1 64 



NA TURE 



[June 13, 1901 



Sweden is represented in vivid fashion, not merely by means 

 of buildings, but also by the festivals and music of earlier 

 times. Dr. Hazelius's son has, it is stated, been elected to 

 succeed him as director of the Nordische Museum. 



The death is announced of Mr. William Walton at Little 

 Shelford, near Cambridge. He was born in 1813 and gradu- 

 ated as a member of Trinity College in the mathematical tripos 

 of 1836, being eighth wrangler. After taking his degree he 

 remained at Cambridge and became a successful private tutor 

 and lecturer in mathematics. He published a considerable 

 number of mathematical treatises which for many years were 

 used as te.xt-books by students. His chief works were a treatise 

 in illustration of the principles of theoretical mechanics and a 

 volume on the differential calculus. 



An International Fire Prevention Congress met at Berlin last 

 week, under the presidency of Count Komarowsky. The first 

 resolution, which was unanimously carried, was proposed by 

 Mr. Edwin O. Sachs, and was in the following terms : (l) That 

 the serious investigation of the fire resistance of materials and 

 systems of construction should be supported both by the Govern- 

 ment and local authorities, as well as by those technical societies 

 to whose members the results of such investigations are important 

 in the practice of their professions. (2) In view of the fact that 

 identical materials and systems of construction are frequently 

 employed in different countries, an effort should be made to 

 standardise the results obtained from fire tests in such a manner 

 that the investigations made in different countries should be 

 compared in a practical manner with due regard to units of 

 measurement and temperature. 



We regret to see the announcement in the Times of the death 

 of Prof. Bleicher, director of the school of pharmacy in the 

 University of Nancy, and formerly professor of natural history 

 at the same school. He was shot by a pharmacist from whom 

 a sample of cinchona had been seized for analysis at the school. 

 This crime has deprived France of one of the scholars who have 

 done most to reveal to the world the geological interest of the 

 frontier provinces of France. Prof. Bleicher's " Les Vosges, 

 Le Sol, et Ses Habitants " is a classical treatise which every 

 traveller in Alsace-Lorraine should always carry with him. 

 Every year Prof. Bleicher spent his holidays on one or other of 

 the slopes of the Vosges, studying the stratifications, the rocks, 

 the glacial marks, all the features, in a word, of this interesting 

 region, upon which he had published a large number of memoirs. 

 He had begun life as Medecin-Major in the French African 

 army, but left his work there in 1877 to become professor at 

 Nancy, where he was very popular, often conducting students' 

 scientific expeditions. 



The scientific study of plant associations and conditions of 

 growth of crops was urged by Mr. R. Hedger Wallace in a 

 lecture delivered at the museum of the Royal Botanic Society 

 on Friday last. Sir George Kekewich, K.C.B., being in the 

 chair. He remarked that commercial crop cultivation as a sub- 

 ject correlated the practical details taught by economic geography 

 and botany. The mapping of plant associations would be of 

 service, because wherever a man wishes to cultivate the ground 

 a study of its actual flora is the most trustworthy guide to the 

 possibilities of success or failure of new species. To the agri- 

 culturist and horticulturist the characteristics of plant areas are 

 better guides than those of climate alone, because in plant dis- 

 tribution the influence of soil and drainage is correlated with 

 that of climate. What are needed, the lecturer stated, are maps 

 showing natural plant areas, cultivated crop areas and zones of 

 cultivation, distinguished by definite colours like a geological 

 map. With respect to plant distribution and zones of cultivation, 

 attention was directed to the work that has been done in Ger- 

 NO. 1650, VOL. 64] 



many, especially by Profs. Oscar Drude and Engelbrecht. The 

 botanist who studies the distribution of plants usually eliminates 

 all consideration of the plants that are cultivated by man as 

 vitiating his inquiry. Engelbrecht, on the other hand, deals 

 entirely with the distribution of cultivated plants, though his 

 survey is restricted to agricultural and horticultural produce 

 grown outside the tropics. To study the commercial crop culti- 

 vation of a country the geographical conditions should be noted. 

 Land forms, that is, the relief of the land, have a powerful in- 

 fluence, indirectly as well as directly, on plants, animals and 

 human beings. An endeavour should therefore be made to gain 

 some idea of what might be termed the climatic control of land 

 forms, and the influence of land forms on natural flora and 

 cultivated crops. 



With reference to the inquiry of a correspondent as to the 

 appearance of the Hoopoe on Lundy Island (p. 132), Mr. 

 W. H. Graham writes from Fowey, Cornwall, "I dare say your 

 correspondent would be interested to know that I saw a Hoopoe 

 here in 1900, and one has been seen here this year ; both were 

 seen in the early spring, March, I think. Possibly those on 

 Lundy Island have crossed from Cornwall." 



The invention of the Poulsen telegraphone, a full description 

 of which in its latest form we hope shortly to publish, seems to 

 have stimulated efforts to replace the wax cylinder phonograph 

 by some more satisfactory arrangement. Descriptions of two 

 new phonographs have quite recently been published — one the 

 invention of Prof. Nernst and R. von Lieben, and the other 

 invented by E. Ruhmer. A full account of Prof. Nernst's 

 arrangement appears in the Electrician for June 7. The prin- 

 ciple of which he makes use is the alteration of polarisation 

 capacity and surface resistance of a metal used as an electrode 

 in an electrolytic bath. A copper disc about 3 mm. thick is 

 rotated at a fairly high speed, whilst there presses against its 

 edge a thin wedge of wood soaked in an electrolyte. The 

 secondary currents from the induction coil of a microphone trans- 

 mitter are caused to pass through this contact and leave a record 

 on the edge of the disc on account of the varying amount of 

 chemical change produced. A telephone receiver is then sub- 

 stituted for the microphone, a battery being included in the 

 circuit, and on again rotating the disc a reproduction of the 

 sound is obtained. The best results seem to have been given 

 by a solution of potassium zincate, using the edge of the copper 

 disc as kathode, the wedge standing in a bath of the solution 

 into which a zinc anode dips. With this, it is stated, the 

 sounds can be reproduced clearly and distinctly two or three 

 hundred times. The record can be cleaned off with fine emery 

 paper. 



Ruhiier's phonograph is based on an entirely different prin- 

 ciple, thus making the third new phonographic method worked 

 out in the past few months. The information at present at hand 

 is, however, very scanty, so that we cannot do more than state 

 the general claims of the inventor. Herr Ruhmer photographs, 

 on a moving film, a sensitive flame which is being affected by 

 sound vibrations, and thus obtains on the film a band of varying 

 intensity ; light is then projected through this band on to a 

 selenium cell which is included in circuit with a battery and 

 telephone. The variations in intensity as the film is passed 

 before the source of light cause variations in current in the 

 telephone circuit which reproduce the original sounds. The 

 reproduction, it is said, is clearer than in the Poulsen telegra- 

 phone, and as an additional advantage multiplication of the 

 records can be carried out photographically to any desired extent. 



During the last few years the Danish Meteorological Institute 

 has issued a very useful volume entitled "Nautical-Meteoro- 

 logical Annual." That for the year 1900 has just appeared and 

 contains a summary of the state of the ice in the Arctic seas for 



