278 
Museum, the upper floor of which is being fitted with the 
necessary appliances. 
. PartTicuLars have reached us of the autumn meeting of the 
Iron and Steel Institute, which, as has already been announced 
in NaTurg, is to be held in Manchester from August 15 to 18 
next. The following papers have been promised for reading :— 
On the constitution of steel, by Prof. E. D. Campbell; on dif- 
fusion in steel, by F. W. Iarbord and Thomas Twynam ; on 
the magnetic concentration of iron ore, by H. C. McNeill; on 
India as a centre for steel manufacture, by Major R. H. Mahon, 
R.A. ; on pig iron fractures and their value in foundry 
practice, by J. W. Miller ; on practical microscopic analysis for 
use in the steel industries, by C. H. Ridsdale; on the relation 
between the structure of steel and its thermal and mechanical 
treatment, by Albert Sauveur ; on the present position of the 
solution theory of carburised iron, by Dr. A. Stansfield ; on the 
iron industry in the territory of his Highness the Nizam, by 
Shamsul Ulama Syed Ali Bilgrami; on a new casting machine 
for blast furnaces, by R. Hanbury Wainford ; on the utilisation 
of powdered iron ore, by Prof. J. Wiborgh. In the outline 
programme, just issued, full particulars are given of a number of 
excursions for which arrangements have been made, 
THE summer meeting of the Institution of Naval Architects, 
which is taking place this week at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, was 
opened on Tuesday, when papers were read by Sir Andrew 
Noble (on “* The Rise and Progress of Rifled Naval Artillery’), 
Dr. F. Elgar (on ‘* The Distribution of Pressure over the Bottom 
of a Ship in Dock, and over the Dock Blocks’’), and Mr. 
Nelson Foley (on ‘‘ A New System of Forced Draught”). 
A CONFERENCE was held at the Home Office on Tuesday 
with some of the principal pottery manufacturers, in reference to 
the report by Prof. T. E. Thorpe and Dr. T. Oliver on the 
employment of compounds of lead in the manufacture of 
pottery. 
Science states that a laboratory for the physical analysis of 
soils has been established by the Maryland Geological Survey. 
A full outfit of apparatus has been installed, and work will 
be engaged in during the coming year upon the soils of 
Maryland, in conjunction with the geological surveying of the 
same area. The Survey has also recently had constructed an 
elaborate calorimeter for the determination of the calorific 
power of coal, preparatory to the investigations of the coal 
formations of Maryland, an exhaustive report on which is 
promised for an early date. 
THE Magnetic Observatory at Vienna having had to be dis- 
continued in consequence of the electric tramways and electric 
light wires, Prof. Pernter has submitted to the Austrian Govern- 
ment a plan for a new observatory to be situated at some 
distance from Vienna, and to be provided with instruments of 
the latest construction. 
ACCORDING to the Pharmaceutical Journal, a committee has 
been formed in France to organise a public subscription in 
aid of scientific research, with a view to the discovery of new 
methods of treatment for infectious and contagious diseases. 
That the need is pressing will be seen when it is stated that 
France loses every year by these diseases two hundred and forty 
thousand victims, nearly double the number of lives lost in the 
Franco-Prussian war of 1870. Out of this total, tuberculosis is 
responsible for 100,000 deaths; typhoid fever and other con- 
tagious diseases, such as small-pox, measles, scarlatina, 
whooping-cough, diphtheria, and puerperal fever for 64,000, 
without speaking of the ravages caused at long intervals by 
cholera and plague. 
NO. 1551, VOL. 60] 
WAT ORE: 
[JuLy 20, 1899 
THE committee appointed to inquire into the use of preserv- 
atives and colouring matters in food held their first meeting on 
Monday, when there were present Sir Herbert Maxwell, M.P. 
(in the chair), Dr. Timbrell Bulstrode, Dr. Tunnicliffe, and Mr. 
C. J. Huddart (secretary), The terms of reference to the 
committee were under discussion, and certain preliminary 
matters were disposed of, a second meeting being fixed for 
early in August to complete arrangements for the carrying out 
during the hot weather of necessary experiments in relation 
to the use of preservatives and colouring matters in one and 
another class of food, and to settle the scope of the evidence to 
be taken when the committee reassemble in October next. 
THE Liverpool expedition for the study of malaria in Sierra 
Leone, to which attention has already been called in thesecolumns, 
will sail on July 29. In addition to Major Ross and Dr. Annett, 
each of the Liverpool School of Tropical Diseases, the ex- 
pedition will include Mr. E. E. Austen, of the British Museum 
(Natural History), and Dr. S. Van Neck, official delegate of the 
Belgian Government. The School of Tropical Diseases has 
recently been in communication with the various Government 
departments concerned with regard to the forthcoming research, 
On July 1 the Colonial Office wrote that Mr. Chamberlain had 
learned with great satisfaction that the expedition of the Liver- 
pool School was being sent, and that he appreciated the energy 
and public spirit shown by the Committee of the School in the 
matter. Mr. Chamberlain also stated that the local authorities 
at Sierra Leone will be instructed to give every facility to the 
work of the expedition. 
TuE Vienna correspondent of the Zz#es, telegraphing to that 
paper on July 14, says the renewed experiments by Prof. Tuma 
and a number of officers of the Vienna garrison to test the 
possibility of wireless telegraphy between two balloons were 
attended with a certain degree of success. A balloon held 
captive at a height of 150 metres served in place of the mast 
used in the Marconi experiments, being connected with the 
despatching instruments on the ground by a copper wire. The 
second free balloon carried a receiving instrument and a wire 
which hung loose 20 metres below the car. In these conditions 
it was found possible to communicate with the three officers in 
the free balloon, who signalled with flags that they had received 
and understood the telegraphic messages. These signals were 
observed at an estimated height of 1600 metres and a distance 
of about 10 kilometres from the despatching station. Owing to 
the size and weight of the accumulators and the great danger of 
bringing them into close proximity to a large volume of 
explosive gas, it is thus far impossible to telegraph from a 
balloon to the ground or from one balloon to another. On the 
return of the officers to Vienna a comparison will be made 
between the detailed particulars noted by them and the report 
of the actual messages despatched. 
THE Liverpool Section of the Society of Chemical Industry 
proposes, with the approval of the Council, to perpetuate the 
memory of the late Dr. Ferdinand Hurter, especially his great 
services to applied chemistry, by instituting a memorial lecture 
to be given every second year on some subject connected with 
applied chemistry. The lecturer will be chosen by the Liver- 
pool Section of the Society, and it is proposed to collect a sum of 
300/., which it is supposed will be sufficient for the endowment. 
ON the afternoon of Saturday, July 8, a marble bust of the 
late Prof. William Rutherford, F.R.S., was unveiled in: the 
Physiology ‘Class-room of the University of Edinburgh by 
Principal Sir William Muir, in the presence of, among others, 
Sir William Turner, Prof, T. R. Fraser, Prof. Crum Brown, 
Prof. Hunter Stewart, Dr. Clouston, and Dr. E. W. W. Carlier. 
The Lord Provost of Edinburgh and Prof. Schafer sent apologies 
for absence. The bust, which is by Mr. John Hutchinson, was 
