November 6, 1902] 



NA TURE 



and relaxation in the round of daily work, and as a training of 

 his power of observation. For after all is said, it is only by 

 observing that we can know." 



At a meeting of the Society of Engineers held on Monday, 

 November 3, a paper was read on " The Effect of Segregation on 

 the Strength of Steel Rails" by Mr. Thomas Andrews, F.R.S. 

 In the course of the paper, the nature and primary causes 

 of segregation in steel rails were described, and the influences 

 of local transverse and longitudinal segregation on the loss of 

 strength in such rails was demonstrated. Microscopic studies 

 have specially indicated some of the latent sources of weakness 

 which occur in segregated steel rails leading to their premature 

 fracture in main-line service. Numerous chemical, physical and 

 high-power microscopic examinations have been made on a con- 

 siderable number of rails in which local segregation of some of 

 the chemical constituents had been detected, and the author's 

 investigations have demonstrated that local segregation of this 

 nature distinctly reduces the general physical strength and main- 

 line endurance of steel rails in which segregation exists. 

 Reference was also made to the importance, in the interests 

 of public safety, of detecting and eliminating from service, so far 

 as practicable, rails having a tendency to segregated chemical 

 composition. 



Sir Charles Todd, Government Astronomer of South 

 Australia, has published his valuable report on the rainfall of 

 the colony for the year 1899, showing the monthly and yearly 

 amounts and the averages for previous years at a large number 

 of stations. The report is illustrated by maps showing clearly 

 at a glance the rainfall characteristics of the year. Very few 

 stations registered their average amount, principally owing to 

 the failure of the rains during the latter part of the winter (July 

 and August) and in October and December. The report 

 contains a table showing the yearly rainfall at Adelaide for 

 sixty-one years, 1S39 to 1899, and the years when the fall was 

 above or below the normal amount (20'S5 inches). 



We have received from Dr. H. Hergesell, president of the 

 International Aeronautical Committee, a preliminary report of 

 the balloon ascents made during the three months April to 

 June last. Austro-Hungary, France, Germany and Russia took 

 part in the investigation, and twenty-one ascents were made. 

 The following were the greatest altitudes attained by the un- 

 manned balloons : — April 3, Itteville (near Paris), 14,260 

 metres, minimum temperature -6o° - 7 C, temperature at start- 

 ing 7°. May 1, Berlin, 19,564 m., lowest reading -58° '5, 

 on ground 6°8. June 5, Berlin, 16,750 m., -58° '2, iS° - 4. 

 Vienna, io,4So m., -62° - 8, 15°. The greatest heights attained 

 by manned balloons were in ascents from Berlin : — 



April, 5403 m., temperature - I9°'4, at starting 6°'6 

 May, 5510m., ,, -3°°"5. .'. 6°"2 



June, 5936 m., „ - iS°-o, ,, 20°'9 



In the latter case the observers were Dr. Berson, and Prof. 

 Palazzo, of Rome. On each occasion Mr. Rotch sent up kites 

 from his observatory at Blue Hill, near Boston, U.S. On the 

 days of the ascents, areas of low barometric pressure lay over 

 western Europe in April and May, and an area of high 

 barometric pressure in June. 



Ix his report for the year 1900-1, the first volume of which 

 is now to hand, the chief of the U.S. Weather Bureau 

 directs attention to an important extension of the forecast work 

 of the Bureau made during the year with which the report is 

 concerned. At the end of 1900 was begun, by an arrangement 

 with our own Meteorological Office, the transmission by cable 

 from London to Washington of meteorological reports from 

 certain observing stations in the British Isles and on the conti- 

 nent of Europe, and from Ponta Delgada, Azores. These 

 NO. 1723, VOL. 67] 



reports, with observations from Nassau, Bermuda and Tutks 

 Island, have been regularly published on the daily weather 

 maps issued at Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New 

 Vork and Boston, together with forecasts of the force and 

 direction of the wind and the state of the weather for the first 

 three days out of steamers bound east from American ports. 

 Arrangements were also made with Portugal towards the end of 

 1900 for the receipt at Washington of reports from the meteor- 

 ological observatory at Horta, in the Azores. Observations are 

 now regularly transmitted by cable from this place, and have 

 proved of much value in the work of forecasting the movements 

 of storms on the Atlantic Ocean. 



The Imperial Department of Agriculture for the West Indies 

 has issued a Report on certain economic experiments conducted 

 in connection with the Antigua Botanic Station during the 

 period from May, 1901, to April, 1902. Considerable variation 

 was shown in the crop results, to a great extent attributable to 

 the abnormally wet season, the year's rainfall amounting to 

 75 '46 in., the total for the preceding year being 42 '67 in. 

 February was the only dry month. The experiments have for 

 their objects the improvement of local food products, the intro- 

 duction of new crops, and the placing on record of interesting 

 facts bearing on insect and fungoid attacks, climatic conditions, 

 iVc. An investigation of the black-spot disease of pine-apples 

 and of their rotting during transit to Europe has led to 

 the conclusion that the former is due to injury, during the 

 period of growth, from the attacks of a Penicillium, and the 

 latter to injury, after cutting, from the attacks of Trichosphaeria 

 Sacckari (rind fungus) and a species of Diplodia. 



Prof. J. Schneider contributes an interesting paper, 

 on the diurnal movements of the atmosphere at Hamburg, to 

 the September number of the Meteorologische Zeitschrift. The 

 wind observations published in the "Deutsche Meteorologische 

 Jahrbuch" for the years 18S7 to 1896 are dealt with by resolv- 

 ing into components in west-east and south-north directions, 

 and the diagram ' of hourly movement shows that the daily 

 curve is entirely closed, its form being egg-shaped, with the 

 narrow end pointing north-east, and its total perimeter about 

 45 kilometres. 



Dr. A. Sprung describes a number of photographs of halos 

 and parhelia, taken by him at Potsdam on March 23, in the 

 August issue of the Meteorologische Zeitschrift. One of the 

 photographs is reproduced. The ' phenomena are of special 

 interest from the fact that they include both parhelia and the 

 rare large halo, and that the dark spaces are indicated in the 

 photographs. Measurements of the plates give the following 

 mean results, which are compared with the means of direct 

 measurements made by different observers : — 



The problem of the representation by a finite number of 

 parametric formula; in two variables of the neighbourhood of a 

 singular point of an algebraic surface was first solved in 1892 

 by Gustav Kobb, but his solution received criticism at the 

 hands of Beppo Levi in 1S97. Mr. C. W. M. Black, writing in 

 the Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 

 now gives a new investigation of the problem, which is claimed 

 not only to supply the deficiencies in Kobb's reasoning, but also 

 to extend the discussion from the case of an algebraic surface to 

 the more general case of any analytic surface whatever. 



Mr. C. H. HlNTON has published, in the Bulletin of the 

 Philosophical Society of Washington, a paper on the " Recogni- 

 tion of the Fourth Dimension." In it the author examines 



