May 18, 1899] 
NATURE 
61 
conversazione of the Institution will be held at the Natural 
History Museum, South Kensington, on Thursday, June 15. 
A DISASTROUS explosion occurred on Friday at the Kurtz’s 
Chemical Works, belonging to the United Alkali Company, St. 
Helens, Lancashire. The force of the explosion was so great 
that it was felt not only at Prescot and Haydock, about four 
miles away, but also in the suburbs of Liverpool and at Leigh, 
which is twelve miles distant. Mr. Stewart, managing director 
of the United Alkali Company, says. that about 10 a.m. he saw 
that the side of the chlorate of potassium crystallising vessel was 
on fire. These vessels: are of wood; but lined with lead, and 
there were many of them in the crystallising house. The officials 
were promptly warned, and they brought up the fire extinguish- 
ing appliances; but in ten minutes the fire had reached the store 
containing a considerable quantity of chlorate. The men were 
instantly sent from the works. When the flames reached the 
chlorate store a violent explosion resulted, and the refining and 
the grinding plant was completely destroyed. This was followed 
by another .explosion, which reduced the chemical works to 
cuins. 
FRoM the ninth report of the British Association Committee 
on photographs of geological interest, we learn that the total 
number of photographs now in the collection is two thousand 
and one. Amongst the more noteworthy additions referred to 
in the report may be mentioned an interesting set from Arran, 
Cumbrae, Ailsa Craig, and the Fifeshire volcanic necks, to- 
gether with some from Westmoreland and Banffshire; a set 
from Glenroy and the Scottish Highlands ; large series from 
Westmoreland and Yorkshire, many of them representing 
glacial phenomena, unconformities, and faults; pleistocene de- 
posits ; dykes in the new red sandstone; silurian, cambrian, 
and igneous rocks of the Midlands ; raised beaches in Devon 
ridge ; oolites; a set from the Rochdale district ; a set from the 
Isle of Man; and one of typical specimens of rocks and 
microscopic slides. The Committee call attention to the small 
amount of work yet done in such districts as N. and S. Wales, 
the Yorkshire Dales and Moors, the Malverns, the districts 
round Oxford and Cambridge, Cornwall, the Southern Uplands, 
the Central Valley of Scotland, and Central and Southern 
Ireland. 
THE Socteté Internationale des Electriciens have just published 
an account of a tour, made by Z’ Ecole supérieure a’ Electricité, 
¢o investigate the power-transmission systems at certain stations 
in Switzerland. In this tour, of only one week, the students 
collected a very useful amount of information with regard to 
the hydraulic machinery and electrical plant. They had special 
facilities for examining the systems, and in many cases they 
obtained drawings of details of construction. These drawings 
now form part of the account of their excursion. We notice 
with particular interest the description of various methods for 
cegulating turbines and electro-motors. After the various 
hydraulic installations, the methods of distribution are con- 
sidered. A chapter on electric traction follows, and then an 
account of the works of Brown-Boveri and the Oelikon factory. 
Lastly, there isa note on the manufacture of calcium carbide. 
Similar tours might with advantage be arranged by English 
technical schools. In their devotion to ‘‘/a delle science” the 
railway companies allowed a reduction of fifty per cent. on all 
fares. Similar reductions might be allowed by British railway 
companies. 
THE Tyansactions of the Swedish Academy of Science, No. 
7, 1898, contains a paper, in English, by Mr. John Rhodin, on 
the theory of storage cells, dealing especially with the phe- 
nomena attending the cessation of current as depending upon 
the concentration of the electrolyte and the amount of active 
-material. 
NO. 1542, VOL. 60] 
Mr. J. EtsTeR and Mr, H. Geitel have contributed a joint 
paper to Zerrestrial Magnetism of March. last, relating to a 
continuation of their important researches on the electricity of 
rainfall, perhaps the most difficult of all electrical phenomena ; 
the subject is, in fact, so complicated as to allow but little prospect 
of establishing fixed rules of the processes concerned. Their 
previous investigations referred more particularly to the deter- 
mination of the sign of the potential, while the present paper 
deals with the measurement of the amount. To carry this out 
satisfactorily an apparatus is required which will show, in rapid 
succession, both high differences of potential of several thousand 
volts as well as small differences of, say, 100 volts, while the 
capacity of the apparatus must be so small as to exhibit rapid 
variations of the field from positive to negative extremes. The 
apparatus devised for the purpose is illustrated and minutely de- 
scribed, and the results obtained, while confirming their previous 
determinations of the sign of the electricity during atmospheric 
precipitation, show that this may bring with it very considerable 
amounts of both positive and negative electricity. 
THE Deutsche Seewarte has published the eighth volume of 
its valuable meteorological observations made at foreign stations. 
It includes some places in Labrador, from which observations 
have been regularly published since 1883; these are specially 
important, because many barometric minima travel across 
Labrador from Canada to the Atlantic Ocean. We are glad to 
see that the Seewarte intends to increase the number of foreign 
stations, by including others which do not belong properly to 
German Protectorates or Colonies. The present volume con- 
tains observations from Mogador, Campinas (Brazil), and Fray 
Bentos (Uruguay). The observations are in all cases carefully 
made by German officials, or residents, and in nearly all instances 
the instruments have been supplied by, or through, the 
Seewarte, and are therefore thoroughly trustworthy. 
A REPORT by Prof. David Hansemann, of Berlin, on the 
brain of Hermann von Helmholtz, is referred to in the British 
Medical Journal, The great physicist died of apoplexy on 
September 8, 1894, at the age of seventy-three. The circum- 
ference of the head was 59 centimetres, that of the skull 55 
centimetres. The breadth of the skull was 15°5, and its length 
18°3 centimetres. The cephalic index was therefore 85°25, 
showing a broad head. Helmholtz’s head was about equal in 
size to that of Bismarck, and rather smaller than that of 
Wagner, both of whom had big heads. On the other hand, 
Darwin’s head was only 56°3 centimetres in circumference. 
The weight of the brain, with its blood, was 1700 grams, with- 
out the blood 1440 grams, being about 100 grams heavier than 
the average human brain. The sulci were very deep and well 
marked, especially in those parts of the brain which Flechsig 
has shown to be concerned in associations. The frontal con- 
volutions in particular were deeply cut by very numerous sulci. 
Helmholtz, like Cuvier, was somewhat hydrocephalic in youth. 
It has been maintained by Perls, and also by Edinger, that 
hydrocephalus in early life may be an advantage, inasmuch as it 
enlarges the skull and gives the brain space for growth. Prof. 
Hansemann appears to be of the same opinion. 
A MEMOIR on the geology of the country around. Carlisle, 
by Mr. T. V. Holmes, has just been issued by the Geological 
Survey. The country described is almost wholly covered 
with superficial deposits, boulder clay and gravel, peat, 
alluvium and blown sand. As it has been customary to issue 
two editions of the Geological Survey map, one with, and the 
other without drift, it may be inferred that considerable difficulty 
was felt in interpreting the ‘‘solid” geology of this region. The 
concealed rocks consist largely of the New Red Series, St.Bees 
sandstone, gypseous shales, Kirklinton sandstone, and Stanwix 
shales—with an outlier of Lower Lias, but no evidence of the 
