Sept. 13, 1883] 



NATURE 



469 



to the Observatory, and it is fully expected that the work will 

 be finished by the time the observers take up their residence on 

 the Ben. We understand that the directors have asked Mr. 

 Buchan, secretary of the Scottish Meteorological Society, to 

 visit several of the more important meteorological observatories 

 un the Continent, beginning with that of Hamburg, and includ- 

 ing some of the more notable high-level stations, and report on 

 the autom tic and other instruments in use there, with a view to 

 a full and satisfactory equipment of the Ben Nevis Observatory 

 next summer. During the doming winter the work will be 

 mostly restricted to eye observations, with the object of collecting 

 information regarding the climate of the Ben, so as to form some 

 guide to the directors in determining the nature of the automatic 

 and other instruments that will be required for making the 

 various observations and conducting the important physical re- 

 searches which it is proposed to carry out. 



The Lords of the Committee of Council on Education have 

 been informed by the Secretary of State f jr Foreign Affairs that 

 a note has been received at the Foreign Office from the French 

 (. harge d'Affaires in England stating that the meeting of the 

 Electrical Units Conference at Paris has been postponed till 

 April 2, 1884. 



The president of the American Association at the Minnea- 

 1 Hs meeting was Pio c . C. A. Young, and as retiring president 

 at the Philadelphia meeting next year it will fall to his lot to 

 give the presidential address. We have already given Principal 

 Dawson's presidential address, and this week we give the address 

 in Section A of Prof. \V. A. Rogers on the German survey of 

 the nor, hern heavens. Other important addresses are those of 

 Prof. Rowland, who spoke eloquently on behalf of pure 

 science, Prof. Cope on the evidence of evolution in the history 

 of the extinct mammalia, and Prof. Hitchcock on the early 

 history of the North American Continent. Dr. Folwell, presi- 

 dent of the University of Minnesota, pointed out in his address 

 of welcome some of the great triumphs of science in its appli- 

 cation to practical purpose-! : " the further extension of scien- 

 tific method," he said, " till it shall become the guide of conduct 

 in the everyday life of all men, is now the chief problem in 

 education." So far as reports have reached us, no paper of 

 striking importance was read at the Minneapolis meeting. 



The member^ of the Swedish Meteorological Expedition at 

 Spitz! ergen arrived in Gothenburg on the 6th in-.t. 



At the general meeting of Tweed Commissioners, last week, 

 it was agreed that 20/. should be voted for recommencing inves- 

 tigations regarding the life-history of the various Salmonidx 

 which frequent the River Tweed. Were similir investigations 

 carried on by the River Conservators in England and by Fishery 

 Boards in Scotland and Ireland, there can be no doubt that in- 

 formation would soon be obtained on many points which are 

 now obscure. 



In the Comptis Hindus for September 3 M. Milne-Edwards 

 aiinoun.es the return to France of the Talisman, which had 

 sailed last June to explore the waters of the Atlantic. The ex- 

 1 edition has examined the marine fauna along the seaboard of 

 Morocco and the Western Sahara, as well as the waters of the 

 Cape Verde, Canary, and Azores Archipelagoes. 



Mr. A. Hastings White sends us a letter from an Australian 

 c ^respondent, deploring the wholesale destrucli m of fore's, 

 especially in New South Wales. The correspondent writes : — 

 " I do not know if I have ever mentioned anything about the 

 more than wholesale destruction of the timber going on out here 

 at the present time ; but the facts are these. It is a common 

 belief that killing off the timber improves the pastures, and so it 

 does no doubt for a time, but at what a terrible cost. Thousands 

 of acres are killed every year, not even a bush or seedling of 

 limber being left to grow, by cutting a ring round the tree-, either 



into the wood or else by taking a ring of the bark off. The 

 destruction of timber in this way on Crown lands is something 

 terrible ; in parts of the country one may travel for miles at a 

 stretch and see nothing but bleached and dead trees, as if a 

 blight had come over the land." 



The Danish ship Ceres, having just arrived in Copenhagen 

 from Julianhaab in Greenland, reports that the Sop/iia, with 

 Nordenskjold's expedition on board, arrived at that place on 

 June 17, having encountered no ice between Iceland and Green- 

 land. After two days' stay there the Sophia proceeded to the 

 cryolite quarries at Ivigtuk, where she took in coals. On June 26 

 the jiurney was continued to North Greenland. All was well 

 on board. 



Admiral Mouciiez has asked for the credit required for the 

 publication of the catalogue of stars established by the Paris 

 Observatory for the last twenty-seven years. The number of 

 stars tabulated amounts to 40,000, but the expenses are so heavy 

 that it is dmbted whether the required credit will be granted by 

 the Government. 



An International Forestry Exhibition is to be held next year 

 in Edinburgh. 



The International Medical Congress met last week in Amster- 

 dam. The attendance was very large, delegates having arrived 

 from almost every civilised country on the globe. Amongst the 

 representatives of England were Sir Joseph Fayrer and Professors 

 Lewis and De Chaumont of Netley. The Congress was opened 

 by Prof. Stockvisof Amsterda n University, and the Burgomaster 

 of Amsterdam, who welcomed the Congress on its assembly in 

 the Dutch capital. Am >njst the honorary presidents of the 

 Congres- are .Sir Joseph Fayrer, Professors Lewis and De Chau- 

 mont, and Dr. Sydney Jones of New South Wales. The 

 inaugural addre s was delivered by Prof. Stockvis, after which 

 the Congress proceeded to its more special work under different 

 sections. 



An International Society of Electricians has been formed in 

 Paris under the presidency of the Minister of Posts and Tele- 

 graphs, its main object being to centralise all information bearing 

 on the progress of electricity, and to promote its spread and 

 development. Information as to the society may be obtained by 

 writing to M. Georges Berger, 99, rue de Crenelle, Paris, 



On Wednesday last week an electric tramcar trial was suc- 

 cessfully accomplished in Paris by the French Electrical Power 

 Storage Company. At three o'clock p.m. the vehicle, an ordinary 

 three-horse tramcar, left the Place de la Nation in the far east, 

 and, after traversing the capital through seve-al important 

 thoroughfares, reached the starting point soon after six o'clock. 

 A distance of thirty English miles was thus made in about three 

 hours. There was not the slightest accident. The ease with 

 which the car was turned off one set of tram lines and got on 

 to another across several yards of nnmetaled ground is stated to 

 have been admirable. The locomotion is effected by means of 

 Faure accumulators, weighing some fifty hundredweight, which 

 are fixed under the tramcar seats and connected with a Siemens' 

 machine placed under the floor. The machine, which makes 

 twelve hundred revolutions a minute, sets in movement, by 

 means of a pulley, an axle to which are connected the chains 

 which give impulse to the wheels. These wheels revolve sixty 

 times to twelve thousand revolutions of the machine. The 

 speed of the electric tramcar is nine and a third miL-s an hour 

 on level ground, and five and a half miles on an ascent. The 

 present tram lines are not well adapted for the new locomotion 

 On the newer lines the movement was sufficiently smooth, but 

 on those that have been laid for some time there was a marked 

 difference, and the actual working force was c msiderably lower 

 than the indicated horse-power. The estimated cost is one-hilt 

 that of horse trams. 



