!5° 



NA TURE 



[February 8, 1906 



An interesting pamphlet on the climate of St. Moritz 

 has been published by Dr. A. Nolda, resident physician, 

 with the collaboration of Mr. C. Biihrer, director of the 

 meteorological station at Montreux. The object of the 

 paper is to show the claim of St. Moritz to be considered 

 as a desirable health resort, and the meteorological 

 statistics in support of this view are taken from those 

 published by the Swiss Meteorological Institute in 1890-1 

 and 1900-4 inclusive ; they are therefore entirely trust- 

 worthy. The village of St. Moritz is in the valley of the 

 Upper Engadine, and the meteorological station has an 

 elevation of 6040 feet. The characteristic features claimed 

 for the station are : — a dry air, clear sky, high solar 

 radiation, low humidity and rainfall, and almost complete 

 immunity from summer and winter fogs; these advantages 

 seem to be fully borne out by the official meteorological 

 reports. The mean monthly temperatures are : — January, 

 ig°-7 F. ; July, 53°'8 ; the mean monthly extremes are: — 

 January, -2°5, 39°7 ; July, 39°9, 72°. 7 ; the absolute 

 extremes: — January, — I5°-I, July, 76°-8. The mean 

 annual humidity is 67 per cent. ; on some days the atmo- 

 spheric moisture falls to a point unknown in the lowlands 

 of temperate latitudes ; in 1900-4 instances are recorded 

 of 10 per cent, to 16 per cent. The mean annual rainfall 

 is 35-2 inches; rain and snow fall on an average on 128 

 days, and if we deduct the days when less than 004 inch 

 fell, only 104 really rainy days remain. Compared with 

 other places this is a very small number. 



A cory of the University of Colorado Studies (vol. iii.. 

 No. 1), has reached us, containing brief historical, literary, 

 psychological, and sociological articles by members of 

 the university staff, a paper on extinct glaciers of Colorado 

 by Mr. Henderson, and contributions to the natural history 

 of the Rocky Mountains by Prof. T. D. A. Cockerell, in 

 which several new insects and plants are described. 



We have received reprints, from the Bulletin of the 

 Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard (Geological 

 Series, vol. viii., Nos. 1 and 2), of two papers by Prof. 

 W. M. Davis. One, on the Wasatch, Canyon, and House 

 Ranges, Utah, is a continuation of a paper on the moun- 

 tain ranges of the Great Basin. The other deals with the 

 glaeiation of the Sawatch Range, Colorado. 



The Engineering and Mining Journal of New York for 

 January 6 contains carefullj estimated statistics, compiled 

 by prominent authorities, of production of the more 

 important ores, minerals, and metals in the United States 

 during 1905. The productions of iron, copper, lead, zinc, 

 gold, and silver have all increased over 1904, and the out- 

 puts have been the highest recorded. 



The introduction of reinforced cement marks a new 

 epoch in the history of building, and an interesting account 

 "I -nine of the results achieved is given in the Journal of 

 the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia for January. One 

 of the most remarkable applications is the use of reinforced 

 cement for the construction of dams. This method of 

 building a permanent masonry dam at a comparatively low 

 cost has already rendered financially practicable the utilisa- 

 tion of many water-power sites which otherwise would 

 have been neglected. 



In the Bulletin de la Sociiti d' 'Encouragement of 

 December 31, 1905, Dr. L. Guillet gives the results of 

 a careful study of the nickel-vanadium steels. He pr&- 

 pared at the Imphy Steel Works nickel-steel alloys con- 

 taining o.2 per cent, and o-S per cent, of carbon, and of 

 each series he selected a pearlitic steel, a martensitic 



NO. 1893, VOL - 73] 



steel, and a 7-iron steel, to which he added vanadium in 

 proportions varying from 0-2 per cent, to 7 per cent. The 

 effect of the addition of vanadium is to increase the elastic 

 limit, very considerably in the case of the pearlitic steels. 

 In other cases the increase is insignificant. 



We have received from Mr. C. F. J.' Galloway a useful 

 paper contributed by him to the Proceedings of the South 

 Wale-. Institute of Engineers (vol. xxiv., No. 6). It de- 

 scribes an application of the Brandt carriage and hydraulic 

 column, successfully employed with hydraulic rock drills in 

 the Simplon Tunnel, at a colliery in South Wales in con- 

 junction with compressed-air rock drills. It proved one 

 of the simplest and best forms of carriage for rock drills 

 hitherto used. Full details of the work done and of the 

 cost of the whole equipment are given. 



In the Transactions of the Institution of Engineers and 

 Shipbuilders in Scotland (vol. xlix., part iii.) there is an 

 interesting paper by Mr. R. M. Neilson on the evolution 

 and prospects of the elastic fluid turbine. Steam is not 

 the only possible elastic fluid for a turbine ; and the much 

 greater ranges of temperature with the same range of 

 pressure obtainable by the employment of other fluids 

 instead of, or in conjunction with, steam deserve serious 

 consideration. Much time has been spent on matters re- 

 lating to clastic fluid turbines, and a large proportion of it 

 has been devoted to inventions intended to be of a re- 

 volutionary nature with little knowledge of what had 

 already been tried by others. The historical sketch of 

 elastic fluid turbines given by the author is consequently 

 most instructive. After an account of the early machines 

 deserving the name of turbine, he describes and illustrates 

 the turbines of Kempelen (1784), Gilman (1837), Vilbrow 

 (1843), Wilson (1848), Fernihough (1850), Wertheim (1877), 

 and De Laval (1882, 1889). The descriptions given of the 

 turbines at present constructed show that although they 

 differ among themselves very considerably, there is a visible 

 tendency of the different types to approach each other. 

 The preliminary experimental stage of the gas turbine has 

 not yet been passed, and it cannot at present be said 

 whether or not it ever will. An efficient gas turbine, which 

 is a turbine both as regards the motor and the pump, seems 

 to depend upon the obtaining of an efficient turbine com- 

 pressor, or other form of rotary pistonless compressor. In 

 order to determine whether the gas turbine had any reason- 

 able chance of success in the near future, experimental 

 research was needed as to the losses in pneumatic com- 

 pression to high pressures, the expansion of hot gases in 

 divergent nozzles, the transference of heat from gases to 

 metals at high temperatures and very high velocities, and 

 the oxidation of turbine blades when exposed to the action 

 of air, steam, and carbon dioxide at high temperatures. 



In several notices in these columns attention has been 

 directed to the necessity of investigating mathematically 

 the nioiiuns of aeroplanes and aerocurves as affording the 

 only effective method of dealing with the problem of 

 stability. A remarkably complete investigation on these 

 lines is given in the Revue d'Artillerie for October and 

 November, 1905, by Captain Ferber, who has been assisted 

 in some of the calculations by M. Maillet. The method 

 of treating the problem of longitudinal stability by con- 

 sidering the small oscillations about a steady state had 

 been previously worked at (Bryan and Williams, Proc. 

 Roy. Soc, vol. lxxiii.), but owing to the appointment of the 

 second of these authors to a research studentship, want 

 of time rendered further progress impossible. The problem 

 was then taken up by Captain Ferber, of the French 



