256 
NATURE 
| JANUARY I0, 1907 
H. G. Turner of the commercial value of the manganese 
ore in the Vizianagram district of the Madras Presidency. 
It is evident that India will soon stand first as the largest 
producer of manganese ore in the world. 
In Concrete and Constructional Engineering (vol. i., 
No. 6) there is an admirably illustrated article dealing 
with reinforced concrete bridges, by Mr. W. N. Twelve- 
trees. The article on steel and concrete at the Ritz Hotel, 
London, describes a striking example of steel-frame con- 
struction encased in concrete. A new use for concrete is 
indicated in the description of a gas-holder tank of re- 
inforced concrete, 84 feet in diameter and 21 feet deep, at 
Dubuque. 
THE annual retrospects published by the engineering 
journals are of great value for reference to workers in 
other fields. The report on the year’s progress published in 
the Engineer of January 4 is the most exhaustive that has 
appeared. It covers the domains of mechanical engineering, 
civil engineering, water supply, gas supply, war material, 
chemistry, metallurgy, electrical engineering, and sanitary 
engineering. Jn the special field of mining and metallurgy 
the report in the Mining Journal of December 29, 1906, is 
the most complete. The report on shipbuilding, in 
Engineering of January 4, shows that the past year has 
been very remarkable so far as marine construction is con- 
cerned. The tonnage produced in the United Kingdom, 
2,030,990 tons, is the highest yet reached. 
We have received from Mr. U. S. Grant a copy of a 
report he has prepared for the United States Geological 
Survey (Bulletin No. 284) on the mineral resources of 
Prince William Sound, on the north side of the Gulf of 
Alaska. Two mines on the shores of the Sound have 
demonstrated that copper ore of good grade occurs in the 
district. Erosion in very recent time has been general, 
so that no considerable secondary concentration of ores 
exists. The ores of possible commercial importance have 
all the characteristics of primary deposits, and irregularity 
of form is to be expected. Developments should conse- 
quently be confined to following the ore. 
THREE memoirs (Boletins Nos. 40, 42, and 43) issued 
by the Corps of Mining Engineers of Peru afford striking 
evidence of the careful attention that is now being devoted 
by the Peruvian Government to the subject of irrigation. 
In Boletin No. 40 Mr. G. I. Adams discusses the distribu- 
tion of water in the departments of La Libertad and 
Ancachs, the memoir being accompanied by a coloured 
hydrological map. In Boletin No. 42 Mr. A. I. Stiles 
gives the results of a careful technical investigation of the 
lagoons of Huarochiri, in the department of Lima. He 
appends a contoured map showifg the position of the 
lagoons, and a map illustrating his scheme for increasing 
their capacity. In Boletin No. 43 Mr. C. W. Sutton and 
Mr. A. I. Stiles deal with the water supply of the depart- 
ment of Piura. 
Tue United States Geological Survey continues to devote 
special attention to the investigation of the mineral re- 
sources of Alaska. The resources of Kenai Peninsula, in 
the most northern portion of the great upward bend of 
that part of the Pacific coast-line enclosing the Gulf of 
Alaska, form the subject of an interesting report by Mr. 
F. H. Moffit and Mr. R. W. Stone (Bulletin No. 277). 
The former deals with the goldfields of the Turnagain Arm 
district, where gold in the stream gravels is very unevenly 
distributed; and the latter describes the coalfields of the 
ing up to 7 feet in thickness, but of low heating power. 
The geology and coal resources of the Cape Lisburne 
region are dealt with by Mr. A. J. Collier (Bulletin 
No. 278). The coals are of two classes, low-grade 
bituminous coal of Mesozoic age and high-grade bituminous 
coal of Palaeozoic age. The Mesozoic coalfields cover an 
area of more than 300 square miles, and contain at least 
150 feet of coal distributed in forty or fifty seams, ten 
of which are more than 4 feet thick. The Palaeozoic coals 
occur in limited areas, and the beds are much crumpled 
and broken, but on account of their good quality will in 
the future contribute an appreciable addition to the value 
of the mineral output of Alaska. The Rampart gold-placer 
region in the central part of Alaska is described by Mr. 
L. M. Prindle and Mr. F. L. Hess (Bulletin No. 280). 
The placers are of two general types as regards their 
origin, placers of ordinary concentration from the dis- 
integration of the bed rock and placers formed through re- 
concentration of the gold in older gold-bearing gravels by 
the cutting of streams. The gold of the re-concentrated 
placers is generally smoother and brighter than that from 
the others, contains less quartz and iron, and is, therefore, 
higher in value per ounce. The gold has probably come 
from comparatively small veins distributed through the 
surrounding rock. 
A seRIES of experiments has been carried out, the 
Pioneer Mail states, at the Plague Research Laboratory at 
Bombay with the view of determining the germicidal 
properties of pure nickel and nickel alloy, and to test the 
possibility that disease might be conveyed by coins. Pure 
nickel, nickel and copper, copper, and silver coins were 
experimented with, and the results are said to show that 
all the coins had bactericidal action on the plague bacillus. 
Tue law of error forms the subject of several recent 
papers, including two by Prof. C. V. L. Charlier, in the 
Arkiv fiir matematic Astronomi och Fystk (Stockholm), 
ii., 8, 15, and one by Prof. F. Y. Edgeworth in the Journal 
of the Royal Statistical Society, Ixix., 3. These papers 
deal with the cases in which the frequency curve consists 
of a series of terms of which the first term represents the 
ordinary well-known “‘ law of error,’’ and the diagrams 
showing the effect of the succeeding terms, which Prof. 
Edgeworth reproduces from Prof. Charlier’s ‘‘ Researches 
into the Theory of Probability,’’ will give non-mathematical 
readers a good general idea of the effect of the corrections 
on the form of the curve. 
Unper the title Rivista di Scienza, a new Italian journal 
is announced dealing with questions of a general nature 
relative to various branches of science and the connection 
between them. Contemporaneously with the Italian 
edition, an international edition will be published contain- 
ing original contributions printed in either of the four 
principal international languages in which they are written. 
The managing committee consists of Profs. Giuseppe Bruni 
(Parma), Antonio Dionisi (Modena), Federico Enriques 
(Bologna), Andrea Giardina (Pavia), and Ingegnere Eugenio 
Rignano (Milan). The editorial secretary is Dr. Giuseppe 
Jona, Milan, Via Aurelio Saffi, 16. 
THE Decimal Association has recently issued two more 
pamphlets. One, which is sold at 3d., gives Lord Kelvin’s 
views on the advantages of the metric system, the opinions 
of numerous other eminent men, and explanatory tables; 
the other, by Mr. S. Jackson, is entitled ‘‘ The Inch 
Absurdity,’’ and is intended to demonstrate ‘‘ the utter 
Kachemak Bay region, where lignites occur in beds rang- | folly and impossibility’ of recent proposals to adopt the 
NO. 1941, VOL. 75] 
