154 ) | s 
electrical physics, yet (if electroplating be excepted) there are no 
great industries giving rise to electric works like those of the 
eable-manufacturing houses in England, or those of Siemeus and 
Felten in Germany. The Count hopes ‘our 4an henceforth 
will not be confined to mere publication of electric papers.” 
Again, a desideratum at the Exhibition was the attachment 
of placards to apparatus, indicating its object and general 
arrangement. ‘This is a matter worth attention in our forth- 
coming Exhibition, At first there was some talk about giving 
evening concerts at the Paris Exhibition, but the fact that the 
city had agreed with theconcertat Besseliévre, behind the Palais 
de V’Industrie, not to allow any concert performances within 
a radius of 100 m., was a difficulty, It is doubtful (the Count 
says) if such concerts would have much increased the evening 
aiteadance, which was always large. With regard to the Crystal 
Palace Exhibition, he considers it should ha ve been put off for 
a year, 
ON the proposition of M. Cochéry, Minister of Posts and 
Telegraphs, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and President of the 
Council has nominated Dr. Warren De La Rue, F.R.S., corre- 
spondent of the Institute (Academy of Sciences), a Commander 
of the Legion of Honour, in recognition of his services at the 
Electrical Congress and as vice-president of the jury. We regret 
to learn that Dr. Warren De La Rue, in consequence of ill 
health, has been compelled to resign the important post of 
Honorary Secretary to the Royal Institution. 
THE Lightning-Rod Conference formed by delegates from the 
Meteorological Society, the Royal Institute of British Architects, 
the Society of Telegraph Engineers, and the Physical Society, 
which has been at work since November, 1878, has at last com- 
pleted its labours and prepared its report, which, together with 
an enormous mass of information that has been most assiduously 
got together, will very soon be published. ‘The report will 
consi:t of a brief description of the purposes which a lightn ng- 
conduc’or is intended to serve ; a statement of those features in 
the construction and erection of lightning conductors respectiug 
which there is a great difference of opinion; and the final 
decision on the points in question arrived at by the Conference. 
It will also contain a simple coije of rules for the erection of 
lightninz-conductors which any ordinary non-technical individual 
will be able to understand. It is hoped that the success of the 
publication will justify the labour that has been expended upon 
it. It will be published in the form of a book by Messrs. Spon 
and Co. 
In view of the recent great development of the telephonic 
- system, the Directors of the Magdeburg Fire Insurance Com- 
pany have lately sought information from the Secretary of the 
Imperial Post Office, Dr. Stephan, as to whether the danger 
from lightning was increased by the overhead wires and iron 
sapporting rods, and whether special conditions of insurance 
should be made for houses in proximity to such wires. Dr. 
Stephan has replied that no case had yet come to his notice in 
which lightning had done injury in the way referred to. The 
experience of the German Post Office with telephone lines was 
indeed short ; but in other countries there was an experience of 
overhead telegraph lines, which was of several years’ extent, and 
he was not aware that observations had occurred in this connec- 
tion which had given any occasion for anxiety about lightning. 
It was important, in arranging those telephone lines, to take 
care that any atmospheric discharges which might affect them 
snould have a sufficient path to earth. Such being the case the 
telephoae wires might even afford houses a protection against 
lightning which they would otherwise lack. The directors of 
the insurance company think it at present unnecessary, there- 
fore, to make any change in their terms in the case of houses 
over which telephone lines pass. 
NAIURE 
~ (Dec. 22, 1881 
WE regret to have to record the death of Mr. Charles Moore, 
the well-known geologist of Bath, Mr. Moore was known 
as a most indefatigable and successful collector. On one 
occasion he carted from a fissure near Bristol two tons of 
the celebrated bone-bed. This when sifted and examined 
afforded no less than 45,000 teeth, besides portions of many 
fish and reptiles. Most important of all, it yielded nine- 
teen teeth of the Triassic mammifer AZicrolestes, which Mr. 
Moore had thus the good fortune to discover. On another 
occasion he astonished the British Association by his power of 
predicting from the forms of nodules the genera of fish which 
would be found inclosed in them when they were broken open. 
His interesting discovery of Liassic shells in lead veins traversing 
the carboniferous limestone was the subject of a most valuable 
communication to the Geological Society, and he was also one 
of the first to recogni-e the importance of the Rhzetic formation 
in this country. The Museum at Bath owes much to the 
persevering labours of Mr. Charles Moore. 
A REvrer’s telegram, dated New York, December 18, 
announces the death of Dr. Isaac J. Hayes, the Arctic explorer. 
Dr, Hayes, it will be remembered, was surgeon of Dr. Kane’s 
second Arctic expedition, with which he returned to the United 
States in 1855. A conviction that there existed an open Polar 
sea induced him in 1860 to undertake a voyage of exploration on 
his own account, He sailed from Bostoa in the schooner United 
States, and by means of sledges he penetrated as far north as 
81deg. 37 min. He again visited Greenland in 1869. To the 
last he was desirous of heading another expedition to the North 
Pole by way of Smith’s Sound. His voyage in the Umited States 
was described in ‘‘The Open Polar Sea;” and among other 
works from his pen were, ‘‘An Arctic Boat Journey,” relating 
to his first voyages ; ‘‘ Cast away in the Cold,” a supplementary 
narrative of his second voyage, published in 1870; and an 
account of Greenland under the title of *‘ The Land of Desola- 
tion,” The Geographical Society of London and the Société 
de Géographie of Paris awarded him gold medals for his dis- 
coveries. 
THE death is announced, at the age of seventy two, of the 
Rey. Dr. John Ludwig Krapf. Dr. Krapf was a missionary of 
the Church Missionary Society in East Africa from 1837 to 
1853, and did much for the exploration of the region north-west 
of Zanzibar, in company with Dr. Rebmann. They are known 
specially as the discoverers of Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenia. 
IN a paper published in the July number of the Archives des 
Sciences Phy siques et Naturelles of Geneva, which we referred 
to at the time, M. F. Forel established, by observations of 
the oscil ations of the lowest extremity of the glacier of the 
Rhone since 1856, that, although two causes determine the 
position of the end of a glacier, nevertheless the chief of them 
is not the fusion of this end by the summer heat, but the rate 
of advance of the glacier. As the latter depended upon the 
thickness of the glacier, he concluded that the variations of the 
length of a glacier depend chiefly upon the variations of its 
thickness. Measurements having shown considerable variations 
of thickness at the lower end of the Rhone glacier, these might 
be easily explained by very small changes in the thickness of the 
nevé, which changes are, so to say, exaggerated by the mutual 
relation of the rate of advance and the thickness, producing 
thus immense changes in the length of the glacier, Glacialists 
will appreciate the great importance of these observations of M. 
Forel, as they may explain an immense increase of glaciers 
without great variations of temperature, but only by small 
changes in the distribution of snow and rain which fall upon a 
country. However, as is pointed out <by those glacialists who 
have sought for the key of the glacial period in an accurate 
