March i, 1906] 



NA TURE 



4*7 



The state of knowledge regarding the properties of 

 underground water may be said now to have become in 

 advance of the ruling of the courts on some of the ques- 

 tions involved. The earlier legal decisions were made 

 when little or nothing was known regarding the action of 

 the water beneath the surface. Since then the progress 

 of hydro-geological science has established as facts many 

 things regarding underground waters previously unknown 

 or only speculative, and the knowledge of the working of 

 underground waters remains much less in the realms of 

 the '"secret, occult, and concealed." It has now become 

 possible to define certain rights in these waters and to 

 protect these rights equally as well as those in surface 

 waters. 



A case recently dealt with in one of the American State 

 courts directs attention to the importance of emphasising 

 the influence that the ever-increasing knowledge concerning 

 underground waters may have in governing legal decisions. 

 In an action brought in the State of Pennsylvania regard- 

 ing the pollution of underground water, the judge re- 

 marked : — Geology has become a progressive and in many 

 respects a practical science. More deep wells have been 

 sunk in one State of America than had previously been 

 dug in the entire earth in all time ; and that which was 

 formerly held to be unknown and merely speculative re- 

 garding the properties of underground water has been by 

 experience reduced almost to a certainty. If it can be 

 shown that the work done by the owner of the land would 

 cause the inflow of salt water or oil to mingle with fresh 

 water, and the means of preventing the mixing are avail- 

 able at a reasonable expense, then clearly it is a violation 

 of the spirit of the law not to recognise the change, and to 

 apply the settled principles of right to the altered conditions 

 of fact. 



In another case tried in California it was held that 

 the usual rule of common law on the subject of percolation 

 was not to be held as applying to an arid district that 

 depended entirely for its cultivation on water derived from 

 underground sources, and where the conditions were totally 

 different from those existing in the locality where the rule 

 in question was first established, and therefore an owner 

 has no right to injure his neighbour's land by any un- 

 reasonable diversion of underground water by transferring 

 the same for gain to another district. 



PHYSICAL RESEARCH IN AMERICA. 

 TWO volumes, representing the first instalments of what 

 is promised to be an annual publication, have been 

 received from the physical laboratories of Harvard Uni- 

 versity. 1 Each contains fourteen papers contributed- by 

 the professors, staff, and students. In the preface the 

 director, Prof. Trowbridge, acknowledges the great 

 stimulus received by the establishment of the Thomas 

 Jefferson Coolidge research fund, which has provided the 

 laboratory with what the volumes show to be a very fine 

 equipment, and has greatly increased the enthusiasm for 

 physical research. 



Most of the papers included are reprints from the Pro- 

 ceedings of the American Academy and the Astrophysical 

 Journal. It is hardly possible to speak too highly of the 

 handsome treatment they have received at the hands of 

 the printer and binder, and especially of the manner in 

 which the numerous plates have been reproduced. The 

 range of subjects treated is a very wide one, and in a 

 review of this kind it is not possible to deal with each 

 paper individually. 



In the first volume Prof. Trowbridge contributes an 

 interesting paper on the spectra of gases and metals at 

 high temperatures. He attempts to apply electrical 

 stimulus of known amount to the gas in a vacuum tube 

 by discharging through it a condenser of known capacity 

 charged to a high potential by his powerful accumulator 

 battery, by which he can obtain pressures up to 40,000 

 volts. He contrasts the relative intensities of the lines 

 in the spectra thus obtained with the results got by other 

 methods. When theorising on the relative volatility of 



1 "Contributions from the Jefferson Physical Laboratory of Harvard 

 University." (Cambridge, Mass., vol. i., 1003 ; vol. ii., 1904.) 



NO. 1896, VOL. JT>] 



metals it is desirable, however, to adopt more accurate 

 data than some of those used in this paper, where " soft- 

 iron " is said to melt "not far from noo°," and 

 aluminium " between 700 and 800°," instead of 657 . 



Spectroscopy is evidently a favourite study in the labor- 

 atory, since five papers in each of the two volumes are 

 devoted to it. Mr. Lyman gives an explanation of the 

 " ghosts " and " false spectra " sometimes met with when 

 using gratings, particularly in the extreme ultra-violet, and 

 shows in a number of cases the relation between the wave- 

 lengths of the various false lines and those of the parent 

 lines to which they are due. 



In another paper he discusses the various kinds of pro 

 longations of spectral lines met with when using gratings, 

 and shows them to be due to a cause quite different from 

 Sir Norman Lockyer's " long and short lines." 



Another interesting paper is by Mr. Morse on the spectra 

 from the break in the Wehnelt interrupter, which appears 

 to give spectra of a special character not classifiable under 

 the division of " flame," " arc," " spark," or " enhanced 

 spark." 



Mr. B. O. Pierce contributes, in continuation of an 

 earlier research, papers on thermal conductivity of rocks, 

 one of which must have involved a long period of pains- 

 taking work. The apparatus employed was on a scale 

 only possible where very considerable funds were available. 



Prof. Hall has a paper on a theory of thermoelectric 

 action, and, along with three other workers, one on 

 thermal and electrical effects in " soft iron." 



In several instances, work commenced in the laboratory 

 appears to have been dropped on the publication of some 

 paper slightly overlapping the research contemplated. It 

 is a pity, for example, that the fine resistance bridge for 

 platinum thermometry, described by Mr. Edwards, should 

 not be used to solve some of the problems for which it is 

 suited, and that the construction of a gas thermometer 

 should not be proceeded with because of the publication 

 during the past few years of several researches on gas 

 thermometry. 



Though none of the papers appear to be of epoch-making 

 importance, the volumes show how a well equipped labor- 

 atory may contribute substantially to the advancement of 

 knowledge. It would be interesting to see what effect the 

 endowment of a representative physical laboratory in this 

 country, with funds for research purposes, would have on 

 the character of the work done, especially if at the same 

 time it were possible to arrange that members of the 

 teaching staff should have a more reasonable proportion 

 of their time to devote to research work. 



J. A. H. 



FIREBALL OF JANUARY 27, 1906. 

 A MAGNIFICENT fireball was seen by many persons in 

 ■^ the north of England on the evening of January 27 

 at 8h. 33m. Descriptions of its appearance have been 

 received from Hull, Bramley, Bradford, Patrington, and 

 other places in Yorkshire, from Sleaford and Billing- 

 borough in Lincolnshire, from Cheadle, Staffordshire, &c. 



Mr. H. Beckwith, at Hull, observed the meteor 

 travelling horizontally between the " square " of Ursa 

 Major and the Belt of Orion, while at Cheadle, Miss 

 Blagg noted the path as just above £ Leonis. Mr. R. 

 Felton, at Patrington, estimated the brightness of the 

 object as quite equal to that of the full moon. It left a 

 trail visible for some time afterwards ; one observer says 

 it remained for five minutes, two others estimate the 

 duration as eight minutes, while at Billingborough a 

 spectator watched it for more than ten minutes. 



The meteor gave a very brilliant flash near its end 

 point, and the suddenness of its apparition startled many 

 people. Several of the observers were enabled to give 

 the position of its flight with fair accuracy from the 

 luminous trail it left behind. 



The radiant point appears to have been near Bootis, or 

 in 2i4°+53°, and the height of the meteor was from 

 about 59 to 45 miles over the North Sea immediately 

 east of the Lincolnshire coast. The disappearance occurred 

 at a point over " the Wash," about 6 miles S.S.E. from 

 Wainfleet. The length of observed path was approximately 



