DECEMBER 3, 1903] 
NATURE 
en 
December 28, under the presidency of the Hon. Carroll D. 
Wright, U.S. Commissioner of Labour and president of 
Clark College. 
Tue Decimal Association has taken steps to introduce 
into the House of Lords early next session a Bill for the 
compulsory adoption of the metric weights and measures 
throughout the United Kingdom. The first reading of the 
Bill will be moved by Lord Belhaven and seconded by Lord 
Kelvin. If the measure passes the House of Lords, it will 
be brought before the Commons at the first possible moment, 
and it is hoped that a sufficient expression of public opinion 
will be forthcoming, at the time when the question is being 
debated, to convince the Government that they will do well 
to make it their own Bill. 
WE have received a circular, the fifth, from the permanent 
committee of the International Congress of Botany, the 
second session of which is to be held at Vienna in 1905. At 
the Paris Congress, in 1900, the board of management on 
that occasion was constituted a permanent committee so 
that the congress might be in a position to communicate 
with the promoters of the Vienna meeting with a view to 
ensure complete success. The circular gives full inform- 
ation of the steps taken by the permanent Paris committee 
in the matter of botanical nomenclature, and describes the 
principles by which their discussions on this subject have 
been governed. All communications referring to the 
congress should be addressed to the general secretary, Dr. 
A. Zahlbruckner, Vienna, I., Burgring 7. 
Tuurspay next, December 10, will be the 300th anni- 
versary of the death of William Gilbert. In commemoration 
of this tercentenary the Mayor and other representatives of 
the Borough of Colchester will attend the meeting of the 
Institution of Electrical Engineers on Thursday next to 
receive a historical picture representing Dr. Gilbert in the 
act of showing his electrical experiments to Queen Eliza- 
beth and her Court, which will then be presented by the 
Institution to the Borough of Colchester, where Gilbert 
was born in 1544, and died in 1603. At the conclusion of 
the presentation an ordinary general meeting will be held, 
at which a paper on the slow registration of rapid pheno- 
mena by strobographic methods: the ‘‘ ondographe’’ and 
“* puissancegraphe ” (wave recorder and power recorder), 
will be read by M. E. Hospitalier, president of the Société 
Internationale des Electriciens. If time permit, a paper 
will also be read on the magnetic dispersion in induction 
motors, and its influence on the design of these machines, 
by Dr. Hans Behn-Eschenburg. 
In the Journal de Physique M. C. Maltézos discusses the 
sand ripples produced both by wind and water in connection 
with the theory that they represent the position of nodal 
lines produced by the interference of direct and reflected 
waves. This theory is supported by the author’s observ- 
ations made at Phalara (Attica), and a similar explanation 
is given of the agglomerations of pebbles which occur on 
many beaches. The phenomena are easily observed by any- 
one residing near the sea-shore, and an interesting feature 
is that ripples are formed in the sand even at depths of two 
or three metres. 
Pror. A. Ricut, in a paper read before the R. Accademia 
delle Scienze dell’ Istituto di Bologna on May 24, describes 
experiments upon the electric charge generated by X-rays 
upon metals in vacuo. He begins by describing experi- 
ments confirming those of Curie and Sagnac, who proved | 
that metals under the action of X-rays give off negative | 
electrons or kathode rays, acquiring in consequence a | the heated serum. 
NO. 1779, VOL. 69] 
positive charge which may become considerable if the 
pressure, and in consequence the ionisation, of the surround- 
ing air be low enough. He next describes comparative 
measurements of the potential thus acquired under identical 
conditions by various substances. The last section treats 
of the variation of the potential acquired by the metal ex- 
posed to the X-rays, as its distance from the electrode 
| facing it is varied. 
In the Scientific Transactions of the Royal Dublin 
Society, Mr. Arthur W. Conway, in a short note of four 
pages, discusses the fundamental equations of electro- 
dynamics, and points out the difficulties attaching to exist- 
ing theories when radiation is taken into account. The 
author proposes a system, consisting of a modification of 
Helmholtz’s theory, which he considers is free from the 
objections attaching to Levi Civita’s The equations 
assumed agree with the known relations for electrostatic 
phenomena, whilst for slow motions they reduce to those 
given by Helmholtz, which account for the phenomena of 
electric currents. 
system. 
Mr. J. Morrow publishes in the Philosophical Magazine 
some experiments on the determination of Poisson’s ratio 
by means of a new instrument for measuring the lateral 
contractions of tie-bars. The instrument has two screws 
which touch the bar at the points between which the con- 
traction is to be measured, and when the specimen is ex- 
tended longitudinally the relative displacement of these 
screw-ends is determined optically. With this instrument 
values of Poisson’s ratio were found for steel, cast iron, 
wrought iron, brass and copper, agreeing very well with 
Stromeyer’s results. 
DurinG his exploration of Lake Aral in the years 1900 
and 1go1, M. L. N. Berg made the very interesting observ- 
ation that this lake, which had been rapidly decreasing 
during the years 1850 to 1885, began slightly to increase 
The level was raised during the years 1891 to 
It appears now 
in 1891. 
1go1 by an average of 20 cm. every year. 
that during his exploration of Lake Balkhash, which he 
visited last summer, M. Berg found that this lake also, 
which was formerly drying up very rapidly, has begun 
lately to increase. On all sides poplar trees and. bushes 
submerged to some extent are to be seen, while several 
peninsula, like Bai-kabyl, have become islands, and the 
road from Vyernyi to Karakol.is now under water. The 
waters of the lake are extremely poor in animal life. The 
explorers found only two species of fishes—one of them the 
Perca schrenckii, special to this lake—while “‘ the bottom 
of the lake is a real desert—no molluscs, not one worm.”’ 
The plankton of the lake is, on the contrary, very rich in 
fresh-water forms. M. Berg found, moreover, to his great 
astonishment that the water of the lake in June last was 
quite fresh, along both the southern and the northern 
shores. As the Balkhash has no outflow, this fact is of 
special interest. 
Dr. A. E. Wricut anp Captain S. R. Douctas show by 
a series of ingenious experiments that the fluids of the 
| blood play an important réle in connection with phago- 
cytosis, the absorption and destruction of bacteria by certain 
of the white cells of the blood. By mixing bacteria with 
the white cells of the blood obtained by centrifuging and 
adding blood serum (a) unheated, i.e. in the natural con- 
dition, (b) heated to 60°-65° C. for ten to fifteen minutes, it 
is found that, under the same conditions, phagocytosis is 
much more active in the presence of the unheated than of 
The heating appears to destroy some 
