January 2, 19 19 



NATURE 



)J0 



This year, 1919, which is the centenarj of the 

 founding of the settlenn b Sit Stam- 



ford Raffles, ili' sixtieth anniversary of 



the establish! 



Agri- 

 I lorticultural S01 i 1 v ■ <1 the 



suppoi 1 "i 'In Govei or, ' \ O. ' avanagh, \\ ho 

 afterwards irman of tl 



management. Within sis w& 



the M« ii n -1 imi : tovern- 



menl land wen granted, as well as convicl labour 

 foi setting in hand the cultivation of the garden site. 

 'I'lic histor; ol the establishment of the gardens is given 

 in tli. Gardens Bulletin ttlements, vol. ii.. 



No. j. with a map shi ranted to the 



Agn Horticultural V i i\ u: in., ; ml tfe fu-th i 



1 upied by the 

 1 ardens. Oi ii 



as its first object it si 



a pleasui • gai di n for public resort. 



he society appears to 



; 1 . and hai gof into 



jlties, so much so thai in 1K74 it offered to 



hand over ilii' gardens to the Government. This was 



don.' in December, 1S74, and tin- advici of Si. Joseph 



Hooker, then director Gardens, Kew, 



■ rintendent. In Octobi r, [875, 



t, James Murton, selected by 



1 arrived i : w\\\\ a large supply of 



n d oa 1 he able work done by Lawrence 



Niven, the first superintendent, to whom the general 



lav-out of the gardens is n Murton's day to 



thi- present time the Singapore Botanic Gardens 



1 as the centre of Great Britain's 



1 tivity in the Far Easl . 



The September issue of the Scientific Australian 



the results of the 1 South Wales tim- 



I niversity of 



Sydney, for the Defenci Department of the Common- 



nt. The three timbers tested gave 



the following mean values for tl:'- modulus of rupture 



in lb. inch: — Ironbark, 29,000; blue gum 



and spotted gum, These values compare 



favourably with those found in the United States 



..I" American hickory, of which - 

 varieties gave mean values of from [2,000 to 19,000, 

 while each varietv showed a wide range of quality. I 



\ . V. 



Wales timbers should be Known to engineers in 

 luntry. 

 Sawdust, chips, and shavings are largely utilised in 

 Germany for the production of alcohol. It is esti- 

 mated that from half a million to one million tons of 

 such waste material are produced annually in that 

 try. Four distilleries are at pi -• nl being run on 

 these raw material 



1000-k^. capacity. The cost 01 production is sai 

 gn when th >ed a; 



the waste liquor- used for other pro. 

 The material is heated in an autoclave with 1 

 sulphurous or hydrochloric ." 1 twentj to 



forty minutes at 265 C. at a pressure of 7 atm., then 

 quickly drawn off, neuti d run into the fer- 



menting vat, us..!. Distillation com- 



3S.Fl liars are given in 



hrift tnr <i;,: hemie for Seotember 13 



In Elektrotechnik und Maschinenbau for Septem- 

 ber 1 are given the results of some investigations bv 

 Gumlich on the magnetic properties and resistance of 

 iron alloys. The samples consisted of pure electrolytic 

 iron and four sei Hoys with increasing carbon 



- per cent.). The density and _s| 



NO. 2566, VOL. I02] 



1 .1 ad led mat 

 netic propertii - bl 

 iron are no prei abh i'\ ile- addition ol 



silicon and aluminium. The benefit derived b; thi 



oul ,! 1 



id neutralisatii 

 m. Eddy-current losses 

 by tie m and aluminium. The 



of the added materials on the coerch force i 

 amined. 1.00.1 permanent magnets ma; I" 1 pro- 

 I by adding tungsten, chromium, or molybdenum. 

 11 r of the Decimal Educator, a 

 I publication of the Decimal Association, con- 



1 .'in several articles bj 



is in favour of the metric system of wei 

 measures, including the article by "A. 1 

 which appeared in Nature for August 30, 1917. In 

 connection with the misapprehension which is 1 

 to be found in industrial circles regarding the difficul- 

 pense thai would be involved in the com- 

 pulsory adoption ol the metric system, it is pointed 

 out that the proposals of the advocates of the system 

 do not include any oblij ■•■ metric measuri - 



in manufacturing operations, liut only in commerci 



Manx useful hints for lecturers on the 

 metric system are to be found in the article on teach- 

 ing the system, which is continued in this issue. The 

 undesirability of over-elaborating the difference be- 

 tween the values of corresponding metric and imperial 

 denominations is insisted upon, and it is shown that 

 in most cases there are simple approximate relations 

 which will suffice for all practical purposes. An 

 account is given of the present stage of the proposal 

 for introducing decimal coinage, and from correspond- 

 ence which appears in this issue it would seem that 

 the movement is receiving considerable support 

 throughout the country. 



We have received a letter from Dr. G. C. Simpson, 

 ne teorologist to the Government of India, on the 

 subject of aurora at low hi ights in the atmo- 

 sphere, supplementary to one from him which ap- 

 1 in Nature of September 12 last (p. 24). 

 Dr. Simpson now informs us that the Scott Antarctic 

 Expedition of 191 1-12, of which he was a member, 

 had with it "a complete equipment for determining 

 auroral heights by Prof. Stormer's photographic 

 method, but, unfortunately, the experiments made 

 were unsuccessful." In some comments on Dr. Simp- 

 son's previous letter Dr. Che I the hope 

 that the observers of the next Arctic or Antarctic 

 . xp dition would be familiar with what had been 

 written on the subject, and be specially careful in 

 dealing with any apparently low-level aurora. Dr. 

 Simpson is apprehi nsive lest this should be supposed to 

 imply censure on the observers of the Scott expedition. 

 We can assure him that no reflection whatever was 

 intended on tin observers of any previous expedition. 

 The subject, as Dr. Simpson's letter alone would 

 with pitfalls for the unwary, 

 and it is important that future observers should 

 quately tin- completeness of the evidence 

 ilish the existence of aurora at really 

 low I. vels. Dr. Simpson's own writings on the sub- 

 ject form part of the literatun the study of which 

 old like to recommend. 

 Tin: of December 20 reviews the pri 

 known as the Georgian Bay Canal, which will prob- 

 able be undertaken bv the Canadian Government at 

 an early date, now that the war has ceased to in 

 a veto on civil engineering enterprise. Tie design of 

 the waterway in question is to link tin the arm of 



Huron, called Georgian Bay, with the St 

 Lawrence River at Montreal. It will undoubted! 



