134 
NAVORE 
[| DECEMBEk 6, 'go6 
Having found the conditions necessary for maintaining 
a steady arc, and for using the power supplied to it most 
efficiently, she was able to explain the cause of ** hissing,” 
and the causes of certain anomalies in the lighting power 
of the arc. 
For the past 
in investigating 
on the seashore. 
four years Mrs. Ayrton has been engaged 
the causes of the formation of sand ripples 
At the annual dinner, the Norwegian Minister, Dr. 
F. Nansen, proposed the toast of the Royal Society, 
and Sir William Huggins responded to it. Speeches 
were also made by Prof. Hugo de Vries, Prof. 
Callendar, Lord Kelvin, and the “Ttalian Ambassador. 
In the course of his remarks, Dr. Nansen said :— 
Ibsen, my great compatriot, has in one of his works for- 
mulated the paradox that the man is strongest who stands 
most alone. There is certainly some truth in this—nay, 
there is much truth in it so far as science is concerned. 
The man who, in the search for truth, goes his own way 
independently of other men and of other considerations, is 
certainly the man who is apt to find the greatest and most 
valuable truth. On the other hand, it is also true that 
science, more than most other things in life, depends on 
cooperation, on the help of one’s fellow-beings, and this 
becomes more and more true every day. Many ‘people are 
apt to forget what science actually is, and what they owe 
to science, for it is through science that modern society 
actually exists, and the development of society as it is 
to-day would be impossible if science were eliminated. 
Humanity is growing, but if science and the means created 
by science are not growing humanity certainly will have 
to look forward to a very miserable future. Therefore the 
nation that wishes to be cared for must support science 
and those who carry on scientific work. Science 
will live her own life, and has done so ever since the 
days when Prometheus made his fatal expedition to the 
gods and stole the fire which is more or less burning in 
every one of us, and cannot be extinguished. There is 
something sublime in this everlasting fire of science. 
Generation after generation disappear ; the individual is 
nothing, but always ‘‘ Watchful in the tower man shall 
remain in sleepless contemplation.”’ 
NOTES. 
WE regret to have to record the death of Sir Edward J. 
Reed, K.C.B., F.R.S., on November 30, at seventy-six 
years of age. 
Ir is announced that this year’s Nobel prize for chem- 
istry has been awarded to Prof. H. Moissan, and the prize 
for physics to Prof. J. J. Thomson, F.R.S. The prize for 
medicine has been awarded to Prof. C. Golgi, of Pavia, 
and Prof. Ramén y Cajal, of Madrid. 
Tue Physical Society will hold an exhibition of electrical, 
optical, and other physical apparatus at the Royal College 
of Science, South Kensington, on Friday evening, 
December 14. Admission will be by ticket only. 
Iv is announced that Prof. Gariel has resigned the 
secretaryship of the council of the French Association for 
the Advancement of Sciences after having performed the 
duties for about thirty years. 
Ir is reported from Bombay that experiments in wire- 
less telegraphy carried out between Landi Kotal and 
Peshawar have demonstrated the fact that the interposition 
of higher mountains does not interfere with free com- 
munication between two places in a mountainous country. 
A JOINT committee has been formed of the county 
councils of the East and West Ridings of Yorkshire and 
the county boroughs of Bradford, Hull, Leeds, Rother- 
ham, and Sheffield, to carry out an investigation as to the 
conditions of the milk supply of the district. The investi- 
NO. 1936, VOL. 75] 
gation is to be continued for twelve months, and the com- 
mittee will shortly appoint a bacteriologist to make the 
necessary examination of samples of milk taken at various 
stages of transit to the consumer. 
THE annual meeting of the German Society of Naval 
Architects was held in Berlin on November 22 in the 
presence of the German Emperor. A paper was read by 
Mr. Boveri on the Parsons marine turbine, in which he 
gave an account of steam-turbine trials in the German 
Navy. In the discussion that ensued it was urged that 
steam turbines possess various disadvantages. They render 
a ship less easy to steer and control; they are more com- 
plicated than ordinary engines; and, above all, they are 
60 per cent. to 80 per cent. more costly. Notwithstanding 
these considerations, the large cruiser which is to be laid 
down next year will be fitted with steam turbines. 
No work in medicine is of much use unless it is in living 
union with the study of the natural history of disease. 
This was the position taken by Sir Thomas Barlow in the 
course of some remarks made in opening, on November 28, 
a new Manchester and Salford Hospital for Skin Diseases. 
It is only when this purpose is kept in view that any solid 
advance can be made; it is only by trying to find out the 
causes and conditions under which diseases come, and 
by investigating their natural evolution, that real advance 
can be secured. In devoting a room to study and research, 
and in fitting it up with modern appliances, the committee 
of the new hospital has done something to stamp out 
quackery. In connection with skin disease, English people 
are very benevolent, but they have not yet learnt, as the 
people across the Atlantic have learnt, to give money for 
research; they give plenty of money for asylums and for 
hospitals, but for research which carries on the study of 
disease and advances knowledge on sound and progressive 
lines, that is one of the things which they, practical people 
as they are, have not yet realised. 
Tue following are among the lecture arrangements at 
the Royal Institution before Easter:—Mr. W. Duddell, a 
Christmas course of six experimentally illustrated lectures 
on ~ Signalling to a Distance; from Primitive Man to 
Radiotelegraphy,’’ adapted to a juvenile auditory; Prof. 
Percy Gardner, two lectures on the sculpture of Aegina in 
relation to recent discovery; Prof. A. C. Seward, two 
lectures on survivals from the past in the plant world; 
Prof. W. Stirling, six lectures on the visual apparatus of 
man and animals; Dr. W. N. Shaw, two lectures on recent 
advances in the exploration of the atmosphere; Major. 
P. A. MacMahon, two lectures on the standards of weights 
and measures; Prof. W. W. Watts, two lectures on 
(1) the building of Britain, (2) recent light on ancient 
physiographies ; Dr. C. W. Saleeby, two lectures on biology 
and progress; and Prof. J. J. Thomson, six lectures on 
Rontgen, kathode, and positive rays. The Friday even- 
ing meetings will commence on January 18, when Sir 
Andrew Noble will deliver a discourse on fifty years of 
explosives. Succeeding discourses will probably be given by 
Sir Almroth E. Wright, Mr. J. J. Lister, Mr. Dugald 
Clerk, Prof. D. J. Hamilton, Prof. J. J. Thomson, and 
Prof. G. Lunge. 
At a recent meeting of the Royal Photographic Society 
Mr. Thomas Manly described and illustrated his modifi- 
cation of carbon printing, ‘‘ ozobrome,’’ which is rapidly 
gaining appreciation. The chief advantage of the new 
method is that carbon prints can be made without any 
exposure to light if a ‘‘ bromide ’’ print of the subject is 
available. The reduction of the bichromate in the carbon 
