2IO 



NATURE 



[December 29, 1904 



climate is not apparent. The average monthly relative 

 humidity is 78 per cent. ; the annual variation is insignifi- 

 cant, averaging only 4 per cent. The average yearly rain- 

 fall is 43-6 inches; June is preeminently the rainy month, 

 both for frequency and amount, while December is the 

 driest month. The paper contains useful remarks upon the 

 cyclones experienced over the China seas. 



We have received a copy of " Meteorology in Mysore " 

 for 1903, being the results of observations at Bangalore, 

 Mysore, Hassan, and Chitaldrug ; these observing stations 

 lie at the corners of a quadrilateral comprised between 

 12° 18' and 14° 14' N. latitude and 76° 10' and 77" 36' E. 

 longitude. Bangalore being igo miles west of and 3000 

 feet higher than Madras. The results, including the means 

 for eleven years, 1893-1903, have been very carefully 

 worked out by the director, Mr. John Cook, and contain 

 some interesting features. The highest reading for eleven 

 years of air temperature in shade was 103° at Chitaldrug 

 in April 1901 and 1903, and the lowest 42°.7 at Hassan in 

 December, 1895. The mean relative humidity varied from 

 57 per cent, to 62 per cent., but extreme dryness was 

 occasionally experienced, the humidity varying between 

 4 per cent, and 6 per cent. Rainfall is fairly uniform 

 throughout the province, varving from 265 to 37^ inches 

 per annum. The value of the report would be enhanced 

 by a key-map of Mysore and surrounding districts. 



In the Sitzungsberichtc of the Vienna Academy, cxiii., 3 

 and 4, Dr. Fritz Hasenohrl discusses the laws of reflection 

 and refraction of light as applied to a body which is moving 

 relative to the ether, in connection with the thermodynamical 

 aspects of the principle of reciprocity, and also the vari- 

 ations in the dimensions of matter due to motion through 

 the ether. 



In No. 86 of the Commiinicatiotts from the Leyden 

 Physical Laboratory Dr. H. Kamerlingh Onnes and Dr. 

 H. Happel discuss the application of Gibbs's volume-energy- 

 entropy model to the representation of the continuity of the 

 liquid and gaseous states on the one hand, and the various 

 solid aggregations on the other. For this purpose models 

 have been constructed for an ideal substance, showing the 

 continuity of the solid and liquid as well as of the liquid 

 and gaseous states. 



.\ SERIES of experiments on the influence of abnormal 

 position upon the motor impulse is described in the Psycho- 

 logical Review for November i by Mr. Charles Theodore 

 Barnett. Without going into the theoretical aspect of these 

 investigations, we notice that the author refers to the well 

 known puzzle of drawing a rectangle and its diagonals in 

 front of a looking-glass, and the difficulty of playing the 

 piano with crossed hands, as Beethoven so often requires in 

 his sonatas, is another illustration which suggests itself. 



Part i. of vol. xlviii. of the Transactions of the Institution 

 of Engineers and Shipbuilders of Scotland contains a paper 

 by Mr. F. J. Rowan on the smoke problem, which is of 

 especial interest on account of the recent inquiry by Sir 

 John Ure Primrose at the sanitary congress in Glasgow 

 into the connection of smoke with the production of rain 

 and fogs in large cities. It is pointed out that although 

 domestic fires are principally responsible for atmospheric 

 pollution in a large town, only the smoke issuing from 

 factory chimneys is subject to municipal control, and that 

 many kinds of industrial furnaces, other than those used 

 lor raising steam, are employed in operations of such a 

 nature that they cannot but necessarily produce large 

 NO. 1835, VOL. 71] 



volumes of smoke. In dealing with the question of the 

 prevention of smoke from furnaces used in connection with 

 steam boilers, the employment of smoke-consumers, smoke- 

 washers, and similar appliances is condemned, and a system 

 of gas firing is advocated. Mr. Fyfe, the sanitary inspector 

 of Glasgow, in the course of the discussion of the paper, 

 stated that although the Public Health Act empowered 

 prosecution in the case of " any chimney (not being the* 

 chimney of a private dwelling house) sending forth smoke- 

 in such quantity as to be a nuisance," it was customary in' 

 Scotland, under the Burgh Police Act, not to proceed against 

 other kinds of furnaces than those used for heating boilers. 

 His own experience had convinced him that gas firing was 

 not absolutely necessary in such cases, but that by means 

 of a suitable and inexpensive smoke-consumer, consisting 

 of ignited jets of producer gas, all the smoke could be got 

 rid of, and an additional supply of heat given to the boiler. 



Samples of an improved form of crucible lid have been 

 sent to us by Messrs. J. J. Griffin and Sons. It is made 

 slightly convex towards the crucible, and has been designed! 

 to obviate the loss of substance which so readily occurs in 

 simple gravimetric experiments, such as the conversion of 

 copper into copper oxide by means of nitric acid, when the 

 ordinary form of crucible lid is einploved. 



According to a paper by M. Bertrand in the Comptes 

 yendus (No. 20, p. 802) mountain ash berries not only con- 

 tain the alcohol sorbitol, but an isomeric alcohol, sorbierite, 

 is also present. To obtain it the sorbitol is completely con- 

 verted into sorbose by the action of the sorbose bacterium, 

 and the sorbose is removed by crystallisation. Sorbierite 

 has been obtained from the mother liquor in the form of 

 deliquescent crystals. That the new alcohol is hexhhydric 

 has been established by the cryoscopic determination of its 

 molecular weight, and by the preparation and analysis of 

 the di- and tri-benzoic acetals. 



.\ \i;rv interesting paper dealing with the primary form- 

 ation of optically active substances in nature is contributed 

 by Dr. A. Byk to the Zeitschrift fiir physik-alisch.- Chcmic 

 (vol. xlix. p. 641). It is shown in an indirect experimental 

 manner that it is possible to effect the resolution of racemic 

 substances by a purely physical agent — circularly polarised 

 light. The reflection of the plane polarised rays of sun- 

 light from the surface of water under the influence of the 

 earth's magnetism is supposed to give rise to a predomin- 

 ating quantity of one form of circularly polarised light, and. 

 this is the cause which determines the production of optically 

 active substances in the photochemical processes taking 

 place in animal and plant life. 



We have received Williams and Norgate's- " International 

 Book Circular." An article on some contemporary foreign 

 chemists, illustrated by twenty portraits, is- contributed by 

 Dr. M. O. Forster. 



Prof. M. W. Tr.wers's work on the experimental study 

 of gases has been translated into German by Dr. T. 

 Kstreicher, and the translation has been published bv Messrs. 

 V. \'ieweg and Son, Brunswick. 



.■\\ authorised translation, into German, of Prof. J. J. 

 Thomson's lectures on " Electricity and Matter." reviewed 

 in Nature of May 26 (vol. Ixx. p. 73), has been made by 

 llerr G. Siebert, and published by the house of F. Vieweg 

 and Son, Brunswick. The work forms the third volume 

 of a series of monographs issued under the general title 

 " Die Wissenschaft." 



