August 4, 1904] 



N'ATURE 



in overawing the native races of Central Asia, witli a 

 great faith in her destiny, she had embarl^ed on these 

 projects of expansion without due preparation and 

 almost in a reckless spirit. Russia urgently requires 

 peace, reform and retrenchment, and all these grand 

 schemes of expansion, whether eastward to the Pacific 

 •or south to the Persian Gulf, must be abandoned. 

 The whole system of administration is corrupt, and 

 as long as it remains so she cannot expect to prosper, 

 however well her soldiers fight. The lessons of this 

 war will, it is to be hoped, turn her attention to other 

 iTiatters than conquest. 



In the course of three years our author visited the 

 principal towns of Manchuria — Port .Arthur and its 

 docks; Dalny, the future commercial port, upon which 

 millions have been wasted; Newchwang; Harbin, the 

 great railway city; Mukden, the old capital; Tsitsihar, 

 on the Nonni ; Petuna ; Ninguta; and Kirin, the centre 

 of the lumber trade. All these places are admirably 

 described, and the incidents of the journey, whether 

 by road, rail, or river, are amusingly told. One of 

 the most entertaining chapters of the book is that 

 entitled " Russia's Great Manchurian General alias 

 the Chinese Eastern Railway." What this railway has 

 cost the Russian Government will probably never be 

 known. The author estimates it at forty-five millions 

 sterling, though others regard this as too moderate a 

 sum, for many accidental charges have to be added 

 to the original cost. There were the re-laying of the 

 rails, for these at first were far too light to resist the 

 train weights, the changing of the sleepers, the re- 

 building of many miles of road destroyed during the 

 Boxer troubles, new steel-bridge work, new feeder 

 lines, the enormous administration buildings, and 

 stone towers for guarding the line. There were the 

 railway, sea-going and river-steamer set^vices, the 

 railway barracks, the railway mines, and many other 

 offshoots belonging to the Chinese Eastern Railway 

 Co. The railway managed as it is can never be a 

 commercial success, yet so rich is the country through 

 which it passes that if properly administered and in 

 English hands it would pay a fair return on the outlay. 

 At present it is a frightful failure, and the best thing 

 that could happen would be for Russia to sell the 

 whole undertaking to Englishmen — " the onlv men 

 who have been able so far to handle the Chinese with 

 real success in trade and industn,'. " 



We learn a good deal concerning the productions of 

 Manchuria from this book — " the greatest wheat pro- 

 ducer in the East, the greatest lumber-field and the 

 greatest gold mining centre." Beans constitute at 

 present the agricultural wealth of the country, but 

 this will not remain so for long. Manchuria is a 

 wheat country, and flour will in a few years have taken 

 the place of beans in the export list.' The climate is 

 described as excessively cold in winter and hot in 

 summer, but otherwise very healthv. 



BRITISH ASSOCIATION MEETING AT 

 CAMBRIDGE. 

 Sectional Arr.'Angemekts. 

 T X an article published in N.ature, July 21, p. 277, a 

 ■*■ general account was given of the local arrange- 

 ments for the forthcoming meeting. As the main 

 items in the sectional programmes have now been 

 settled, it may be of interest to give a short list of 

 papers, lectures and discussions. A new feature in the 

 sectional arrangements this year is the increased 

 prominence given to discussions and afternoon lectures 

 of a semi-popular character. The number of favourable 

 replies to the usual invitation circular received from 

 leading men of science in Britain justifies the hope that 

 the meeting will be a thoroughly representative one. 



NO. 1 8 14, VOL. 70] 



Invitations have been issued to an unusually large 

 number of American and foreign men of science, and 

 in spite of the St. Louis Exhibition and other counter 

 attractions the committee hopes to have the pleasure of 

 entertaining about 140 guests. 



Section A (Physics). 



The guests include Prof. Abraham, Gottingen ; Prof. 

 Burkhardt, Zurich; Prof. Birkeland, Christiania ; Prof. 

 Dieterici, Hanover ; Prof. Kayser, Bonn ; Prof. 

 Korteweg, Amsterdam ; Prof. Lummer, Charlotten- 

 burg; Prof. Langevin, Paris; Prof. Leduc, Paris; Prof. 

 MacLennan, Toronto; Prof. Pockels, Heidelberg; 

 A. L. Rotch, Director of the Blue Hill Observatory, 

 U.S.A.; Prof. Rubens, Charlottenburg ; Prof. Som- 

 merfeld, Aix-la-Chapelle ; Prof. Voigt, Gottingen; 

 Prof. Volterra, Rome; Prof. Wood, Baltimore; Prof. 

 Wien, Wiirzburg. 



The most important items will be a discussion on the 

 radio-activity of ordinary matter, opened by Prof. J. J. 

 Thomson, a discussion on standard wave-lengths of 

 light by Prof. Kayser, and one on the units used in 

 meteorological measurements. Prof. Larmor will make 

 a comaiunication relating to the laws of radiation ; Prof. 

 Rubens promises a paper on " Reststrahlen " and the 

 optical qualities of metals, and Prof. Wood will con- 

 tribute papers on anomalous dispersion and colour 

 photographv. Prof. Poynting will deliver a popular 

 afternoon address on radiation in the solar system, and 

 on the last dav of the meeting Prof. Fleming will give 

 an address dealing with some recent advances in coti- 

 nection with wireless telegraphy. Dr. Glazebrook is 

 expected to give an account of some recent work at the 

 National Physical Laboratory, and Prof. Birkeland 

 will make a communication on the connection between 

 solar physics and meteorology. 



Section .4 {Mathematics). 



The guests include Prof. Bendixson, of Stockholm, 

 and Prof. Meyer, of Konigsberg. 



The following papers have been arranged : — Prof. 

 Franz Meyer, die Ziele der Geometric; Sir Robert 

 Ball, note on a special homographic transformation of 

 screw-systems; Major MacMahon, the theory of linear 

 partial differential equations; Prof. A. R. Forsyth, 

 notes on the theorv of groups ; Prof. F. Y. Edgeworth, 

 the law of error ; Prof. F. Morley, geometry of the com- 

 plex variable; Prof. Bromwich, on the roots of the 

 characteristic equation of linear substitutions; A. N. 

 Whitehead, Peano's symbolic method; Harold Hilton, 

 notes on plane curves; G. H. Hardy, Taylor's series. _ 



There will be an exhibition of geometrical models in 

 the large room of the Cavendish Laboratory. 



Section A (Astronomy and Cosmical Pliysics). 

 Dr. H. R. Mill, on the unsymmetrical distribution of 

 rainfall about the track of a barometric depression; 

 Miss F. E. Carr, the application to meteorology of the 

 theory of correlation; H. N. Russell, on the masses of 

 the stars. Papers are promised also by Father Cortie, 

 S.J., Dr. Lockyer, H. F. Newall, and A. R. Hinks. 



Section B. 

 The following have accepted the invitation to attend 

 the meeting :— Prof. Aschan, Helsingfors ; Prof. 

 Bruhl, Heildeberg; Prof. Busch, Erlangen ; Prof. 

 Cohen, Utrecht; Dr. Etard, Paris; Prof. Feist, Kiel; 

 Prof. Franchimont, Levden ; Prof. Freund, Frankfort; 

 Prof. Guye, Geneva; Prof. Gabriel, Berlin; Comte de 

 Gramont, Paris; Prof. Haller, Paris; Prof. Knoe- 

 venagel, Heidelberg; Prof. Meyer, Brunswick; Prof. 

 Meyerhoffer, Berlin; Prof. Michael, Tufts Col- 

 lege, U.S.A.; Dr. Noelting, Miilhausen ; Prof, van 

 Romburgh, Utrecht; Prof. Thiele, Strassburg; Prof. 

 Thierfelder, Berlin; Prof. Traube, Berlin; Prof. 



