6i8 



NATURE 



[April 26, 19CX) 



On the first day, the Bessemer gold medal for 19CO will be pre- 

 sented to Mr. Henri de Wendel, president of the Comite des 

 Forges de France. During the meeting, papers will be read 

 and discussed on ingots for gun tubes and propeller shafts ; the 

 manufacture and application of water-gas ; the equalisation of 

 the temperature of hot blast ; blowing-engines driven by crude 

 blast-furnace gas ; the solution theory of iron; the use of fluid 

 metal in the open-hearth furnace ; the manganese ores of Brazil ; 

 the utilisation of blast-furnace slag ; iron and phosphorus ; and 

 the continuous working of the open-hearth furnace. The 

 annual dinner of the Institute will be held at the Hotel Cecil 

 on May 9. 



It may be remembered that in France, la§t year, the Matin 

 organised a race of about 1400 miles, known as the " Tour de 

 France," which effectually brought the powers of automobile 

 vehicles to the notice of all sections of the population. In some 

 of these contests very surprising results have been attained. 

 The winning car in a recent race at Pau, says the Times, accom- 

 plished a distance of 208 miles without a stop, at an average 

 speed of 44! miles an hour, covering the first 34J miles in the 

 remarkable time of 33^ minutes. Stimulated by the success of 

 last year's " Tour de France," both in promoting the use of 

 motor cars and in revealing the types of car best suited for the 

 purposes in view, the Automobile Club of Great Britain and 

 France has arranged a trial of over 1000 miles, to be carried out 

 on a route passing through the following centres of population : — 

 Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh, Newcastle-on- 

 Tyne, Leeds and Sheffield. The procession of cars started 

 from Hyde Park Corner on Monday, and the survivors will 

 return to London on Saturday, May 12. Eleven days will be 

 devoted to covering the distance, and at each of the above- 

 named places the vehicles will be on exhibition for one clear 

 day. They will also be exhibited for a few hours at Chelten- 

 ham, Kendal, Carlisle, York, Lincoln and Nottingham, and at 

 the conclusion of the trial there will be a .week's exhibition at 

 Prince's Club, Knightsbridge. Over eighty vehicles are taking 

 part in the trial, of which fifty-three have been entered by 

 manufacturers and agents, and the remainder by private owners. 



The death is announced of Prof. Silas W. Holman, emeritus 

 professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 



An appreciative notice of the life and scientific career of the 

 late Mr. J. J. Walker, F.R.S. , who died on February 15, is 

 contributed to the University College School Magazinehy Mr. R. 

 Tucker. Mr. Walker was appointed lecturer in applied mathe- 

 matics and physics at the school in 1865, and in the same year 

 became a member of the London Mathematical Society. He was 

 a member of the council of the society from November 1869 to 

 November 1874, and then again from November 1876 to 

 November 1894 ; he was vice-president for two periods of two 

 years, and president from November 1888 to November 1890. 

 He contributed some twenty-four papers to the Proceedings, the 

 longest of which were a method in the analysis of plane curves 

 and on the satellite of a line relatively to a cubic. His presi- 

 dential address was "On the influence of applied on the pro- 

 gress of pure mathematics." This, as remarked by his successor 

 in office, Prof Greenhill, " showed us how many of the most 

 abstruse theories of pure analysis owe their origin to ideas which 

 arose in connection with concrete and even practical require- 

 ments." His range of mathematical reading was very extensive, 

 and he contributed papers to the Royal Society and most of the 

 mathematical journals. From 1868 to 1882 Mr. Walker was 

 vice-principal of University Hall. He was a member of the 

 Physical Society, and was elected F.R.S. in 1883. 



The death of M. Gustave Planchon has removed from our 

 midst perhaps the most active scientific pharmacist of the 

 NO. 1 591, VOL. 61] 



present day. Although typically French, Planchon's works, so J 

 far as their matter is concerned, are cosmopolitan, his " Simple > 



Drugs of Vegetable Origin," for instance, being known to all j 



students of pharmacy. Planchon was a graduate of Montpellier, \ 



and the first part of his career was spent in teiching pharmacy ] 



in the Montpellier Faculty of Medicine. In 1866, however, he i 



was called to Paris as Professor of the Natural History of ! 



Medicaments. He was appointed Director of the Paris School i 



of Pharmacy in 1886. and continued to hold that position until | 



his death a few days ago. Most prominent among his contri- \ 



butions to pharmacy are his, the work mentioned above, and^ ; 



brochures upon quinine, ipecacuanha and jaborandi. He was ! 



also a great authority upon the history of pharmacy and j 



medicinal plants lore. He was quite recently elected President j 



of the International Congress of Pharmacy, which is to take | 



place in Paris next August, and it will l>e a matter of most 1 



sincere regret that one who would have filled the duties of this \ 



position so ably has been so unexpectedly cut off. Besides ' 



those who admire his work, and him on account of it, he leaves j 

 behind a large circle of close friends who will all their lives miss 



his kindly personality. | 



i 



The Paris correspondent of the Times reports that a geologist, | 



M. Neuburgher, has just been examining, on behalf of the French j 

 Government, the mineral oil country of Oran, Algeria. It is 



stated that there is a tract, of at least 120 miles in length, ex- | 



ceedingly rich in petroleum, resembling the rich districts of Baku ! 

 and Galicia. 



The death of an aeronaut at Paris from poisoning by \ 



hydrogen arsenide shows the necessity of taking precautions i 



to purify the gas used for filling balloons. From a note in La j 



Nature it appears that upon the occasion on which the accident | 



occurred the balloon was filled in the ordinary way, and nothing \ 



peculiar was noticed in the character of the gas ; but some j 



hours afterwards the persons who had assisted in the operation \ 

 were taken seriously ill, and one of them did not recover. The 

 accident directs attention to a danger frequently overlooked. 



Another effort to discover some clue to the fate of Andree 

 will be made this summer. The National Geographic Magazine 

 states that the Swedish-Russian Expedition, which will leave 

 about June i for Spitzbergen to relieve the party that is at 

 present engaged in the work of measuring an arc of the 

 meridian in that latitude, plans to make a detour to King 

 Charles Land and carefully search the entire neighbourhood. 



It will be remembered that in September of last year a buoy was :; 



picked up on the north coast of King Charles Land, at 80° "I 



north latitude and 25° east longitude, marked " Andree's j 



Polar Expedition." When taken to Stockholm and opened, it ^ 



proved to be what Andree had called "the North Pole Buoy," \ 



and in which he was to place a message when he passed the '\ 



North Pole. However, a microscopical examination of the | 



interior could discover no message. As the buoy could not i 



have drifted to King Charles Land from the neighbourhood of j 



the Pole, the only conclusion possible is that it was a part of the ^ 



wreckage of the expedition, and that possibly more wreckage • 



may be found near by. ; 



Swiss engineers, though so successful in the manufacture of J 



various classes of machinery, labour under the disability that 1 



practically the whole of the iron employed, valued at over two ] 



million pounds annually, has to be imported from Germany ^ 



and elsewhere. This is due, not so much to the absence of iron \ 



ores within their boundaries as to the want of coal wherewith \ 



to smelt it. We learn from the Electrician that recent re- • 



searches in electro-metallurgy promise a means of overcoming j 



the defect, and a scheme for the application of the electric * 



furnace to the smelting of iron on the large scale is being | 



