Nov. 13, 1884] 



NATURE 



37 



or minutes, the relative position of the hands on 

 the dial probably at once sufficiently indicating the 

 time to most persons without any need of refer- 

 ence thereto, but it would be by no means so easy to 

 pick up the hour from a circle containing twenty-four, 

 and especially in the case of public and turret clocks. 

 There is also the question of change of the motion-work 

 to which allusion has been already made — necessary if 

 the hour-hand is to make one revolution only in twenty- 

 four hours — a practical question in regard to which the 

 watch- or clock-maker could probably best speak. 



There is another way of adapting ordinary watches 

 and clocks to the twenty-four hour system, which, if the 

 watch is intended only for the reckoning of local time, 

 seems deserving of consideration. It consists in making 

 the hour figures shorter, not necessarily at all less distinct, 

 and placing two circles of figures round the dial, an inner 

 circle with hours from o to II, and an outer circle with 

 hours from 12 to 23. The hour-hand would thus point 

 to land 13 and to 2 and 14, &c, at the same time, it 

 being understood that the hours o, 1, 2, &c, would be 

 reckoned in the morning, and the hours 12, 13, 14, &c, 

 in the afternoon, a convention to which people would 

 probably soon accommodate themselves. On such a plan 

 a watch would only require a new dial, no change of 

 wheelwork being necessary, so that it could be very 

 readily applied to existing watches, and so sooner promote 

 the use of the twenty-four hour system. Persons might 

 perhaps object to the introduction of two hour-circles 

 from an artistic point of view. But, after all is said, the 

 question whether one circle containing twenty-four hours, 

 or two circles having twelve hours in each, be preferable, is 

 one to be settled only by a consideration of the relative 

 advantages and disadvantages of the two proposals, in 

 regard to which it would be interesting to learn what 

 business men and others on the one hand, and practical 

 watchmakers on the other, may have to say. There are 

 conditions under which the one circle of twenty-four hours 

 would certainly be the more advantageous, and clearly it 

 would be well that one system only should if possible be 

 used. 



As regards clocks, there is the further question of 

 striking the hours. For public clocks we could not go 

 on to twenty-four. It may be a question whether in large 

 towns one stroke only at each hour might not be a suffi= 

 cient indication, though even this rule probably could 

 hardly be universally applied. 



THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE 

 ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE 



AT a meeting of the General Committee of the British 

 Association held at the Royal Institution on the 1 ith 

 instant, Sir Lyon Playfair was elected President for the 

 meeting at Aberdeen next ye \x. It was resolved to request 

 the following to accept the office of Vice-President for that 

 meeting : — The Duke of Argyll, the Duke of Richmond 

 and Gordon, the Earl of Aberdeen, the Earl of Crawford 

 and Balcarres, Sir William Thomson, James Matthews, 

 Lord Provost of Aberdeen, Dr. Alexander Bain, Lord 

 Rector of the University of Aberdeen, the Very Rev. 

 Principal Pirie, and Prof YV. H. Flower. The following 

 were elected Local Secretaries : Prof. G. Pirie, Dr. Angus 

 Fraser, and Mr. J. W. Crombie ; Local Treasurers : 

 Messrs. Robert Lumsden and John Findlater. The fol- 

 lowing appointments were also made : — General Trea- 

 surer : Prof. A. W. Williamson, Ph.D., F.R.S. : General 

 Secretaries: Capt. Douglas Galton, C.B., F.RS, and 

 A. G. Vernon Harcourt, F.R.S. ; Secretary : Prof. Bonney, 

 D.Sc, F.R.S. ; Ordinary Members of the Council : Capt. 

 W. de W. Abney, Prof. W. G. Adams, Prof. R. S. Ball, 

 J. F. La Trobe Bateman, Sir F. J. Bramwell, Prof. W. 

 Boyd Dawkins, Dr. Warren De La Rue, Prof. J. Dewar, 

 Capt. Sir F. J. Evans, Prof. W. H. Flower, Dr. J. H. 



Gladstone, J. W. L. Glaisher, Lieut. -Col. H. H. Godwin- 

 Austen, J. Clarke Hawkshaw, Prof. O. Henrici, Prof. T 

 McK. Flughes, Dr. J. Gwyn Jeffreys, Prof. H. N. Moseley, 

 Admiral Sir E. Ommanney, W. Pengelly, Dr. W. H. 

 Perkin, Prof. Prestwich, the Right Hon. George Sclater- 

 Booth, Dr. H. C. Sorby, Sir R. Temple ; Auditors : John 

 Evans, D.C.L., Treas.R.S., Dr. Huggins, F.R.S., and 

 George Griffith, M.A. 



Invitations for the year 1S86 were received from Bir- 

 mingham, Bournemouth, and Manchester, and after a 

 discussion (in which the representatives of Manchester 

 expressed their willingness to withdraw in favour of Bir- 

 mingham for the year 1886, but their earnest hope that 

 the Association would not fail to visit them in 1887), it was 

 agreed, nem con., to accept the invitation from the town 

 of Birmingham for the year 1886. 



The report of the Council relating to the rules concern- 

 ing the representation of local scientific societies at the 

 meetings of the Association and the establishment of a 

 Permanent Committee as a means of union between them 

 and the Association were sanctioned, and it was resolved 

 in accordance with a recommendation from the Council 

 to present the die for the medal which is about to be 

 founded at McGill University, Montreal, in commemora- 

 tion of the visit of the Association to Montreal. 



THE NEW VOLCANIC ISLAND OFF ICELAND 



AT the end of July this year the light-keeper at Cape 

 Reykjanes, the south-west point of Iceland, reported 

 that a volcanic island had risen in the sea a few miles off 

 the cape. Reykjanes has long been noted as a centre of 

 volcanic activity, and from time to time islands have 

 arisen and submarine eruptions have occurred in its 

 neighbourhood. In the year of the great Skaptarfell 

 eruption, which proved so fatal to Iceland, 1783, an 

 island appeared off Reykjanes, only to disappear again 

 after a very brief existence. Only a year or two ago an 

 eruption of considerable violence occurred in the sea, not 

 far from the spot where the new island appeared. 

 Columns of steam and clouds of dust, mingled with 

 occasional glowing masses of fused rock, were seen to 

 rise out of the sea, and large quantities of pumice were 

 thrown up and drifted ashore on the neighbouring coast. 



Being desirous to learn as much as possible about the 

 new island, I visited Reykjanes on September 9. The 

 cape, like the greater part of the surrounding district, is 

 entirely covered with lava ; not far from the sea lie a 

 number of boiling pools of considerable size, from whose 

 agitated muddy waters arise the columns of steam that 

 give the cape its name, Reykjanes (Smoking Cape) ; over 

 a large area surrounding the pools the earth is perforated 

 by steam jets and small mud boilers, and the traveller 

 must pass warily over its treacherous surface, for under 

 the thin and yielding upper crust lie beds of soft many- 

 coloured clays, boiling hot, permeated by steam and 

 mixed with sulphur. On a projecting cliff about 150 feet 

 high stands the lighthouse, a low octagonal stone house, 

 and from the point a line of islands, four in number, runs 

 out to the south-west, the nearest being about seven miles, 

 and the farthest about sixteen miles, from the cape. Of 

 these only the nearest two, Eldey or Melsaekken (the 

 Meal-sack, so called from the guano deposits that whiten 

 the top of its bleak cylindrical mass), and Eldeyjard- 

 rangur, are usually visible from the lighthouse. The 

 farther two, Geirfuglasker and Geirfugladrangur, are 

 chiefly interesting as having been formerly frequented by 

 the Great Auk or Gare-fowl {Alca impennis), now appa- 

 rently extinct. 



When I reached Reykjanes, rain and mist obscured the 

 sea, Eldey could only with difficulty be seen, and the 

 new island was quite invisible. I waited patiently for 

 better weather, employing the time in examining the 

 boiling springs and hot clay-beds, which are similar to 



