88 
NATURE 
[ NovEMBER 26, 1903 
of November, after having made a journey of more than 
400 miles, in the course of which new bays and islands 
were found, and other discoveries were made _ involving 
important changes in the existing maps of the region. 
While awaiting the return of the Antarctic, Dr. Nordens- 
kj6ld was engaged in geological, magnetic, and meteor- 
ological observations, and got together important collec- 
tions of fossils, plants, and animals. During the first 
winter the mean temperature was —12° F. below zero, 
but in August it went down to —42° F. 
M. Borpas, formerly assistant director of the Municipal 
Laboratory of Paris, has been appointed head of the labor- 
atories of the French Minister of Finance, to succeed M. 
de Luynes, who is to be styled honorary director. 
Tut Engineering Standards Committee has appointed 
Messrs. Crosby Lockwood and Son as official publishers to 
the committee All the reports and specifications published 
by the committee may be had from the official publishers 
or direct from the offices of the committee, 28 Victoria 
Street, Westminster. 
At the London Institution on Monday Sir John Gunn 
delivered his presidential address to the members of the 
Institute of Marine Engineers. 
presented to Mr. C. W. Barnes for his paper on ship 
electric lighting. The medal was founded by the late Mr. 
Peter Denny, of the shipbuilding firm of Denny Brothers. 
The Denny medal was then 
A CORRESPONDENT in Paris writes that another trial of the 
steerable balloon Le Jaune was made on November 20. 
According to the readings of the Eiffel Tower, the wind 
was blowing S.S.W. with a mean velocity of 10 metres a 
second when Le Jaune left Champ de Mars at 11.25 a.m., 
and in a few seconds the balloon rose to a height of about 
too metres. At first the helm alone was used, and then 
one of the screws. The balloon soon took the direction of 
Chalais-Meudon, reaching its destination at 11.52 a.m. 
In moving the adoption of the report of the Government 
Department Committee appointed last year to inquire into 
the constitution, powers, and duties of the curiously named 
Board of Manufactures, at the recent annual meeting of 
the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, Sir John Murray 
urged the claims of science to more generous treatment. 
The recommendations of the committee include the recon- 
struction of the Board of Manufactures and the adoption 
of a variety of expedients to ensure better instruction in 
are and the improvement of the art galleries in Edinburgh. 
During the course of his remarks Sir John Murray said 
he would have liked a recommendation that certain of the 
buildings administered by the Board should be devoted to 
the purposes of science. Arrangements could, he said, be 
easily made for housing the Royal Geographical Society 
and other scientific societies, and they should all unite to 
secure the Edinburgh Royal Institution for science. 
A DEPUTATION from the Institution of Electrical Engineers 
was received at Windsor on Friday last by the King of 
Italy and presented an address. The deputation consisted 
of Mr. Robert Kaye Gray, president, Lieut.-Colonel R. E. 
Crompton, Sir H. Mance, Dr. J. W. Swan, F.R.S., and 
Prof. Silvanus P. Thompson, F.R.S., accompanied by Mr. 
W. G. McMillan, secretary of the Institution. 
were dispatched the same evening to the 
Elettrotecnica Italiana and to the Milan section of the 
Associazione, and the following replies were received 
from them :—‘ Most sensible to the feelings that inspired 
your kind telegram. 1 thank the Institution of Electrical 
NO. 1778, VOL. 69] 
Telegrams 
Associazione 
Engineers for the new proof of sympathy, and return most 
hearty greetings in the name of the Associazione Elettro- 
tecnica Italiana.’’—(Sd.) Ascoli. ‘‘ Homage added by 
Institution of Electrical Engineers to enthusiastic reception 
tc our King by all England was learned with grateful feel- 
ings by Milan Section Associazione Elettrotecnica Italiana 
as a new token of friendship binding Scientific bodies of 
the two Countries.’’—(Sd.) Bertini. 
Tue Berlin correspondent of the Times reports that at a 
meeting of the German Society of Naval Architecture held 
on November 20 in the technical college at Charlottenburg, 
a paper was read by Geheimrath Riedler on the revolutionary 
effect of the invention of the steam turbine upon the future 
of steam power. A great revolution in steam power was 
in progress, and the lecturer regretted that Germany lagged 
far behind in the adoption and development of the new 
motor. In a paper on the uses of the telephone for naval 
purposes, Herr D. Zopke, the Government constructor, gave 
an account of an adaptation of the so-called ‘* stentor micro- 
phone *’ by means of which not only could commands be 
conveyed to all parts of a vessel, but the men working six 
guns could be directed simultaneously by a single officer. 
He discussed experiments made with the microphone with 
the object of making it give warning of the approach of 
hostile ships, and concluded by giving some details of the 
progress which had been made in Germany in the attempts 
to solve the problem of wireless telephony. 
REFERRING to Mr. Douglas Archibald’s letter on 
Bruckner’s weather cycle, mentioned in last week’s NATURE 
(p. 62), Dr. H. R. Mill remarks in the Times that the cycle 
does not fit the sequence of weather so satisfactorily in the 
British Isles as on the continents, but he urges that there 
must be some way to reconcile the differences, and that the 
subject should be taken up by some scientific society. In 
a letter in Tuesday’s Times Mr. Archibald explains that 
according to Bruckner’s studies this country happens to 
lie on an axis of a weather see-saw, so that east Britain 
alone conforms to the continental law. ‘* Dr. Bruckner 
shows plainly from the past records of British stations how 
the law which is found to apply all over the Eurasian con- 
tinent holds with somewhat diminished intensity over the 
eastern half of Britain, and then, after disappearing over 
the neutral territory of west Britain and east and middle 
Ireland, reappears in its opposite phase over north-west 
Ireland, in common with the Fzrdes and Iceland.’’ In 
conclusion, Mr. Archibald gives the following comparison 
for Brussels and London to show that the Bruckner oscilla- 
tion loses little in its passage across the Channel. 
Total Excess or Defect of Rainfall in the Pertod. 
Brussels London 
Inches Inches 
1826-1840 ! Jae Bey 7/0) —OoN7, 
1841-1855 i ban Se AG) + 4°35 
1856-1870 = PDAS — 11°85 
1871-1885 + 33°34 +1965 
1886-1902 — 25°44 - 29°75 
1 For Brussels the period of observation embraces 1833-1901. 
WE have received some numbers of the Journal of the 
Meteorological Society of Japan. They contain several 
valuable papers relating, e.g., to observations in the Inland 
Sea and North Pacific, articles on the distribution of baro- 
metric pressure in Formosa, and reduction tables. At pre- 
sent the text is in Japanese, but it is stated it is intended 
to insert articles English, French or 
German. This plan will render the Journal much more 
useful to European readers. The Society was founded in 
1@82, and counts at present more than 260 members. 
oceasionally in 
