i) 
out, geologists must be content merely with prob- 
abilities concerning the remarkable bifurcation of some 
coal beds, the variations in subordinate intervals be- 
tween two approximately parallel coal beds, the pre- 
sence of huge blocks of transported rock in coal’ and 
the associated rocks, the immensely long periods of 
stable conditions indicated by the thickness of some 
coals, and with similar probiems. 
AN article, entitled ‘‘ The Meteorological Service on 
Mercantile Wessels,” appears in vol. ix. (1913-14) of 
the Italian Annali Idrografici. The author, Prof. L. 
Marini, chief of the meteorological branch of the 
Hydrographical Institute, points out that although 
meteorological observations have not been neglected 
by vessels belonging to the several important shipping 
companies, they have not hitherto been dealt with on 
the same scale as observations on land. The publica- 
tion of pilot-charts of the Mediterranean has been left 
to other countries, e.g. the United States, Germany, 
and this country. It is now intended that Italy shall 
take her proper place in such work, and with this 
view an earnest appeal was made in a circular to 
the national navigation societies on June 1, 1912, by 
the Minister of Marine, in which he points out the 
provisions made for the successful working of the 
service. A long list of registers received by the insti- 
tute during the succeeding half-year clearly shows 
that the appeal has met with a very favourable recep- 
tion among the seafaring community; we may there- 
fore confidently look forward to some valuable con- 
tributions in due course to the meteorology of the 
Italian seas and adjacent regions. 
In the Popular Science Monthly for March Dr. 
P. G. Heineman advances the view that development 
of automobile traffic will be beneficial to public health 
in two ways: first, by the provision of dust-prdof 
roads, thus minimising the difiusion of disease germs 
which are commonly associated with dust, and 
secondly by doing away with stables which are fertile 
breeding grounds for flies that act as carriers of 
disease. 
Reapers of the Cornhill Magazine for March will 
derive considerable enlightenment from the article 
entitled ‘‘ After the Death of Euclid,’ in which Mr. 
C. H. P. Mayo endeavours to compare the advantages 
and disadvantages of the old and new methods of 
teaching geometry. While admitting that the new 
method is beneficial in many respects, the author 
evidently considers that the sacrifice of logical training 
involved in the change may seriously impair its educa- 
tional value. 
Tue March number of the Transactions of the Insti- 
tution of Engineers and Shipbuilders of Scotland con- 
tains an important paper by Mr. H. Ollendorff on the 
utilisation of ground adjoining harbours and railway 
stations. He shows that by the use of suspension 
railways enabling the goods unloaded from ships at 
the wharf to be taken direct into the factory, the cost 
of transport is so far reduced that the ‘‘ hinterland” 
of a harbour can be profitably utilised to about ten 
NO. 2318, VOL. 93| 
NEAT STE: 
pI 
CAPRI 625° gael 
times the extent it is at present. On this ground he 
advocates the provision of suspension railways by 
public authorities, which at the present time provide 
cranes for service at harbours. 
A paper by Hiromu Takagi on the thermomagnetic 
properties of magnetite, which appears in the third 
part of vol. ii. of the Science Reports of Tohoku 
University, Japan, casts some doubt on the accuracy 
of the results obtained by Prof. Weiss and Foex for 
the variation of the magnetic susceptibility of mag- 
netite with temperature. They found that at about 
680° C. the susceptibility showed a sudden decrease 
which they attributed to some change in the internal 
state of the artificial magnetite used by them. Such 
changes led Prof. Weiss to postulate the existence of 
the magneton or atom of magnetism which a sub- 
stance can possess only in integral multiples. The 
present experiments on natural magnetite show that 
the substance neither follows Curie’s law—suscepti- 
bility inversely as the absolute temperature—nor are 
there any sudden changes in the curve of susceptibility 
as a function of the temperature. 
In the current number of the Comptes rendus MM. 
Charles Moureu and A. Lepape discuss the cause of 
the constancy of composition of crude nitrogen 
(nitrogen with the rare gases) from various sources. 
The ratios between the nitrogen, argon, krypton, and 
xenon have been found to be the same in gases 
derived from fire-damp, thermal springs, petroleum, 
volcanic gases, or the atmosphere. This constancy of 
composition of nitrogen from natural sources is re- 
garded by the authors as having existed from the 
nebular stage of the solar system. The same number 
also contains some measurements by Georges Claude 
on the amounts of hydrogen, helium, neon, and 
nitrogen absorbed by charcoal at low temperatures, 
—182-5° for nitrogen, —195:5° for the other gases. 
The amounts of helium and neon absorbed are much 
smaller than the absorptions of hydrogen and nitrogen. 
The position of hydrogen is anomalous, since it 
deviates from the rule that the lower the boiling point 
the smaller the charcoal absorption. 
RaILLEss electric traction systems, otherwise desig- 
nated the ‘‘trolley-bus”’ or ‘‘trackless-trolley,’’ already 
form in several cities extensions to the tramways sys- 
tems, and there are numerous applications to Parlia- 
ment for the authorisation of similar lines. Mr.T.G. 
Gribble, in a paper on these systems read at the 
Institution of Civil Engineers on March 24, says that 
it requires no more current to carry the passenger by 
railless electric traction than it does by a tramway. 
The author shows that with a traffic density repre- 
sented by a 24 minute service, the economy of con- 
struction in favour of railless electric traction is about 
44 per cent., and in cost of operation about 7 per cent. 
The economy increases inversely with the traffic 
density; with a 30-minute service the economy of 
construction is about 70 per cent., and that of opera- 
tion is about 36 per cent. 
THE annual volume of Knowledge for 1913 is now 
available. The twelve monthly issues of our contem- 
ae, 
