NA TURE 



[July i8, 1901 



Selborne (First Lord of the Admiralty) and Mr. Arnold- 

 Forster (Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty), at White- 

 hall, to urge the necessity of improvint; the conditions of the 

 service of engineers in the Royal Navy. Lord Selborne 

 promised that the suggestions of the deputation would be care- 

 fully considered. 



The French Societe d'Encouragement pour I'lndustrie 

 nationale announces the following awards of prizes : — Grand 

 gold medal to the Chamber of Commerce of Lyons for the 

 organisation of the commercial mission to China : 2000 francs to 

 M. Horsin-Deon for his work on beetroot sugar; 500 francs to 

 M. R. Fosse for his works on /Sdinaphthol, and the same 

 amount to M. Marcel Guichard for his works on molybdenum ; 

 1000 francs to M. Triboudeau lor his study of the Pas-de-Calais, 

 and 1000 each to MM. Faure and Thenard for memoirs on the 

 utilisation of waters in agriculture. 



A Reuter telegram from St. Petersburg, dated July 11, 

 says : — The St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences to-day received 

 a telegram from the leader of the'expedition which is shortly to 

 bring to St. Petersburg the mammoth found in Siberia. The 

 telegram, which is despatched from Yakut.sk, reports that the 

 expedition arrived at that place on June 14. It is proceeding 

 by steamer up the river, and will then journey overland to 

 Kolymsk, which is 3000 versts off, and where it expects to 

 arrive in two-and-a-half months. The mammoth found is 

 unique of its kind. Its hair, skin and flesh are entirely pre- 

 served, and there are remains of undigested food in its stomach. 



An interesting relic is reported by the Times to have been 

 placed in the building of the Academy of Sciences at Tsarskoe- 

 Selo. It is a large geographical globe, 11 ft. in diameter and 

 made of copper. This globe was commenced in the year 1654 

 and completed ten years later during the reign of Duke Frederick 

 of Holstein. The outside represents the earth, and the interior 

 the celestial spheres of the world. There is a door giving access 

 to the interior of this globe, and in the centre is a round table 

 with space for twelve people to sit. By means of mechanism 

 this great globe can be made to revolve upon its axis. The 

 globe weighs about 3J tons and was presented to the Academy 

 of Sciences in 1725, but until now it has stood in the Zoological 

 Museum at Tsarskoe-Selo. 



The executive committee of the National Physical Laboratory 

 have made the following appointments ; — Superintendent of the 

 engineering department. Dr. T. E. Stanton ; assistants in the 

 physics department, Dr. J. A. Harker, Mr. A. Campbell and 

 Dr. \\. C. H. Carpenter ; junior assistants, Mr. B. F. E. 

 Keeling and Mr. F. E. Smith. It is expected that one or two 

 more junior assistants will be appointed shortly. The altera- 

 tions to Bushy House and the new buildings for the engineering 

 laboratory are well advanced, and it is hoped to commence 

 work early in October. Of the staff. Dr. Stanton, after serving 

 an apprenticeship with an engineering firm in the Midlands, has 

 had a distinguished career at Manchester and Liverpool, and is 

 now professor of engineering at University College, Bristol. Dr. 

 Harker and Mr. Campbell have both done woik of real value 

 in thermometry and electric measurements, while Dr. Carpenter, 

 who will have charge of the chemical researches, after a success- 

 ful course at Oxford has gained further experience at Leipzig, 

 under Ostwald, and more recently at Owens College. Mr. 

 Keeling obtained a double first in natural science and mechani- 

 cal science, respectively, at Cambridge,f while Mr. Smith was the 

 most distinguished student of his year at South Kensington, and 

 for two years has been one of Prof. Rticker's assistants. 



The programme has been issued of the meeting of the Iron 



and Steel Institute, to be held in Glasgow on September 3-6 



in connection with Section V. of the International Engineering 



Congress. The remaining eight sections of the Congress will 



NO. 1655, VOL. 64] 



be under the charge of other institutions. The meetings will be 

 held in the University buildings, which are in immediate 

 proximity to the International Exhibition. The president will 

 deliver a short address, and the following are among the subjects 

 of papers : — The nomenclature of metallography ; the presence 

 of calcium in high-grade ferro-silicon ; the spectra of flames at 

 different periods during the basic Bessemer blow ; iron and 

 copper alloys ; the correct treatment of steel ; the profitable 

 utilisation of power from blast-furnace gas ; Brinell's method of 

 determining hardness and other properties of iron and steel ; 

 internal strains in iron and their bearing upon fracture ; and a 

 mechanical gas producer. 



A SATISFACTORY trial of a new airship, devised by M. Santos 

 Dumont, took place at Paris early on Saturday morning. It 

 may be remembered that M. Henry Deutsch has offered a prize 

 of 100,000 francs (4000/.) to the inventor of a flying machine 

 which would travel from the heights of Saint Cloud to and round 

 the Eiffel Tower and back again to the starting point in half an 

 hour. M. Santos Dumont did the journey in forty-one minutes 

 on Saturday, that is to say he made a voyage of nearly 

 ten miles at a speed of about fifteen miles an hour, though 

 the return journey was against the wind. He did not win 

 the prize, but his attempt is very encouraging, for he has 

 shown that an airship can be made to travel at a high speed in 

 any direction. His airship consists of a cigar-shaped balloon, 

 six metres in diameter, thirty-four metres long, and having a 

 volume of 550 cubic metres. The gas pressure is kept constant 

 automatically by means of a ventilator driven by the engine and 

 communicating with the balloon by means of a long canvas 

 pipe. Suspended from the balloon is a light framework containing 

 a petroleum motor of 16 horse-power, driving shaft, propeller 

 and rudder, and near one end is a small wickerwork car in 

 which the aeronaut stands and controls the steering-wheel arid 

 the apparatus for regulating the motor. M. Deutsch is con- 

 structing a similar balloon to that of M. Santos Dumont, but 

 having a volume of 2000 cubic metres and a motor of sixty 

 horse-power. M. .Santos Dumont proposes to make another 

 trial trip next Saturday. When going at full speed the propeller 

 makes 200 revolutions per minute. 



The annual report of the Russian Geographical .Society for 

 1900, which has only recently reached us, is, as usual, full of 

 interest. It is especially interesting to notice the growing 

 activity of the young branches of the Society at Vladivostok, 

 Kiakhta, Tomsk and Orenburg — their work being not limited 

 to pure geography, but being mainly directed to the exploration 

 of the geology, botany, zoology and prehistoric anthropology 

 of the respective regions. A new local museum has conse- 

 quently been opened at Troitskosavsk, near Kiakhta, in addition 

 to those of Minusinsk and Yeniseisk. The chief medal of the 

 Geographical Society, the Constantine medal, was awarded this 

 year to V. Obrucheff, the explorer of the Nan-shan and Mon- 

 golia, who has also explored very large portions of Trans- 

 baikalia and the Pacific littoral, and whose preliminary reports 

 are always of the deepest interest for both the geologist and the 

 orographer. The Count LUtke medal was awarded to M. E. 

 Zhdanko for his extensive geodetical and hydrographical works 

 in the far North, the Semenoff medal to J. A. Kersnovsky for 

 work in meteorology, and the Prjevalski medal to the Tomsk 

 professor, V. V. Sapozhnikoff, whose explorations of the Altai 

 highlands revealed hundreds of unknown glaciers, as well as 

 widely-spread traces of glaciatiori, and threw much new light on 

 the geography of the whole region. These researches are now 

 embodied in a work, "The Katuii and its Sources " (with maps 

 and a summary in French). 



The arrangements made for the meetings of the fifth Inter- 

 national Congress of Zoology, to be held in Berlin on August 



