and handy, but 

 requiring very exact and careful draughtsmanship. 



The first paper taken on Friday, September ii, was 

 specially written in order to prepare members for the visit 

 of the section on Saturday to the new Manchester Municipal 

 Technical Institute. Principal J. H. Reynolds gave, with 

 the aid of a number of lantern slides, an interesting account 

 of the construction and equipment of this great technical 

 institute. The author's paper was practically a defence of 

 the methods which have been adopted in connection with 

 the equipment of the engineering and other departments of 

 this Institute ; the authorities have been attacked for fitting 

 up their laboratories with unnecessarily complicated 

 apparatus, probably beyond the capacity of the class of 

 students they are likely to have, and it must be admitted 

 that there is some justification for this criticism. Members 

 of the section were better able to form their own opinion 

 on this controversy after the visit on Saturday. As regards 

 the strength of materials laboratory, the machines are those 

 ordinarily employed, with the addition of a very powerful 

 appliance for compression purposes, but as it happens to be 

 extremely simple in construction, being nothing more or 

 less than a modified cotton press, it can be used as easily 

 by students (though its capacity runs into hundreds of 

 tons) as if it were a machine of only a few tons capacity. 

 In the steam engine laboratory, however, there is no 

 doubt that the experimental engine, a fine piece of design 

 due to Prof. Nicolson, is on too big a scale for teaching 

 purposes ; it may be an admirable instrument for 

 research in the hands of Prof. Nicolson, and therefore the 

 authorities of the college may be justified in the expendi- 

 ture which must have been incurred both in the original 

 purchase of this engine and in its working expenses, but 

 for the instruction of the students likely to frequent 

 such a technical institute, it would have been far better to 

 have provided half a dozen engines, each, say, of lo to 

 15 horse-power, and each of a different type. The changes 

 in essential points in the design of prime movers of all 

 kinds, and in fact of most machinery, come so rapidly, 

 that if a college is to keep its equipment up to date, it 

 should not be of too expensive a character, as it will be 

 necessary pretty frequently to scrap apparatus, and replace 

 it by newer plant more in accordance with the practice and 

 design of the day. Another criticism which might be 

 offered upon the equipment of the whole college is that 

 too much apparatus has been put in at once ; it would have 

 been undoubtedly wiser to have arranged for the equipment 

 to be gradually and steadily increased year by year as the 

 number of students increased, and the demand for such 

 increased apparatus arose. 



At the conclusion of this paper, and after a brief dis- 

 cussion, the report of the committee on the resistance of 

 road vehicles to traction was taken, and the committee 

 was reappointed for another yean The work of this com- 

 mittee is of such great importance that it will be desirable 

 to direct attention to this report and the work carried out 

 by the committee a little later on in a special article. 



Mr. T. Clarkson's paper on improvements in locomobile 

 design was then read. The author is a strong supporter 

 of steam-driven cars ; he claimed that there was greater 

 trustworthiness in the case of steam, more certainty in 

 action, more reserve power, that it would to a great extent 

 render unnecessary expensive change speed gears, and that 

 by the use of liquid fuel, burnt in scientifically designed 

 furnaces, there was no smoke and no trouble from the smell 

 produced during the process of combustion. The paper was 

 full of descriptions of exceedingly clever details, such as 

 an ingenious method of automatically controlling the feed 

 when going down or up hill, the pumping of oil under 

 pressure to lubricate every bearing and every moving part, 

 the use of metallic packing, necessary on account of super- 

 heated steam being used in the cylinders, and other in- 

 genious devices. If the steam car is ever to be a formidable 

 rival of the oil-driven car, it will certainly be due to the 

 labours of such indefatigable scientific workers as Mr. 

 Clarkson. 



The remainder of the day was devoted to a discussion, 

 opened by Lieut. -Colonel Crompton, on the problem of 

 modern street traffic. Unfortunately the discussion came 

 on so late that many had gone away for the day who 

 might otherwise have taken part in it, and no very practical 

 NO. 1774, VOL. 68] 



suggestions were made by any of the speakers except that 

 further attention should be paid to the regulation of slow, 

 heavy tratBc. It is, however, after all a moot question 

 whether there is so much street obstruction or so much 

 difficulty with the control of modern street traffic as the 

 daily Press would make us believe. Apart from a few of 

 the main thoroughfares in London itself, there is very little 

 delay in our cities caused by congestion of traffic, except in 

 exceptional circumstances and on exceptional days. Colonel 

 Crompton alleged that electric trams were as slow as the 

 old horse omnibuses ; if so, his experience of such trams 

 must be very unfortunate ; certainly this is not the experience 

 of most people, and in towns like Glasgow, Manchester, 

 and Liverpool, the introduction of electric traction has 

 certainly much increased the speed at which one can pass 

 from one part of the town to another, and in these cities the 

 problem of street traffic is not complicated as it is in a few 

 of the leading thoroughfares in London by the crawling cab 

 nuisance. Probably without inconvenience to the general 

 public many of the cabs in London might be withdrawn, and 

 certainly by a judicious arrangement of underground tube 

 railways, and by the extension of the electric tramway 

 service, the greater part of the cumbersome, slow-moving, 

 obstructive omnibuses might be driven from the streets, 

 and it is in this direction, rather than in expensive widen- 

 ings and overhead bridges, that the problem of congestion 

 in the central streets of London will have to be met. 



Monday, September 14, was devoted almost entirely to 

 electrical papers. The first of these was one by Mr. W. B. 

 Woodhouse on protective devices for high tension electrical 

 systems. The author, who has had considerable experience 

 in work of this nature, briefly described the necessary pro- 

 tective appliances, such as circuit breakers and the devices 

 for preventing or relieving excessive rises of pressure, which 

 are required in high tension electrical power systems. He 

 described several fuses and switches and overload relays 

 which had been found effective in actual practical operation ; 

 as regards switches, he was of opinion that the oil-break 

 switch did break circuit at the moment of zero current, and 

 that for this reason it was the one which should be generally 

 adopted. This paper led to an interesting discussion, in 

 which Mr. G. Kapp and Prof. Ayrton were the chief 

 speakers. 



Then followed two papers on aluminium as an electrical 

 conductor, one by Mr. J. B. C. Kershaw and the other by 

 Prof. Wilson. Both authors have been experimenting on 

 the effects produced by exposure of aluminium wires and 

 rods to atmospheric influence. Mr. Kershaw's experiments 

 have been conducted on the Lancashire coast, just south of 

 Southport, and Prof. Wilson's in London, on the roof of 

 King's College. Both experimenters found that the 

 aluminium had suffered considerably ; Mr. Kershaw found 

 serious corrosion due to the sea air, especially on the under 

 side of the wires, where drops of water had hung for a 

 long time. Prof. Wilson's experiments were a continuation 

 of an earlier series of tests which were described at a 

 previous meeting, and dealt with the effect of atmospheric 

 corrosion on the conductivity of the metal ; the later experi- 

 ments confirm the results obtained in the earlier ones, 

 namely, that an alloy of aluminium with copper alone was 

 inadvisable for electrical purposes when exposed to the 

 atmosphere, as its conductivity diminished steadily, though 

 more slowly after a time. 



Of the other papers taken, the most important was that 

 by Mr. B. Hopkinson on the parallel working of alter- 

 nators ; the paper — a highly technical one — it is impossible 

 'to Summarise. The author dealt with the practical problem 

 of keeping the oscillations, with their accompanying fluctu- 

 ations in the flow of energy to or from the main or 'bus bars, 

 within moderate limits, and he treatfd the matter both 

 from the mathematical point of view and in its practical 

 applications. 



On Tuesday, September 15, a lengthy programme was 

 dealt with, and we can only refer to a few of the papers. 

 Mr. W. F. Goodrich, in a paper on twenty-five years' pro- 

 gress in final and sanitary refuse disposal, gave some valu- 

 able figures as to the progress which has been made in 

 this branch of sanitary engineering. No less than 180 

 towns are now using destructors ; in 63 of these the steam 

 generated is used in electricity works, and in 40 in con- 

 ftection with the pumping plants of the town sewage works, 

 while in 3 cases the power available is utilised by water- 



