February 22, 1906] 



NA TURE 



599 



the coal bill is equivalent to a return of 16-3 per cent, on 

 the higher capital expenditure. In these estimates no 

 credit has been taken for the reduction in working costs 

 which would result from the installation of more efficient 

 plant. In many cases this would amount to as much as 

 the saving on coal. 



According to the Teknisk Tidskrift, the development of 

 the Swedish chemical industries last year was but slight, 

 but the following points may be noticed : — the manufacture 

 of beet sugar has been pushed further north by the 

 opening of a sugar factory at Linkoping ; the preparation 

 of " peat spirit " has been a subject of wide and searching 

 discussion ; the increased uses of acetylene and of acetylene- 

 acetone solutions, and the process of welding with acetyl- 

 ene, have much favoured the carbide industry ; the manu- 

 facture of paper from wood has improved both quanti- 

 tatively and qualitatively ; great strides are said to have 

 been made in electrochemical industries ; much attention 

 has been given to improving methods of producing pig- 

 iron — a number of Grdndal, American, and newer native 

 type combustion furnaces have been built or arranged for ; 

 in the manufacture of steel we are told that several innova- 

 tions and changes have been witnessed, though no official 

 statistics are yet available for comparisons with previous 

 years — but it is to be noted that the Bessemer process is 

 gradually yielding to the Martin method : an experimental 

 electrical steel furnace has been arranged at Nykroppa ; 

 many works have introduced Bildt's method of heating 

 boilers with generator gas ; suction gas plants, combustion 

 and petrol motors, and steam turbines have risen in 

 popularity. 



In connection with the shortage of rainfall for 1905 in 

 the British Isles, it is interesting to note the state of 

 affairs at the antipodes. With regard to the rainfall of 

 South Australia, Sir Charles Todd states that throughout 

 the whole of the Northern Territory, the interior of the 

 continent, the pastoral country to the northwards, and as 

 far south over the more settled districts as Petersburg, the 

 total rainfall of the year failed to reach the average. The 

 summer season (November, 1904, to March, 1905) was, on 

 the whole, dry all through the settled districts and most 

 of the pastoral country, many stations in the southern areas 

 having only about half the annual supply. The total for 

 the agricultural season (April to October) was, however, 

 generally in excess of the normal fall for this period, from 

 "Wilmington and Petersburg southwards, but north of these 

 stations it was rather below the average. 



The construction of magic squares is a recreation which 

 has diverted even such minds as those of Euler and 

 Fermat ; with kindred problems it still maintains its popu- 

 larity. Frost extended the notion to three dimensions, and 

 wrote a paper on " nasik cubes " (Quart. Journ., 1878) ; 

 In " The Theory of Path Nasiks " (Rugby : Lawrence) Mr. 

 C. Planck has quite recently developed Frost's theory, and 

 given several examples. His method involves the solution 

 ol sets of simultaneous linear congruences, and he considers 

 the problem in 11 dimensions. 



In No. 5, vol. xxii., of the Astro physical journal, Mr. 

 R. E. Loving, of the Johns Hopkins University, publishes 

 tin- results of an interesting research concerning the 

 nature and action of the metallic arc in high vacua. 

 Having previously proved that the spectrum was character- 

 istic of the anode only, he employed various metals as 

 anodes in conjunction with the same platinum kathode, 

 and on photographing the more refrangible end of the 

 NO. 1895, VOL. 73] 



spectrum found that it was not similar to either the 

 ordinary arc or spark spectra, but was much more like the 

 latter than the former. The relative intensities of the 

 lines obtained did not agree with the spark intensities or 

 with those observed for the same lines in the chromosphere. 

 Mr. Loving gives a tabular statement in which the re- 

 lative intensities of magnesium, calcium, chromium, man- 

 ganese, titanium, and iron lines in the ordinary arc and 

 spark, the chromosphere and the arc in vacuum are 

 compared. Other important points regarding the mech- 

 anical action of the discharge, the action of a magnetic 

 field, and the luminosity of the anode are dealt with in 

 Mr. Loving's paper. Brief reference might be made here 

 to one peculiar result. The violent kathode discharge was 

 found to have a marked deteriorating action on the glass 

 of the tube. After being used for several days the glass 

 was found to crack much more readily when put into a 

 flame, and the fragments were so friable that they could 

 easily be broken between the fingers. 



Mr. John Golding and Dr. Feilmann direct atten- 

 tion to a peculiar mealy flavour which occasionally develops 

 in milk (Journ. Soc. of Chein. Industry. December 30, 

 1905). Experiments showed that copper is acted upon by 

 milk, especially in the presence of air, and that small 

 quantities go into solution in the milk (from 1 part to 

 more than too parts per million). Fresh milk when thus 

 contaminated is very liable to the development of a peculiar 

 mealy flavour in sixteen to eighteen hours. This flavour 

 seems to be due in part to the development of micro- 

 organisms in the presence of copper, which both checks 

 the development of the lactic organisms and plays a more 

 direct part in the actual development of the flavour. 



Colonel Firth and Dr. Macfadyen contribute to the 

 Journal of the Royal Sanitary Institute (xxvii.. No. 1) a 

 record of experiments made on behalf of the Disinfectant 

 Standardisation Committee from which they consider that 

 the " drop " method of Messrs. Rideal and Walker is the 

 most practical and accurate method yet devised for the 

 testing and comparison of disinfectants, and make some 

 valuable suggestions for carrying it out. Profs. Kenwood 

 and Hewlett also contribute a paper on the standardisation 

 of disinfectants, in which they show the variations which 

 may obtain in practice and the modifying effect of organic- 

 matter on germicidal power, and urge that a large margin 

 of safety should be allowed for all disinfectants. 



The Journal of the Rontgen Society (December, 1905) 

 contains an interesting paper by Mr. Butler Burke on the 

 action of radium and other bodies on gelatin, and the pro- 

 duction of the so-called " radiobes," which have some 

 likeness to micro-organisms. At first these look like mere 

 air-bubbles, but in course of time they expand or grow, 

 appear to contain a nuclear structure, but in the course 

 of a fortnight or so begin to break up, and later on 

 disappear. They are also soluble in warm water and 

 varnish at a temperature of 33 C. Mr. Burke expresses 

 the opinion that they are on the border-line between crystal- 

 line and organic bodies, that they cannot properly be called 

 living, but correspond possibly to some simple form of life 

 that existed in a far distant age. 



Under the title of " La Fin de la Matiere," Prof. H. 

 Poincare gives in tin- Athenaeum for February 17 a brief 

 resume of recent views of the ultimate nature of matter. 

 The essential purpose of Prof. PoincanS's article is to 

 define how far the idea of mass or inertia has been com- 

 promised by the results of Abraham and Kaufmann, by 

 the speculations of Lorentz, and by the doctrine of 



