December 28, 1905] 



NA TURE 



207 



with up to the present time include : — rolled sections ; rail- 

 way and tramway rails ; locomotives for Indian railways ; 

 pipe flanges ; screw threads ; pipe threads ; limit-gauges ; 

 railway rolling-stock material ; tire profiles ; steel castings 

 and forgings for marine work ; Portland cement ; cast-iron 

 pipes ; generators, motors, and transformers ; prime-movers 

 for electrical purposes ; physical standards ; telegraph and 

 telephone material ; electric cables ; electric tramway 

 materials ; electric automobiles ; and electric plant acces- 

 sories. The report recounts the results of the labours of 

 the committee, and includes a list of the members serving 

 on the thirty-five sectional committees, as well as a list 

 of the publications issued. It is impossible to exaggerate 

 the value of the work done, and the thanks of all engineers 

 are due to the five technical societies who supplied the 

 funds to inaugurate a work of such national importance. 



We learn from the November number of Das Wetter 

 thai the highest kite ascent on record was made at the 

 aeronautical observatory at Lindenberg (Prussia) on 

 November 25, an altitude of 21,10b feet being attained. 

 In this ascent six kites were attached to each other, with 

 a wire line of nearly sixteen thousand yards in length. 

 The minimum temperature recorded was — 13 F. ; at 

 starting the reading was 41 . The wind velocity at the 

 surface of the earth was eighteen miles an hour, and at 

 the maximum altitude it reached fifty-six miles an hour. 

 Up to the time of this ascent the highest record by a kite 

 was nearly 1100 feet lower, and was obtained by M. 

 Teisserenc de Bort, from a Danish gun-boat, in the Baltic. 



The Journal of the Meteorological Society of Japan for 

 October contains an article (in French) on the rainfall of 

 Chemulpo. The Japanese observatory was only established 

 in April, 1904 ; the observations on which the present paper 

 is based were made by the Corean customs officers during 

 eleven years, 1893-1903. The mean annual rainfall is 

 38 inches, of which 7-7 inches fell in July ; 53 per cent, 

 of the total amount fell in three summer months. The 

 average number of rain-days is 89. The heaviest rainfall 

 during one hour was 085 inch, in August, 1901. The 

 average duration of rainfall is about six hours, the longest 

 falls being in springtime. 



We have received from Dr. Hergesell, president of the 

 International Aeronautical Committee, a summary of the 

 ascents made during the four months May to August, in 

 various countries, by kites and balloons. Only the heights 

 reached are quoted — not the meteorological results, which 

 will be published later on. The unmanned balloons 

 obtained several records at heights exceeding 15,000 metres 

 in each of the months : — in May, 18,490 metres, at Munich ; 

 in June, 20,620 metres, at Munich; in July, 20,000 metres, 

 at Munich ; on August 3, 25,800 metres, at Strassburg ; 

 on August 2, 15,230 metres, in the Atlantic, on the Prince 

 of Monaco's yacht. In connection with the solar eclipse, 

 ascents were made on the three days August 29-31. On 

 ili^' day of the eclipse, an altitude of 23,010 metres was 

 reached at Munich. During the month of August several 

 kite ascents were made in the North Sea by Mr. G. C. 

 Simpson, under the auspices of the Royal Meteorological 

 Society, and some valuable results were obtained, both as 

 to temperature and humidity. 



Lord Blvthswood and Mr. H. S. Allen contribute to 

 the Philosophical Magazine for October an interesting 

 investigation of Dewar's method of producing high vacua 

 by means of charcoal. It is shown that it is only necessary 

 to increase the size of the charcoal receptacle in order to 

 produce a high degree of exhaustion in a large discharge 

 NO 1887, VOL. 73] 



tube without the use of a pump. The method requires 

 only moderate quantities of liquid air, and is particularly 

 useful when it is desirable to avoid the presence of mercury 

 vapour in the vacuum tube, as in the Geissler tubes used 

 for spectroscopic analysis. A special investigation showed 

 that the rate of absorption of the charcoal al any instant 

 is proportional to the difference between the total amount 

 of air absorbed and the amount which has been absorbed 

 at the instant in question, that is, the rate is in a constant 

 ratio to the quantity of air that will still be taken up l>\ 

 the charcoal. The constant is but little affected by alt r- 

 ations of the pressure under which absorption occurs. 



The residual electromotive force of the carbon an thi 

 subject of a paper by Mr. G. G. Becknell in the Physical 

 Review (vol. xxi., No. 3). The circuit used was so 

 arranged that the dynamo and galvanometer could 1» 

 alternately joined in series with the arc gap, and it was 

 found that the so-called residual current could be observed 

 for more than ten seconds after the interruption of the 

 arc. From the experiments it is concluded that thi currenl 

 can be attributed neither to a thermoelectric effect in the 

 arc nor to one external to it. A description is given ol 

 the means by which the residual electromotive Forci and 

 current are measured as functions of the time, and from 

 the curves shown it is seen that the fall of the current is 

 much more precipitate than that of the E.M.F., shewing 

 that the resistance of the arc increases very rapidly. An 

 explanation is suggested by considering that a stream ol 

 corpuscles is freely emitted by both incandescent terminals, 

 but more abundantly from the positive, and that these 

 diffuse across the arc gap until the carbons hav mi far 

 cooled down that the rate of production of the negative 

 ions by the positive carbon no longer exceeds the rate <>t 

 their production by the negative carbon. 



Messrs. F. Vieweg and Son have just issued .1 second 

 revised and enlarged edition of Prof. F. Hofnieister's 

 " Leitfaden fur den praktisch-chemischen Uhterricht der 

 Mediziner," originally published in [899. 



Mr. J. A. Barth, Leipzig, has sent us a part of the 

 second edition of the " Handbuch der Physik " edited by 

 Prof. A. Winkelmann. This part is the first half of the 

 fifth volume of the handbook, and in it Prof. F. Auerbach 

 deals with electricity and magnetism. We await the re- 

 mainder of the work before a review can be undertaken 

 usefully. 



Messrs. A. Gallenkamp and Co., Ltd., of Sun Street, 

 Finsbury, E.C., are issuing a scries of descriptive circulars 

 giving full particulars of special arrangements of physical 

 apparatus which they now make up for fundamental work 

 in experimental science. The forms of apparatus have 

 been carefully selected so that accurate results may be 

 obtained by experiments with them. 



New editions of parts of two valuable works on physics 

 have lately been published by Messrs. F. Vieweg and Son, 

 Brunswick. One is the first part of the first volume of 

 the tenth enlarged and revised edition of Muller-Pouillet 's 

 " Lehrbuch der Physik und Meteorologie, " edited by Prof. 

 L. Pfaundler in cooperation with several other eminent 

 German physicists and meteorologists. This part, by Prof. 

 Pfaundler, contains the general introduction on the proper- 

 ties of matter, while the remainder is devoted to mechanics. 



The work will be completed in four volumes. Tin I 



part of the first volume of 111'' seventh edition of Or. J. 

 Frick's " Physicalische Technik " has also been received. 

 This work will be completed in two volumes, and notices 

 of it and of the above mentioned treatise are best deferred 

 until all the parts have come to hand. 



