JANUARY 24, 1907] 
WATE 393 
WE have ID) (Cee De collection 
of papers relating to the lilac-coloured spodumene, known 
as kunzite, from California. These spodumene crystals 
are of extraordinary size, transparency, and beauty, and 
the various papers recording the remarkable discovery were 
noticed in NaTuRE in 1903 (vol. Ixviii., p. 460). 
received from Kunz a 
Tue magnificent collection of jadeite and nephrite pre- 
sented by the late Mr. Heber R. Bishop to the Metro- 
politan Museum of Art of New York has, as stipulated 
in the gift, been duly catalogued. The exhaustive cata- 
logue, of which only one hundred copies have been pre- 
pared, is described by Dr. G. F. Kunz in the Bulletin 
of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1906. It covers a 
thorough investigation of the subject. No copies were 
sold, the entire edition having been distributed amongst 
the important public institutions of the world. 
Pror. W. Gattoway,. who has invented many valuable 
improvements in mining methods and machinery, 
devised an ingenious apparatus for automatically stopping 
and re-starting mine waggons, and recently read a paper 
describing the invention to the North of England Institute 
of Mining Engineers (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1906). The 
points at which this appliance can be most usefully 
employed are at the weighing machine between the top 
of the shaft and the screens, and in front of the cage 
at the top and bottom of the shaft. By it, all the weigh- 
ing on the surface and the loading and unloading of the 
cages have been effected automatically for upwards of a 
year at a colliery in South Wales. 
has 
At the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy a paper was 
read on January 17 by Mr. E. A. Smith on the assay 
of silver bullion by Volhard’s ammonium thiocyanate 
method. It has recently been the practice to modify 
slightly the method of finishing the assay by adding 
sufficient ammonium thiocyanate to the check assay to 
intensify the red colour of the ferric thiocyanate, and to 
use this colour as a standard of comparison. Experiments 
described by the author proved that, by finishing the assay 
in this way, a limit of accuracy of less than o-1 per 1000 
of silver can be obtained by Volhard’s method. Working 
in the ordinary way, the limit of accuracy is 0-2 to 0-3 
per 1000. 
ATTENTION was directed by Mr. Bennett H. Brough in his 
lectures on perils underground (Journal of the Society of 
Arts, January 11) to the fact that, whilst from time 
to time some terrible colliery explosion occurred claiming 
scores of victims at once, every-day fatalities from falls 
of roof added up to a far higher total. This statement 
is strikingly borne out by the Home Office tables of fatal 
accidents and deaths in and about the mines and quarries 
of the United Kingdom during the year 1906, of which 
we have received an advance proof. The total number of 
deaths caused by explosions of fire-damp or coal-dust was 
fifty-four, and that caused by falls of ground was 547. 
Of other deaths, sixty-eight were due to shaft accidents, 
329 to miscellaneous accidents underground, and 135 to 
accidents on the surface. Altogether there were 1133 deaths 
from accidents as compared with 1159 in 1905. 
Mr. P. E. Raptey, of 30 Theobald’s Road, London, 
has compiled and published at one penny a booklet of 
64 pages dealing with metric and English weights and 
measures. The publication may be regarded as a modern 
“table book,’ and should serve to popularise the decimal 
system of coinage and weights and measures generally. 
NO. 1943, VOL. 75] 
In the Times of January 15 Dr. H. R. Mill gives the 
results of a preliminary discussion of the rainfall observ- 
ations of the British Isles during the past year. The pro- 
duction of such a general summary in so short a time 
is at least a remarkable performance, and highly credit- 
able to the British rainfall organisation; the preparation 
for final publication, after careful scrutiny, of some 4000 
records will take about six months to complete. Dr. Mill 
states that the year 1906 was not remarkable with respect 
to annual rainfall, ‘unless it be remarkable to coincide 
almost exactly with the the portions of the 
country which were unduly wet compensating for those 
which were unusually dry.’’ This remark calls to mind 
one made by Dr. Shaw, referring to the Weekly Weather 
Report, at one of the recent useful discussions at the 
Meteorological Office, viz. that the average value was 
apparently one not very likely to occur. The mean of the 
percentage figures given in Dr. Mill’s diagrams shows that 
the general rainfall of England and Wales was exactly 
the average, while that of Scotland shows an excess of 
9 per cent., and that of Ireland a deficiency of 4 per 
cent. The special monthly features were principally a wet 
January and dry April in the south of England, a wet 
May in Scotland and the north of England; a storm with 
excessive rainfall in the south-east half of England on 
June 28; a very dry summer (with the exception of a wet 
August in Scotland); a wet October; and heavy snowfall 
near the end of December. 
average, 
WE have received a copy of the January issue of Mr. 
C. Baker’s (244 High Holborn) classified list of second- 
hand instruments. Men of science and teachers who are 
requiring microscopes, surveying instruments, telescopes, 
spectroscopic apparatus, barometers, or other instruments 
or accessories will do well to examine this catalogue. 
Messrs. REYNOLDS AND Branson, Ltp., of Leeds, have 
sent us a series of their recent issues of illustrated cata- 
logues of chemical and physical apparatus which they are 
prepared to supply. Every requirement of the teacher of 
science and of the investigator appears to have been borne 
in mind in preparing the catalogues, which are models of 
clear arrangement for easy reference. 
Messrs. LONGMANS, GREEN AND Co. have issued an 
abridged edition of the late Mr. F. W. H. Myers’s 
“Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death.’’ 
The abridgment and editing have been done by Mr. Leopold 
H. Myers. The original work was reviewed at some 
length by Sir Oliver Lodge, F.R.S., issue of 
June 18, 1903, and readers may be directed to the account 
there given of the line of argument followed by Frederic 
Myers. The price of the present book is 1os. 6d. net. 
in our 
Aw address on the ‘‘ Modern Theories of Electricity and 
their Relation to the Franklinian Theory,’’ delivered in 
Philadelphia by Prof. E. Rutherford at the celebration 
in April of last year, under the auspices of the American 
Philosophical Society, of the 200th anniversary of the 
birth of Benjamin Franklin, is published in the official 
record of the celebration. In his address Prof. Rutherford 
gave a comprehensive review of the development of the 
conceptions which have been formed of positive and 
negative electricity from the time of the one-fluid theory 
of Franklin to the present day, and briefly summarised 
recent views of the constitution of matter from the stand- 
point of the theory of electrons. 
